First off, play to your ability by knowing your limits. If you have never played high school or college, then you do not want to be playing in an upper level league. In the same respect, if you are and experienced player then don’t go playing the franchise player roll by skating around a bunch of 40 year olds that just want to play for fun. That will just get you hacked as they will resent you being on the ice.

Secondly, know the rules you are playing. You are not playing in the NHL which means what you see on TV is different in some cases. Although every league is different I am pretty sure the following rules apply in most of them. The most common penalty I call is stick work. Keep them down, period. Hooking, slashing etc. ; if your stick is above the waist on an opponent then more than likely you will get called for one of those penalties. “I didn’t slash him, it was all stick”..well guess what, if it’s above the lower portion of your opponents stick then it is.

Another good one is that although you made a great defensive diving on the ice while stopping that break away, regardless of whether you got the puck first or not; if you take out your opponent then you will get called for the trip and in some cases it could be a penalty shot so stay on your feet. Here’s one of my favorites; for those of you that decided to pull out the old Jofa helmet and Cooper pants from high school, here’s an update. The two line pass was taken out of the rule book like 10 years ago and you can now hand pass in your own zone as long as your teammate receives the pass before he crosses the blue line. A couple of other classics; if the puck goes through the crease, it is not icing and also, you can not call more than one penalty on the same player in the same play.

Personally if I was going to get back into a men’s league, I would go to a few games and watch how the hockey is being played. A lot of people bash these leagues and the fact is that there are some really good ones and you need to find them. I have personally officiated Tony Amonte, Marty McGuinness, Jeff Norton and several ex AHL and NCAA players in these leagues. These level players need a place to play too. Something you want to avoid is playing on a team that is a bunch of hacks, you will get sucked into that vortex and it is not worth it and I will tell you why.

I recently ref’ed a game which actually inspired me to write this article that got really ugly. A notorious chippy team was involved in a game that was ugly from the get go simply because a few of them were playing over their heads and decided to play with their sticks instead of their heads. Late in the third period I watched two players come out from behind the net as my partner was blowing the play dead and the two players faced each other and one called the other out by removing his helmet, dropping the gloves and stick. The other player had second thoughts and did not do anything but stand there and before he knew it, that player got a right hook to the eye and was bleeding all over the ice. Needless to say it cleared the benches and all hell broke loose. I called the game and the bleeding player who now needs stitches called the police. That is the harsh reality of playing in a mens league. Just because you are inside the boards skating on the ice does not excuse you from an assault charge. Use your heads! We all have that competitive edge in our blood but play the game the way it is supposed to be played.