Darrell Benson
Paul Quill
The Scoop / Winter '16 33
that it's going more slower, we're able to tell him what he's doing wrong and correct it before we blow the whistle. So most pre-whistle violations now are just them moving too quickly.
DB: The other one is kids releasing too soon from beyond the restraining line before possession's gained or possession's called. A lot of time they'll assume—if a kid's scooping the ball up—they'll assume he has possession and they'll release and the kid will drop it, and obviously possession isn't gained and they're releasing too soon, so that happens quite a bit. Going early is the most common. You still see some withholding, you still see some kicking through the stick. Pinning seems to be—at the higher levels, not so much the kids—I think you see a lot of pinning. Pinning is when a kid puts his elbow in his own stick, and he'll pin down his opponent's stick on the ground so the opponent can't move the ball hoping that by pinning his stick down he's going to draw a withholding penalty on the opponent. I think I've had quite a few of those over the last two years.
The Scoop: Is that easy to spot? Or is there some gray area where you can't really tell what's happening?
PQ: I feel like now with us being more in control of the faceoff, I find it a lot easier to call and to pick up on. What about you, Darrell?
DB: At the higher level it's easier because we usually have two officials. We have
four eyes instead of two. At the youth level it's very easy to spot because the game is so much slower. But at high school the only time it's difficult is if you're in a bad position where you get screened. But hat's one of the things we're trained to look for. So we can spot it pretty readily. It usually comes as a surprise to the coach, the coach will be screaming that the kid is withholding, he'll clamp on the ball, but the other kid is pinning his stick down. Well he's withholding it because the other kid has him pinned. So when you make the pin call, it's not always met with good favor.
The Scoop: Are the officials encouraged to change the cadence of the whistle at the youth levels? Do we see that happening as required in the rule books as it occurs at the higher levels?
PQ: Yeah. Each ref has his own cadence anyways. So if you have two refs, it's probably going to be different. That's why we always tell the guys, just wait for the whistle, don't try to anticipate.
DB: And again, we control the pace of the faceoff, which is good. So we'll slow everything down and we'll tell the kids that are facing off and we'll repeat ourselves several times and we'll say "don't try to anticipate the whistle, it's going to be a little slower than usual, I'm going to say 'down, set,' and you're going to hear the whistle, so there'll be a pause, okay?" And usually they'll listen to
you. The violations now are usually just the kid who's so wound up, as soon as you say "set" he just goes. He's like a spring. He's just ready to go. My personal experience at all levels is that the faceoff violations have been cut significantly because we slow everything down and they know they can't anticipate the whistle as much as
they could in the past.
The Scoop: If a player uses his hands to grab the ball or the opponent's stick, is that just a faceoff violation? Or is that an unsportsmanlike penalty?
PQ: If he touches the stick, I would just call procedure and give the opponent the ball. But if he grabs the ball or