Tuesday, August 19, 2008

4 is the Magic Number

Months and Months and Months and Months ago The Plough brought you the news that the EIHL were deciding upon at 4 man refereeing system. Well it seems they finally came to that decision with today's announcement of the new 2 referee system for all competitions.

Now the cynical ones among you will claim that now there are two bumbling fools ready to make twice the amount of errors. And of course, you'll be right. However The Plough would like to bring up another stumbling block in this great plan from EIHL towers.

Shirts.

The new god-awful referee and linesmen shirts no longer bare the traditional black and white stripes but will be predominantly black with a silly looking coloured band denoting their on-ice role.

Now apart from looking like some 1970's sports shop reject, these shirts will bode very well with the large collection of mainly black away shirts to be worn by Nottingham, Manchester, Newcastle and a black third shirt brought out by Belfast.

Whomever at EIHL Towers thought up this bright idea clearly did not think it through. I hope that the new outfits will come especially padded for those high passes. And no doubt they will give Sheffield fans the opportunity to cry about the "Extra 4 men in Black" when the Panthers beat them at the Sheffield Arena.

So, apart from the fact that you are bound to get an inexperienced ref, alongside an experienced one and hence some strange and inconsistent calls in the game. You may also be spending your time confusing the ref for a forward on an odd man rush.

I think this can be described as, Classic Elite League!

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