Referees Give Hints On How To Win

In a scientific study of 15 youth hockey games reported in the Journal of Sports Behavior it was determined that referees spent a total of 40.6% of game time encouraging and or giving advice to players. The researchers drew two conclusions from their study, one that there are predictable behaviors for all referees, and second that how referees are perceived by adult players is affected by the quality of referee "hints" in the form of on ice coaching experienced during youth games.