In the Crease

[Sal Giaco]

Listen "snapper head" - For your information, I umpire college baseball and I know better than to get on officials. In fact, nobody really said a word about the call and even if they did, I would never pile on an official. Moreover, my 7 yr old son complained about the call after the game and I shut him up real quick and told him to show some respect for the officials - afterall, he did make the CORRECT call.

Now, getting back to what we were discussing. Let me rephrase the question, how often is "in the crease" called at the mite (7 & 8 yr old) level. For example, when I used to umpire little league, we would call a much larger strike zone because the kids weren't very accurate with the pitching. Now that may not be an apples to apples comparison but I would imagine that there are some things officials are more leanient on at the younger levels (or maybe not - I'm not familiar with hockey officiating)

Please understand, I am not being critical and if I came off that way, I apologize. I'm just trying to get a feel for how "tight" the game is called at this level compared to what we see on T.V. I know the games are totally different but perhaps they're officiated the same way. Given the situation I explained, would you have made that same call? Explain why or why not - Thanks again for your time!