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I get it, but the low numbers are used too often as a shield imho. Primary responsibility of the refs is to protect the players. Miss an offsides, goal, fine. Ignore the bad behavior right in front of you...I think we should be complaining. Our governing bodies share some blame for this. There are players who develop a rep for only playing to hurt kids and they get passed around from organization to organization, rather than being booted entirely from the game. Kids booted from their school teams get too much time in PAHL to continue to target children and vice versa. I don't know how many times last year I heard that there is no point to complain about no calls or light punishment rendered by refs for serious injuries rendered by these types of players because there aren't enough refs. The checking rules requiring a play to be made for the puck are STILL rarely called, and we've had that for a few years now. Puck kinda only needs to be in the vacinity for a check to be ok. Call it, call the late hits. What happened to the Mars goalie and the type of behavior I just described, we really need you, refs. Please protect our kids. I hear your complaints as well, refs. The behavior in the stands is also a huge problem. Organizations need to start policing their own. Help the refs out by not being an ahole and helping to figure out how to curb the aholes sitting next to you. The refs and USA Hockey and PIHL, PAHL etc have been pleading with us to do so for years. Armstrong apparently didn't care and/or bother to try and curb behavior for years and became subject to some national level embarrassment. Wake up call for all programs. It is a multi pronged issue with many shoulders that responsibility falls on. In this thread, I have seen responsibility being handed off and deflected. We need to all be a part of the solution. We need to do better by our kids.