Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

NHL linesmen and refs will attend mini-camp

NHL referees

Teams and players don’t have a lot of time to get ready for the start of the shortened campaign, but they aren’t the only ones that need to get up to speed.

NHL referees and linesmen are also about to get back to work and with that in mind, they’ll attend a two-day camp in Toronto on Jan. 16-17, according to the Star Tribune.

The details of the camp aren’t known, but the pre-lockout debate about obstruction penalties is one subject that’s likely to come up.

On Aug. 21-22, the NHL held a mini-summit for players, GMs, coaches, officials, and members of the league’s hockey operations to discuss the standard for obstruction penalties.

General Managers had expressed concerns that the league had lowered its standard when it came to punishing interference, hooking and holding. At the same time, both power-play opportunities and scoring have declined in recent years.

It should be interesting to see if either of those trends are reversed this season.