Hi jicecone, I've seen some posts from you about hockey officiating. I'm trying to break into it myself. Do you know of a discussion forum for hockey officiating that's more active than what we have here?
Re: my UIC. He was about the worst UIC ever. Asked him what rule-set was being used. His response via email: "I heard you were one of those... just go out there and umpire, ok?" Probably should have returned the assignment right then - but there's really nothing going on right now, so I jumped at the chance to work.
In the umpire room, this guy repeatedly made stupid comments, wrong rule interps, etc. I literally walked out of the room to watch someone else's game during my break after he said, "We need to make these pitchers work today - if the whole ball isn't over the plate, don't give it to them."
This was one of the reasons I was not worried about offending the guy by saying I'd never work there again. Freaking moron.