Atlantic Hockey allowed video replay for the first time during this year’s final two rounds at Blue Cross Arena. The arena’s main tenant is the AHL Rochester Americans, who have the building wired to facilitate video replays from multiple angles to be viewed by the on-ice officials.
“As we go to the national tournament, we want our guys to understand how the video review system works. We have the ability to do that here,” said Eugene Binda, the Atlantic Hockey supervisor of officials.
[scg_html_aha2013]Video replay was used twice during the tournament. The first time came in the semifinal game on Friday after Connecticut snuck a puck through the five-hole of Mercyhurst goaltender Jordan Tibbett midway through the first period.
The referees used replay to confirm that the puck trickled just over the goal line before being swept clear by a Huskies defender.
The second replay came during the second period of Saturday’s final match between Mercyhurst and Canisius. Mercyhurst’s Anthony Mastrodicasa slapped a bouncing puck into the Griffins zone from center ice as two Lakers skated hard to get across the blue line and clear the zone.
The skipping puck eluded Canisius netminder Tony Capobianco and the initial signal on the ice was a goal. However, the referees conferred and then entered the scorer’s table to determine if all of the Mercyhurst skaters were able to clear the zone before the puck crossed the blue line.
“Linesman Will McGoldrick had the delayed offside,” Binda said. “He knew when the puck went in we had an issue. The crew wanted to make sure with the review. We had the on-ice guys confer, the video replay with them, and then an off-ice referee in the box also look. The benefit that we had is that we got to look at more video than anyone else was able to see. The people that work here at the rink did a great job.”
Last year, the referees would not have been able to review the play as the rules in place at the time did not allow for offsides to be considered. That rule was reviewed during the offseason due to a situation that came up in the NCAA East Regional game between Union and Massachusetts-Lowell.
Union was up 3-2 late in the game when Lowell pulled its netminder and Union scored an empty-net goal despite having a player offsides.
During the offseason last summer, the NCAA Rules Committee modified Rule 6-60-a to include:
“The officials may correct an error on calling an offside or too many players on the ice that directly leads to a goal.”
