Differences Between Assessments of Penalties in Ice Hockey by Referees, Coaches, Players, and Parents

A video montage made up of 40 play sequences, presented on two different occasions, was used to compare referees, coaches, players, and parents on how they assess penalties in ice hockey. The results indicated that the four groups of subjects showed congruency and consistency in their decisions to give penalties. However, the referee group gave more importance to the context of the game and the behaviors of the victim when making decisions. The most interesting result was the large difference between decisions made by subjects in the study and decisions made by officials in the videotaped games. The authors concluded that during games, factors such as pressure from spectators and coaches, relationship established with the players, physical fatigue are factors that can bring the referees to shift from the constituent rules to the normative, unwritten rules.