Referees Force Players to Shake Hands - The Worst Takes Place

Referees forced NCHC's Alaska and Omaha collegiate hockey teams to shake hands after the second-straight game of the weekend against each other. The teams had a heated weekend of games and tempers were high, so it doesn't sound so crazy to picture the events that did to occur.

Twitter user spomer_hky, seemingly attended the games, as he provided a play-by-play if you will, of the events.

Quick breakdown of the post-game scrum between UNO/UAF today.

"It all starts back on Friday night. UAF wins in OT and they celebrate in front of UNO's bench. I've got no issue with this. UNO doesn't react and heads to the locker room.

UNO wins today in OT and UNO40 celebrates in front of their bench. Again, no issue. What goes around, comes around. F*ck around; find out. At this moment, it was all over."

Generally, if things were heated during the games, the referees can opt for no handshake after the game, but that was not what they decided in this instance.

"Here's where it all breaks down:

1)@AlaskaNanooks' coach start MFing everyone, from the officials to UNO's coaches and immediately leaves the ice. He leaves the ice and isn't around for any of the remaining scrum.

@TheNCHC officials decides# it's appropriate for the teams to shake hands after the game. Whether the teams shake hands is completely in their discretion. Reading the room, it was pretty clear it was best to skip it.

A UAF player grabs a UNO player in the handshake line and starts pushing. I thought it was UAF32 and UNO40 but I'm not sure and no video shows it. The refs break it up.

UAF11 grabs UNO26 from behind and throws a punch. It's all downhill from there."

It's hard to imagine there won't be any consequences resulting from the events, but it's very difficult to grasp why the referee's who officiated both games, would feel it necessary to shake hands.

Just an awful judgement call.