Penalties: Part 2 - Hooking and Intereference

So last time, the big news was that hooking and interference were down by 27% from the second period to the third period in the 2009-10 NHL regular season.

In this post, we'll take a look at some of the refs who appear to be responsible for this sharp inconsistency.

First off, a few general numbers:

• Hooking and Interference were #1 and #4 on the overall list of penalties called (excluding Fighting, which isn't called at the discretion of the referee).
• H&I (Hooking and Interference) dropped by 27% from the second to the third period.
• All other calls (excluding Fighting) dropped by just 8% combined.

Why would this be the case? Is it consistent across all of the refs?

I can answer the second question pretty clearly.

First, a quick note about these numbers - there are two referees at each game and the NHL does not identify which referee made the call (or, at least, they don't publish it). That means the best we can do is "associate" each ref with the penalties that were called while they were on the ice. Despite the lack of individual accountability, I think the results are still interesting.

Given that the average drop is 27.49% (which is way too high in my mind), we'd expect to see some guys on each end of the spectrum.

In the charts below, the numbers for each period are the number of Hooking and Interference calls made in games worked by the ref. The % Change shows the percentage difference between the second and third period.

Here are the more consistent refs:

Referee	First	Second	Third	OT	% Change
#18 Greg Kimmerly	48	37	43	2	16.22%
#41 Chris Ciamaga	19	19	20		5.26%
#5 Chris Rooney	59	54	52	1	-3.70%
#9 Dan O'Rourke	52	64	59	1	-7.81%
#43 Brian Pochmara	54	72	65	2	-9.72%
#13 Dan O'Halloran	51	57	51		-10.53%
#11 Kelly Sutherland	56	53	47	2	-11.32%
#20 Tim Peel	57	57	49	3	-14.04%
#28 Chris Lee	58	60	51		-15.00%
#32 Tom Kowal	52	68	57	2	-16.18%
#3 Mike Leggo	57	51	42	2	-17.65%
#27 Eric Furlatt	82	72	58	1	-19.44%

The actual number of calls isn't very useful here since I haven't shown the number of games worked by each ref. The thing you can count on, however, is that if one of these guys is wearing the stripes, you're more likely to see H&I called in the third.

Here is the other end of the ref pool. These fellows have what I consider to be truly frightening numbers because they are wildly inconsistent between the second and third period for H&I:

Referee	First	Second	Third	OT	% Change
#45 Justin StPierre	81	89	40	2	-55.06%
#44 David Banfield	17	27	14	1	-48.15%
#25 Marc Joannette	42	66	35	1	-46.97%
#15 Stephane Auger	90	85	47	2	-44.71%
#48 Frederick L'Ecuyer	36	34	19	1	-44.12%
#7 Bill McCreary	63	60	34	2	-43.33%
#6 Dan Marouelli	37	44	26	1	-40.91%
#38 Francois StLaurent	58	80	48		-40.00%
#26 Rob Martell	63	58	35	2	-39.66%
#23 Brad Watson	68	73	45	1	-38.36%
#14 Dennis LaRue	57	60	38		-36.67%
#10 Paul Devorski	44	71	47	1	-33.80%

You have to wonder what some of these guys are thinking sometimes. StPierre, Auger, McCreary, Martell, Watson and LaRue are pretty consistent through the first two periods and then largely put the whistles away for the third.

You have to think the NHL has these numbers. You also have to think they're aware of the tendencies of these guys. Heck, they probably know (unlike us) which ref actually made the call, which would make this case even more strongly.

The problem with these numbers is that the players don't know what to expect from one night to the next. They get one night with a Kimmerly or a Rooney and the calls are pretty consistent across the entire game, and then you get an Auger or StPierre and the third period deteriorates into clutch and grab hockey.

Pretty interesting, I think. Thoughts on this?

This will be cross-posted to Hockey Independent (albeit in a summarized fashion with Part 1) later in the week (maybe later tonight if I can get my act together).