CASST - Accountibility

The Problem

No apparent mechanism exists for NHL referees to be held accountable.  At work, if you do your job poorly, are you held accountable?  I know I sure am.

The Rant

Who do these guys report to?  Why are they so special?  I have to answer to my boss for my screwups, why don't they?

When listening to Gary Bettman's show on satelitte radio, his politically correct answer to all refereeing problems is the same - "I look to see if the referee is in the correct position.  If he is, he usually makes the right call".  What the heck is that?  The NHL referee is judge and jury during a game, but we cannot confirm if this judge and jury have their judgements reviewed at any time to ensure they meet the criteria put forth by the NHL.  I know that when I watch a game, I see many penalties that go uncalled.

How to Implement

Building off the ISO 9000 idea from the previous post, each referee would have the same number of blind quality audits performed during a season.  Information from the audit, including "What worked well", deficiencies, corrective actions, etc would be tracked.

This information would be compiled to create a reference list of each referee's performance.  The referees would be ranked against several categories, including:
1. Consistency
2. Compliance with standards (see next post)
3. Ability to handle pressure
4. Game Communication Management
5. Etc

A scoring system would be used to determine who would be ranked as the NHL premier Referees, good refs, poor refs, etc.

This ranking would then be used to assign playoff work, layoffs or outright firings.