The WCHA is going to try again its proposal to experiment with replay-light in college hockey.
The league is asking the NCAA ice hockey rules committee to approve its proposal to try out video review in regular-season games in hopes of being able to bring a small-scale version of the NCAA’s allowed postseason protocol to all games.
The proposal was approved before last season, but only if the league WCHA followed the NCAA rule book on how replays were to be done. That would include an fourth game official designated as the review judge and would require that all goals be reviewed before the game could continue.
The WCHA declined to go ahead with that experiment, which was to take place at Denver’s Magness Arena, saying it was cost-prohibitive even for the relatively deep-pocketed league.
This year, the league is submitting the same proposal, which asks for a trial that would allow the on-ice referee to view replays of disputed goals from an area near the ice.
“We tried to be as practical as we possibly can,” WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod said. “We wanted to be professional about it, we wanted to make sure it didn’t look like some Mickey Mouse deal. … [And] we didn’t want to add another official to the game. Nobody wanted that.”
The proposal will go before the rules committee at its meeting in San Francisco, June 7-11. McLeod said he will have an opportunity to speak to the committee before a vote is taken.
