Refereeing in the CFL

[cheer_leader]

I agree that the official should have been disciplined, but not publicly.
As a previous poster said, it's difficult to find ref's at the salaries the CFL
offers. This will not help. And on a personal note: thank heavens my own
mistakes are not publicized!

[wildthing]

Part of these 'bad calls' go back to the CFL players too. The Lions had a bad call where a Lion (Marsh?) was pushed into the MTL kicker by another MTL player, and the MTL ends up getting a first down. Apparently Armour claims he was pushed into the official by a Rider. Since this call was only made due to a deliberate act by a Rider to shove a Stamp into an official maybe the Rider should sit the next game out? Just an idea....

You now have to prove there was intent to shove the player into the ref to draw a penalty not a very easy thing to do. I suspect there was a block and the ref happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, nothing more nothing less. All teams get jobbed once in a while on a bad ref call. Last year the Riders faced multiple ejections on very questionable calls both against BC and Hamilton.

Same thing on the Marsh call, was he deliberately pushed into the kicker? Or was it he was pushed and happened to run into the kicker. I suggest likely it was the second case and the ref just missed the initial contact of the blocker trying most likely to push him away fromt he kicker as it isn't logical to push towards him and risk a blocked kick.

The CFL admited a mistake and reassigned the ref to minor football all in all thats really all you can ask.

[Hambone]

Apparently Armour claims he was pushed into the official by a Rider. Since this call was only made due to a deliberate act by a Rider to shove a Stamp into an official maybe the Rider should sit the next game out? Just an idea....

You now have to prove there was intent to shove the player into the ref to draw a penalty not a very easy thing to do. I suspect there was a block and the ref happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, nothing more nothing less. All teams get jobbed once in a while on a bad ref call. Last year the Riders faced multiple ejections on very questionable calls both against BC and Hamilton.

There was no more intent by Makowsky to push Armour into the official than there was for Armour to run into the official on his own. Makowsky gave Armour a shove in the middle of the field the nature of which happens on almost every play. The shove just happened to knock Armour offstride with as you say the official being in the wrong place at the wrong time. From what I saw of the replay when Makowsky shows up in the screen he's far enough away from where the collision took place to almost question Armour's side of the story. The push had to have occured nearly 5 yards away from where Armour hit the ref. It definitely wasn't like Armour was right beside the ref when he was shoved.

[wildthing]

Apparently Armour claims he was pushed into the official by a Rider. Since this call was only made due to a deliberate act by a Rider to shove a Stamp into an official maybe the Rider should sit the next game out? Just an idea....

You now have to prove there was intent to shove the player into the ref to draw a penalty not a very easy thing to do. I suspect there was a block and the ref happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, nothing more nothing less. All teams get jobbed once in a while on a bad ref call. Last year the Riders faced multiple ejections on very questionable calls both against BC and Hamilton.

There was no more intent by Makowsky to push Armour into the official than there was for Armour to run into the official on his own. Makowsky gave Armour a shove in the middle of the field the nature of which happens on almost every play. The shove just happened to knock Armour offstride with as you say the official being in the wrong place at the wrong time. From what I saw of the replay when Makowsky shows up in the screen he's far enough away from where the collision took place to almost question Armour's side of the story. The push had to have occured nearly 5 yards away from where Armour hit the ref. It definitely wasn't like Armour was right beside the ref when he was shoved.

well said Hambone. In the TSN replays you can't even see Makowsky and Armour was at least 5 yards from the ref at that point.

[TheLionKing]

Refreshing to see the CFL actually take action against a game official for miscalls.

[Wakesbetterthanyou]

Officials cant make all the calls right.....remember, most of these guys have been retired from their regular jobs for at least 10 years, just by lookin at the sidelines.....

[West Coast Blue Fan]

Pay peanuts...get monkeys? You would think that's the case.

Lots of positions available for any posters on here that want to devote a ton of their time for very little pay and a lot of abuse.

"Neither are getting rich off their part-time job in the CFL. In fact, officials receive between $550 and $850 per game."

I can't believe there aren't thousands of us trying to become a CFL official for all that.

Here's a story from 2006 as to why these guys do it......

http://www.canada.com/topics/sports/foo ... 9a2f7e6061

[Hambone]

Pay peanuts...get monkeys? You would think that's the case.

Lots of positions available for any posters on here that want to devote a ton of their time for very little pay and a lot of abuse.

"Neither are getting rich off their part-time job in the CFL. In fact, officials receive between $550 and $850 per game."

I can't believe there aren't thousands of us trying to become a CFL official for all that.

Here's a story from 2006 as to why these guys do it......

http://www.canada.com/topics/sports/foo ... 9a2f7e6061

We as fans constantly rip officials for not being absolutely per-fect and we do that more often than not after reviewing the play several times in slow motion replay on our 51" HD plasma screens while the broadcast crew further dissects the play to help us in that regard.....or confuse us. Every year that sort of technology gets better and better and better. Along with that technology broadcasters have also slowly increased the number of camera angles that may provide us that one angle that will incriminate the officials even though none of them were able to see from that same viewpoint. It's one of those vicious cycles of video replay. The more it becomes a key ingredient for helping officials get it right if challenged the more there will be need for additional cameras to cover all angles. With each one of them is another view. The last time I came across the subject there were something like 14 cameras covering an average CFL game. That's 2 cameras for every official. I would not be surprised if there are closer to 20 now, 3 per zebra.

On the other side of the equation is the official. Unless the play is challenged the official gets exactly one look at a play at full speed while dodging players who get bigger and faster every years. While the technology of the armchair critics has improved 1000 fold over the past 40 years the technology officials must rely on to make those instant and decisive calls remains unchanged since the days of the caveman. 20/20 vision in 2008 is no better than 20/20 vision was in 2008 BC or 200800 BC. The only thing officials have going for them that cavemen didn't was glasses, contacts and laser eye surgery that can help them maintain 20/20 eyesight.

The sad part is we already hold officials to a very high level of expectations. As technology keeps improving it will only serve to push us to be even more demanding for perfection and less accepting of anything less.

[Wakesbetterthanyou]

Pay peanuts...get monkeys? You would think that's the case.

Lots of positions available for any posters on here that want to devote a ton of their time for very little pay and a lot of abuse.

"Neither are getting rich off their part-time job in the CFL. In fact, officials receive between $550 and $850 per game."

I can't believe there aren't thousands of us trying to become a CFL official for all that.

Here's a story from 2006 as to why these guys do it......

http://www.canada.com/topics/sports/foo ... 9a2f7e6061

We as fans constantly rip officials for not being absolutely per-fect and we do that more often than not after reviewing the play several times in slow motion replay on our 51" HD plasma screens while the broadcast crew further dissects the play to help us in that regard.....or confuse us. Every year that sort of technology gets better and better and better. Along with that technology broadcasters have also slowly increased the number of camera angles that may provide us that one angle that will incriminate the officials even though none of them were able to see from that same viewpoint. It's one of those vicious cycles of video replay. The more it becomes a key ingredient for helping officials get it right if challenged the more there will be need for additional cameras to cover all angles. With each one of them is another view. The last time I came across the subject there were something like 14 cameras covering an average CFL game. That's 2 cameras for every official. I would not be surprised if there are closer to 20 now, 3 per zebra.

On the other side of the equation is the official. Unless the play is challenged the official gets exactly one look at a play at full speed while dodging players who get bigger and faster every years. While the technology of the armchair critics has improved 1000 fold over the past 40 years the technology officials must rely on to make those instant and decisive calls remains unchanged since the days of the caveman. 20/20 vision in 2008 is no better than 20/20 vision was in 2008 BC or 200800 BC. The only thing officials have going for them that cavemen didn't was glasses, contacts and laser eye surgery that can help them maintain 20/20 eyesight.

The sad part is we already hold officials to a very high level of expectations. As technology keeps improving it will only serve to push us to be even more demanding for perfection and less accepting of anything less.

absolutely spot on, great post. Seems on TSN.ca, in their comments section after each CFL game half the fans of the losing team blame the officials. They cant see EVERYTHING!