The worst thing about the goal reversal last night

is the gutlessness of NCAA ice hockey officials. All the time they make judgement calls about infractions. Not only would it have been EASY to call the goal good, sound judgement REQUIRED it. Yet Pochmara, who I used to think was an acceptably competent official, and Kronforst absolutely lacked the balls to do the right thing. They got bullied by the Penn State coach. They should hang their heads in shame.

The rule about too many players simply says players may be changed at any time from the players’ bench, provided the player or players leaving the ice are within five feet of the bench before the substitute may contact the ice. The one angle that showed there were 6 Irish skaters on the ice was from across the bench and since TV is two-dimensional, how in the hell could they tell -- for sure -- that the player was not within five feet of the bench? Fact is, they could not.

Again, the replay rule is simple as well. In order to reverse an on-ice ruling, the replay must include conclusive video evidence. (emphasis mine) Jackson complained about the too many players rule itself post-game, correctly, in my opinion, but the rule that was completely disregarded was the video replay rule. After looking at the video, the referees should have told Gadowsky that video replay could not conclusively determine the distance from the boards the ND player was, and so the call on the ice, by rule, MUST stand. If he complained further, I'd have pointed out to him that in practical terms, Notre Dame scored that goal with just FOUR skaters on the ice, and he should shut up and play.

Agree 100% ....

that was a bullshit basis for reversal of the goal. They looked like a couple of orange-banded trained seals for Gadowski.

Why don't they have a dashed line marking the...

5-ft boundary from the bench? Seems like a really easy way to eliminate most of the problems with refs making the call and to clarify video review. Also, could the refs have called a penalty on ND for too many players on the ice after the video review?

By rule they should have called a penalty.

If they felt the Irish player enter play too soon, it's an infraction. Nothing in the rule book says that if you waive off the goal in that situation you can't subsequently call the penalty. All the rule book says is that too many players is a bench minor. If there is another application of the rule somewhere in the current rulebook regarding too many players detected during a challenged goal, I don't know where it is.

Is the scope of replay too broad?

I can see legitimate reasons for replay:
Whether the puck went in the net
Whether the puck went out of play
Goalie interference
Length of penalty (4 minutes or 5 versus 2)

It seems we're getting too many "legalistic" challenges (e.g. was the skate blade touching the ice at the blue line).

In the NHL and NCAA I've been a long time advocating...

a limit to goal reversals on off side calls. Something like 3 touches in the OZ, 10 seconds - something. I've seen goals reversed in the NHL after 45-60 seconds of possessions (by both teams) in the OZ which result in a goal - that then gets called back, In the NHL a lot of GM's would like to ditch it on offside but for some reason I don't get a lot of coaches have been against that.

When you broke the blue line 3 minutes earlier

Those piss me off

I think any replay is too broad.

I hate it in all sports.

If we have to be subjected to it, here's what I'd allow: A coach gets one challenge per game, about any call of any type he or she thinks the refs blew. One call. About anything. Cue up all the angles of the play in question, (of course you need to know WHAT the coach is challenging, something Pochmara and Kronforst apparently did not get right last night) give the refs ONE look at each angle in slow motion and make a call based on that. We've turned every freeking replay into a Zapruder film.

Zapruder is a great analogy ...

actually, after watching enough NHL offside replay reviews, I know more about whether a guy's right skate looks like he's just seen the sharpener than I do about the shots in Dallas.

Exactly right.

They were bullied into looking at it a second time and changing the call. Sickening.

B1G more than willing to comply *