Incident - During the jam, a skater returned to play from the penalty box. When she did so, she entered in front of the entire pack, a clear major, had I seen the whole thing. I know I saw her re-enter in front of everyone and made the call, for the life of me though, even immediately after I couldn't remember if I'd KNOWN she was in the penalty box (and so, would KNOW it was a penalty), or if I just had assumed she was because she was standing still when she stepped in. Of course, standing still is probably a pretty good indication, but I really don't know if I knew or not. Whatever, I made the call. The real issue here is that for the next several laps, half of my concentration was on whether I'd actually seen what I thought I saw, or if I'd just manufactured a major penalty, even though at the moment I made the call I was 100% sure.
Comments - Obviously I need to make the call and move on. This is a basic tenet of my reffing, of any reffing (or, it should be), you're only as good as your next call. Whether or not your last call was right, if you're not paying attention to the game, chances are good your next call will be wrong. I'm ashamed it even took me a lap or two. I know better, it's usually not an issue. I don't know why this one was such a huge issue to me, except that it was also a call that was out and enforced before I even could think about it. As it turns out, one of the referees penalty tracking in the middle saw it too and verified during the intervening thirty seconds that the call was correct. Either way though, time to focus on the next call...
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