Playoff Referee assignments

[Al-Johnstown]

In the GHL playoff series, does it assign the same referee for the entire series? It seems a little unfair. If the GHL is trying to emulate the NHL as best as you can, the NHL assigns different referees to each series/games. I ask because I see the same ref for every game in my series with the same skill/penalties/homer for every game

Sutherland, Kelly  +3 Skill, E Penalties, -1 Homer

[Al-Johnstown]

Also found a glitch, unless these referees have identical twins with the same names. Sutherland was the referee for both Johnstown/Pittsburgh game and New York/ Baltimore game on same night! This holds true for tonights games were McCauley is the referee for both Adirondack/ Halifax game and Calgary/ Alaska game; and referee Rooney is for both the Montreal/ Quebec and Colorado/ Seattle games. And also looking at the referees ratings (in the Playoffs (skill/ penalties/ homer) but it seems they are almost identical. Where as other referees like Luxmore who's rating is skill Even, penalties Even & homer +1, are not being used in the playoffs! Just a thought why this is?
I didn't look if this happened during the regular season, I didn't bother looking.

[Glenn-Philadelphia]

I am reviewing this now.

In general, one referee has always been assigned to a series in the GHL. The top 8 rated referees are chosen for round 1, the best 4 for round 2, 2 for semis, and 1 for finals. If we had a -1 homer guy officiating in game 1 and 2 and a +2 Homer guy in games 3 and 4, this would be even worse (unless you were the lower seeded team in a given series).

The ironic thing about 4 referees being used on the same night in game 1 was I manually reverse the assignment order every other year so that there aren't raised eyebrows if the Pharaohs are in the playoffs in a given year and would find themselves in an advantageous position as indicated above. When making the final update it appears that I didn't populate the last 4 series with the appropriate ref assignment.

Here is the snippet of SQL that I open and modify each year when making these assignments.



The engine, and any game by extension, has an inherent home ice advantage baked into it.

I am going to correct the assignments for the games moving forward.

[Al-Johnstown]

2023- 2024 GHL Regular Season Referees
Name Skill Penalties Homer
Luxmore, TJ Even Even 1
Hanson, Trevor 2 2 1
Lee, Chris Even -1 1
Peel, Tim 1 -1 Even
Skilliter, Graham Even -2 2
Pollock, Kevin 1 Even Even
Nicholson, Kendrick Even 3 Even
Hebert, Ghislain Even 1 Even
Charron, Francis 2 2 Even
Kowal, Tom Even -2 Even
Dwyer, Gord 2 Even Even
Morton, Dean Even Even Even
Meier, Brad 2 -1 2
St. Pierre, Justin Even -3 Even
Rehman, Kyle 1 3 Even
Hebert, Jean 2 2 1
Walsh, Ian 1 -1 Even
Kozari, Steve 1 1 1
Mclsaac, Jon Even Even Even
Pochmara, Brian 2 2 Even
Rooney, Chris 3 3 1


I understand that but to have the same referees for 2 different games on the same night? I don't like it. Here is a small sampling of referees that were the last so many games, obviously not complete, but what about Hanson or Kozari, Meier? they have a favorable home advantage but different skill and penalties ratings. As I look at the Playoff referees, they all have a skill rating of +3, vary slightly on penalties and pretty much are a +1 homers. Definitely should be different Referees for each game each night. In the NHL Finals, they rotated between 5-6 referees in 2023