http://www.uscho.com/2012/11/01/embarra ... -schachte/
‘Embarrassing’ diving issue weighs on new Hockey East officials coordinator Schachte
By Jim Connelly • Senior Writer • Nov. 1, 2012
Hockey East officials, such as Chris Aughe, Jeff Bunyon, Tim Benedetto and Bob Bernard, might be looking more critically at diving (photo: Melissa Wade).
We’re about a month into the Hockey East season, which means that new league coordinator of officials Dan Schachte has had equally as much time to evaluate the league.
And while he certainly likes what he sees from his crew of officials, saying he “couldn’t be happier with what these guys bring” to the table, there is one serious concern that has stood out since the first game he saw four weeks ago.
“I spend a lot of time watching the game, I’ve been to a lot of games, and diving is a problem,” Schachte said.
Schachte, who recently completed a 30-year career as an NHL linesman, said that right out of the gate, the one thing his office needs to address is a player’s feeling that he needs to embellish penalties by flopping around much like a fish that has fallen out of its fish bowl.
“It’s an issue,” Schachte said. “About 70 percent of the time when I see it happen, it’s a new kid … it’s a freshman. It’s early in the season and if the kid played like that [diving] last year, it’s going to take some time to adjust.”
Schachte didn’t want to give specifics on how he plans to address diving and embellishment. He said that he has various ideas that he is working on, and could even go to the extreme of what the NHL did to curb a similar problem a few seasons ago.
“What the [NHL] did was publish a list of [offenders] that was public knowledge around the league among the officials, among the general managers, among the coaches and other players,” Schachte said.
That solution, according to Schachte, created peer pressure among the players to keep teammates from diving and, thus, appearing on the list.
Schachte didn’t say that he specifically will go to that extreme, but if he did, you almost couldn’t blame him.
“The rules are set up right now that if a penalty isn’t called and a kid flops, you can give him a diving penalty, but generally that’s not where it happens,” Schachte said. “Where it happens, a player puts a stick on a player or hooks or holds or impedes a kid and the kid embellishes it.
“At the end of the day, matching minors doesn’t really do much. That’s not a huge deterrent.”
It also puts the officials in a tough spot.
“They lose credibility because if they give, say, two for hooking and two for embellishing, one side will say, ‘He hardly touched him,’ and the other will say, ‘He put the hook on him, why are you calling a dive?’
“So our guys are in a tough spot. It’s hard to keep credibility with that kind of a setup.”
Schachte said that options such as giving an additional 10-minute misconduct or suspending repeat offenders are appealing, but neither is supported in the current rules. “If we suspended a kid for diving, we’d have every administrator at a school right down our throat,” Schachte said.
While calling the issue complicated, Schachte also said there needs to be something done to curb diving before it becomes a true epidemic.
“It’s embarrassing,” Schachte said, summing up the issue in the most simple way.
