The 1/3 to 1/2 of calls not being actual penalties is an observation of watching youth hockey for many years. They also miss that many calls. The same statistics apply to every game with a standard deviation.
They are overly protective of the small kids and the refs actually give reasons for the penalties of "He hit to hard" That is not in the rule book! If it is a legal hit then it does not matter how hard it was. I have seen that called many times and it usually is a 10 and 2. What is that teaching the kids?
No Wave 2 parent, I am not a Wave 1 parent.
Thanks for clarifying because I seriously thought for a sec that you're a Wave1 parent since you go out of the way to defend them (despite general consensus being that Wave1 plays like goons) and said you have never even watch them play?
Anyhow, regarding the "he hits too hard" or 2 & 10 calls, I know those too well unfortunately. My kid seems to excel at violent hits. If you know who he is, you'd know that he has never been labeled dirty. He never even targets little kids, but if you are his same size or bigger, it's fair game to him and recently he got a 2 & 10 vs a Kings1 Dmen who was probably 3-4 inches taller but when he was hit, he curled up and fell into the boards. Clean and legal hit but again, "too violent" which like you said, it's not in the rule book.
Refs have called a few 2 & 10's on him and their explanation is usually the same, the hits are "too big" or "too violent" that they had to call something. Not that they were dirty hits, just "too big" and I can tell you that my kid has been a different player ever since... For the past few weeks, he hasn't been himself on ice. He's apprehensive about when to hit and afraid to get calls and when you're not playing free out there, your game suffers. He did manage to make hits while not visiting the box during Valencia and he even had a convo with a ref in the parking lot after his last game and it went like this:
Ref: Hey are you 'last name,' number XX?
Kid: Yes.
Ref: Ya, I saw you out there... trying to kill people...
Kid: .......
Ref: But they were all clean.
I can tell you that my son felt somewhat validated and was appreciative of what the ref said. Hopefully he has learned his lesson and will play carefree again soon with more emphasis on safety...
So my point is that yes, you're not wrong to say that 1/3 to 1/2 calls are iffy/borderline and justice depends on the refs. You get a picky ref, a borderline call is a penalty but to a not-so-picky ref, he might let them play. But I'm with you on "If it is a legal hit then it does not matter how hard it was" but truth is the refs dictate what's legal or not. It's just when it comes to Wave1, it really seems to be a pattern and getting harder to justify their action...
Don't worry about that stuff.
My kid is a short player, definitely stands out as a smaller player on his team but also plays extremely physical and led his team in penalty minutes due to some bad calls by the refs last season. Were they huge physical hits? Absolutely. Dirty/dangerous? Definitely not. Many times the refs gave him 2+10 and on his way to the box the refs made comments along the lines of "that was a good hit but just too hard, you need to tone it down" even against bigger kids. Fortunately his coach didn't punish him for any of it and he continued the same style of play throughout the season.
Fast forward to this season, he's still a small kid and still dishing out the same big hits yet he has zero penalties to date in almost 10 games so far.
