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Does this official deserve a playoff game ?

Depends how he handled this situation? Do you know?

This photo was in the local newpaper. The photographer could have taken pic's like this all night. On an earlier thread I talked about PA having no evaluation systems in place. This is an example. The coach in the picture belongs to a team that has influence with officials assignments. If the official gives the warning, and later flags the infraction, his chance of working diminishes. If we had meaningful evaluations, it would give officials some incentive to make these calls. The official in the pic probably would act accordingly in most of his games. Ignoring stuff like this in order to get assingments can only lead to poor officiating.

Our coaches are even worse although they are getting better. They usually aren't on the field like this when the wing official is near the coach's box. It's usually a coach who is 20 yards downfield from the LOS. At least this coach has one foot in the coach's box. I still have coaches who step out 3-4 yards to make their play and don't get back all the way.

We also have coaches exclusively doing our evaluations so this kind of thing happens. The coaches have gotten better the past couple years so there's hope yet.

I would be tempted to call this pass incomplete and then tell the coach I couldn't see becuase he was in the way. Maybe then he would get it.

I guess I'm coming into this late, but I have a little story that relates to this.

I started officiating a number of years ago back in grade 10. In my second year, I worked all though the playoffs and did the Division 2 city final. The next year, I did the division 1 final. Over the summer, for our provincial summer league that year, I did a final, as well as the under 17 national championship.

Then I moved away to college, joined a new association and haven't seen a playoff game in the past 3 years, except this year, where I didn't work any playoffs but my home association assigned me the provincial bowl game.

The point of the story is, I guess that different places do things differently. While you might be ready for the final, or the playoff game, there might be other guys ahead of you. But don't let it discourage you. I've done a few big games now, so I don't do it to get the playoff assignments, I do because I love it. I have fun doing it, and hopefully I'll be able to move up to that next level within the next couple of years.