Ref’s calls don’t always go your way

published June 3, 2007, The News-Herald

You win some, and you lose some. Whether we like it or not, life is not always fair and sometimes there isn’t much we can do about it.

My hockey player, Genevieve, 8, and all of her teammates, had a fantastic spring season and even though it won’t be on the records anywhere, she scored the first goal of the Spring League Championship Game.

It was an awesome goal, the way she carried the puck across the ice, out from the corner and shot it past the goalie.

The scorekeeper put the goal on the scoreboard but 40 seconds later took it off at the direction of the referee.

It turns out that the refs weren’t close enough to the net to see the puck go in and bounce back out to the goal line. The goalie eventually covered the puck, which is all the referee witnessed.

Many of the spectators in the stands, as well as all of those along the boards, saw it go in behind the goalie.  I’m sure the opposing team witnessed it as well but neglected to admit it.

After all, it was the championship game and it would have put our team up by a goal.

In recreational hockey there is no technology – no goal light, no play review in Toronto. If the referees don’t see it, then it doesn’t count.

It wasn’t the first time it happened to our team but it was the first time that it really mattered.

There is so much I try to teach my children, first and foremost, that we should always be truthful.

One lesson I didn’t think I would be teaching an 8-year-old though is that life is full of hard knocks and that life is not always fair. Sometimes the truth falls on deaf ears and people turn a blind eye.  

After the first two years of her hockey career ended with rather disappointing records our team had an outstanding 11-1-0 record in the regular spring season.

Throughout the season our players were taught good sportsmanship. There were many victories, games in which we could have ran up the score but the coaches instead chose to use the goal advantage to rotate all players through various positions.

The team’s fans also exhibited sportsmanship and compassion.

There’s nothing worse than being on the losing end only to have the opposing team’s fans cheering for the 8^th or 12^thgoals as if it was the deciding goal in a championship game. Honestly, cowbells and noisemakers aren’t necessary after a five-goal lead, especially when you consider the players, for the most part are still learning the game.

Our eight year old is too young to have seen Wayne Gretzky play the game but we use one of his quotes on a regular basis, “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

What we didn’t think to prepare her for, at the age of 8, is that in hockey, as in life, there are bad calls, calls that don’t always go your way, goals that don’t always make it onto the scoreboard.

My husband, one of the team coaches, was proud of her play to score the goal but equally proud of the way she accepted the referees call. There were no emotional outbursts or fits of anger.

She just shrugged her shoulders and kept playing.

In the end, even though the final game sheet stated we lost 2 to 1, our players were champions in their own right.

In the face of diversity, when the truth didn’t stand, they exhibited true sportsmanship.

What really matters isn’t the outcome of the game, but, again as in life, how you choose to accept it and continue to play fairly, a lesson we can all learn from this little girl and her team of champions.

(and the funny part was, when this was all said and done, I later found out the ref was the president of the hockey association for the team we were opposing, go figure.)