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Lowering the amount officials are being paid would only make the ref shortage worse. I don't think you are going to find people to take time out of their day to do games, especially at the hours many of these games occur. For me to do a 7AM game, I need to be at the rink no later than 6:30 to get ready, and then we add in travel time, I'm probably getting up at 5:30 to do that 7AM game. The amount of money officials make is to give them an incentive to do the games. I would venture to say that by lowering what officials make, would lead to no coverage for games with start times before 9AM and as I stated before... If the officials don't show up, nobody gets to play.

The reason we have a shortage of officials around the country is due to the post calling out the official by name. I have done games for 20+ years and the behavior of coaches, players, and fans has gotten progressively worse over that time period. Please DO NOT take this as me "calling out" everyone. There are some coaches and players who simply want an explanation and, agree or not, are respectful during the conversation. There are also players, and coaches that decide that they know the game better than everyone involved and thus refuse to have any kind of discussion and simply resort to shouting and swearing until the official has not choice but to impose a penalty for the behavior. That is on the coach and player, not on the official. Unfortunately, this behavior has led to the situation where you have no choice but to take whatever official you can get because no body else will do it. Also, this also isn't exclusive to just hockey, there's a shortage of officials across all sports because of the behavior exhibited by parents, coaches, and players. The simple answer to this is to say "if you think it is so easy, do it yourself", but the earlier post indicates to me that LGP13 probably wouldn't have the temperament to successfully cover a game. There is not a single official in any sport at any level that can say they have never made a mistake on a call or a rule interpretation and that is called being human. I would suggest being appreciative that these men and women are willing to get up at 6AM on a Saturday/Sunday morning so that little Stevie or Sally are able to play their 7AM 10U B game after working their "real job" all week or cover your adult league game at 11PM on a Wednesday night and then get up to go to said job. Always remember, if the officials don't show up, nobody plays.

Yes, an official has the authority to tell a team that he is only going to talk to one of the designated captains or only the head coach. In my coaching days, I had a number of officials tell me and my other coaches that they would only be speaking with the head coach. This was their way to keep the amount of grief they heard from the benches to a minimum. To answer your first question, a ref has NO obligation to explain a call to a player. I've had coaches get on me because "I didn't explain the call to the player". My response back to him was "that is called coaching and that is what you are here to do, I'm just here to call the game". I will always clearly say what the call was, but I'm not going to have a 5 minute conversation rehashing the play and why I made the call. I'll also only discuss calls if the coach is doing it in a respectful way. If they are screaming at me or my partner, I just ignore them and tell them that we will have conversation when they can do it at a "normal volume".

Does a referee truly "owe" an explanation for a call? My gut says no. If you had to explain every single call, you would never finish a game. I feel like people who say that a call wasn't "explained" really just want to yell at the referee to either get the call overturned or intimidate the official into not making the next call. That's not to say that there aren't officials making terrible calls, but, let's be honest, there are plenty of players making terrible plays too and they don't have to hear about it from everyone else in the rink. I haven't looked at a rulebook in years, but when I did, I remember reading something along the lines of the referee only has to talk to the team captain who is marked with a "C" on the scoresheet. The official can talk to other people as courtesy, but the official only has to talk to the officially designated captain.

Well said. This falls in the hands of USA Hockey and MidAm, two organizations that are run by incompetent people and good old boys. The incident report portal is archaic and very difficult to navigate, which is why many officials avoid calling penalties that require a report. Often, player and/or coach names cannot be located or a team is not properly listed. Right or wrong, this is a fact. I know some officials who take pride in what they do--few, but there are some. These are the people who when seen hitting the ice, the coaches, players, and parents breathe a sigh of relief. Then, there those who when seen hitting the ice, the coaches, players, and parents say, "Oh no--not this clown."