Goal Line Technology - Good or Bad

[US Seagull]

My solution would be this: Lasers aren't necessarily a good idea because as somebody pointed out players bodies will break the beam plus you need a lot of lasers to provide enough coverage of the goal mouth to ensure the ball doesn't slip between the beams. I think the better solution would be some type of RFID chip in the ball.
The idea is that you put maybe six of these chips on opposite sides of the ball, so one on top, one on bottom, one at front, one at back, one on left side, one on right side. Then you have radio masts around the game that can triangulate the position of the ball in real time and always know not only whether the ball has crossed the goal line, but also if it's gone out of play elsewhere. This information can be immediately relayed to the ref and the linesmen. The reason for so many chips is that way you can detect whether the whole ball or only part of the ball crossed the line. They should be able to make chips that are robust enough to survive a whole game and in the unlikely event that the chip did fail you could just have a reserve ball ready to go.
Obviously this would be too expensive for lower leagues, but it ought to be doable for top flight and international competitions.

 

[dougdeep]

BAD.

 

[Vlad the Impala]

Every hockey game I've been to had a buzzer and a light IIRC...

The buzzer is for the end of a period. It couldn't be used for a goal because the game would stop - but the on-ice officials are quite within their rights to ignore the opinion of the goal judge and play on. They DO use TV replays in the NHL for a binding second opinion if necessary.

I've been to 200 games in the last four years in a dozen different arenas and never heard a buzzer used for a goal at any of them. Not in an official capacity anyway. But different venues use different sound effects to celebrate a goal for the home team as soon as the referee indicates a goal, with a horn being the most popular. In many cases this can happen almost instantaneously which may have caused some confusion. It has no more official role than Rocketman's fireworks, however.

 

[US Seagull]

The buzzer is for the end of a period. It couldn't be used for a goal because the game would stop - but the on-ice officials are quite within their rights to ignore the opinion of the goal judge and play on. They DO use TV replays in the NHL for a binding second opinion if necessary.

I've been to 200 games in the last four years in a dozen different arenas and never heard a buzzer used for a goal at any of them. Not in an official capacity anyway. But different venues use different sound effects to celebrate a goal for the home team as soon as the referee indicates a goal, with a horn being the most popular. In many cases this can happen almost instantaneously which may have caused some confusion. It has no more official role than Rocketman's fireworks, however.

Actually you might well be right. I've only been to a dozen or so college games and one NHL game (although we had sweet box seats) and they were all a few years ago.