http://www.theprovince.com/sports/getting+killed+media+fans+over+perception+poor/11912890/story.html

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“It would be awesome if we read: ‘The officiating was really good today,’ ” Johnson said. “As opposed to, ‘All you want to do is focus on something controversial.’ Watch a few NFL games. When there’s a really bad call, they point to it for a second, and then move on to tell the story of the game. They give more positive comments to the officiating than our (CFL) broadcasts. I believe we are better than people think we are. I’d put our guys up against anybody for what they do.”

Maybe if it was, Glen.

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“We all have similar issues,” Johnson said. “How do you eliminate the big mistakes? Our guys work incredibly hard to do that. And we don’t get credit for that. We just need our fans to understand.”

Understand what? The referees are not doing a good job. At all. The fact that they demoted like half a dozen (which is almost 15% of the overall staff) after the season should tell you that much.

This article and his quotes make Johnson look so ridiculous, in my opinion. I don't doubt it's a tough job, but as far as accountability to the public, whether it be media or fans, referees are the most bulletproof individuals in the CFL. Sure, they get bad things written about them. So what? They're not like players, coaches or general managers in the sense that they have to step up and answer for their mistakes in front of a reporter or a microphone. But year in, year out they continue to blow ball games. Now he wants to say "poor us"?

Get real.

On 5/12/2016 at 8:16 AM, HardCoreBlue said:

Refereeing has so many components to it that it's difficult to clearly categorize as simply good or bad. I see it as there's a great degree of room for improvement in many aspects of refereeing (technology, interpretation of rules, rule appropriateness, player/coach/referee mutual respect, quality of applicants wanting to be refs, training, compensation, consistency, appropriate reprimands for poor performance etc etc)  

I actually have no problem with this perspective, it's just a perspective, a voice wanting to be heard among many others.

Unless there is a long list of qualified applicants vying for these part-time jobs I think cutting a large chunk of their work-force sends the wrong message to future applicants.  Demoting and retraining is a better approach but ultimately I would like to see a pay increase so that the position of official is worthy of a full-time career choice.

I don't really have any issue with the reffing in the CFL. I am not a fan of the constant rule changes which only makes the job harder for the refs as they constantly have to not only adapt to the existing rules but the new stuff.

Did the refs cost the Bombers a game last year? Most would say yes but at the same time if they were a better team it would never have to come down to one call. Too often the refs are blamed for the incompetence of a team.  

8 hours ago, Throw Long Bannatyne said:

Unless there is a long list of qualified applicants vying for these part-time jobs I think cutting a large chunk of their work-force sends the wrong message to future applicants.  Demoting and retraining is a better approach but ultimately I would like to see a pay increase so that the position of official is worthy of a full-time career choice.

Considering not even all the refs in the NFL are full-time I don't see this happening. Better pay is always a plus but just because you get better pay doesn't ensure you will get the best people in the job. There has to be good training, feedback, and many other things to get and keep officials up to speed. Even then I seriously doubt that fans and the press would ever be happy. 

1 hour ago, Dragon37 said:

Did the refs cost the Bombers a game last year? Most would say yes but at the same time if they were a better team it would never have to come down to one call. Too often the refs are blamed for the incompetence of a team.  

Better yet, if the team that the Bombers lost to, because a wrong call by the ref, was a better team, they would have beat us all on their own. 

That team? The Calgary Stampeders.

 

On 5/16/2016 at 8:32 PM, Mr Dee said:

Better yet, if the team that the Bombers lost to, because a wrong call by the ref, was a better team, they would have beat us all on their own. 

That team? The Calgary Stampeders.

 

They did. Without the call who knows if they would have done better than how the game finished? I doubt they were going to make it to the end zone to win. The best they could have done other than that was tie the game with a FG which was no guarantee. You can spin things how you want Dee but Calgary didn't need to score points at that time the Bomber did and they couldn't. While the call helped it wasn't needed to get Calgary the win.

8 minutes ago, Dragon37 said:

They did. Without the call who knows if they would have done better than how the game finished? I doubt they were going to make it to the end zone to win. The best they could have done other than that was tie the game with a FG which was no guarantee. You can spin things how you want Dee but Calgary didn't need to score points at that time the Bomber did and they couldn't. While the call helped it wasn't needed to get Calgary the win.

And yet, you missed the point. While pointing out that the Bombers were 'incompetent', it seems that Calgary still needed help in defeating us. Doesn't that make them incompetent as well?  In your words then, if Calgary was a better team, they wouldn't have needed a missed call. It works both ways.

2 hours ago, Dragon37 said:

They did. Without the call who knows if they would have done better than how the game finished? I doubt they were going to make it to the end zone to win. The best they could have done other than that was tie the game with a FG which was no guarantee. You can spin things how you want Dee but Calgary didn't need to score points at that time the Bomber did and they couldn't. While the call helped it wasn't needed to get Calgary the win.

When the CFL effectively said they screwed up a call that impacted the outcome of the game, why are you bothering to argue otherwise?

On 15/05/2016 at 6:54 PM, Dragon37 said:

I don't really have any issue with the reffing in the CFL. I am not a fan of the constant rule changes which only makes the job harder for the refs as they constantly have to not only adapt to the existing rules but the new stuff.

Did the refs cost the Bombers a game last year? Most would say yes but at the same time if they were a better team it would never have to come down to one call. Too often the refs are blamed for the incompetence of a team.  

And on some occasions the refs get blamed for the incompetence of the refs.

On 5/17/2016 at 1:33 PM, mbrg said:

When the CFL effectively said they screwed up a call that impacted the outcome of the game, why are you bothering to argue otherwise?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

hes right you know.