Stacy Livingston would rather be talking about almost anything other than this.

She’d prefer to talk about her Salt Lake City Olympic experience. Of standing at center ice in the women’s gold medal hockey game and dropping the puck to start the game.

She’d like to talk about the nightly medal ceremonies, the Barenaked Ladies rock group, the Dave Matthews Band, of being at women’s giant slalom, the fun stuff.

The Hermon resident spent the Olympics refereeing women’s hockey. She refereed one of the semifinal games and when it was time for the gold-medal game, the Canadian and American coaches selected Livingston to referee their game.

What should have been great memories have been soured by what she saw on TV after the game.

“I came off the ice saying that was a good game. It was a gold- medal game,” Livingston said. “Then I got back to my room.”

Livingston said she turned on the TV and a replay of the game was being shown. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Anything I did was wrong,” she said of the TV commentators. “They were ignorant to women’s hockey. Ignorant to the rules of women’s hockey. They attacked my integrity.”

The words did not come easy to Livingston. In fact, as mentioned, she didn’t want to talk about it at all.

She says the game was rough. She points out that the Canadians had lost eight straight times to the Americans entering the Olympics. The Canadians attempted to physically intimidate the American team and the Americans weren’t having any of it.

“I was there to referee hockey, not the WWF,” the 28-year-old Livingston said. “It could have gotten that way if I hadn’t called it the way I called it.”

Much of announcers Kenny Albert and Joe Micheletti’s criticism aimed at Livingston concerned the number of penalties the referee called. The United States was on the power play 11 times while the Canadians had four man-advantage situations. At one point, eight straight penalty calls went against the Canadians.

“I called the game the way it was supposed to be called. I reacted to what the players gave. Anyone can referee with four replays. Anything I did was wrong. One or two calls may be questionable but two out of 19, I’ll take that,” Livingston said.

One hockey school of thought is that the bigger the game, the fewer the number of penalties that should be called. Along those lines is the belief that the number of penalties should even out by the end of the game. But Livingston doesn’t agree with that line of thinking.

“I use the same rule book for the preliminaries, semifinals and gold- medal games. It wasn’t a great game because of the way they were playing,” Livingston said.

Though the criticism stung, Livingston said she has received support from both the public and other officials.

“I think 4.3 million people watched the game on TV – it feels like 2.3 million have contacted me afterwards. Everything I’ve received has been positive. Letters sent to U.S. Hockey and forwarded to me have been very positive.”

She said she enjoyed the Olympic experience. She described the opening and closing ceremonies as “phenomenal.”

She plans to take some time off from the game and travel. She, her husband Jay and their young daughter Jayci will make a trip to England for some quality family time.

She had been asked to do some refereeing clinics by U.S. Hockey when she returns and she will continue to referee.

“I’m glad I went [to the Olympics]. I’m not going to let those guys ruin it,” Livingston said. “… All the good points wash out the bad. I know that. It just takes time.”

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net