Wisdom of Crowds Vs. Referee

Last night I was watching the San Jose Sharks play the Los Angeles Kings in a very exciting NHL hockey game.  During the game two different Kings players made what is considered in the NHL to be "illegal hits" to the head on two different Sharks players which is a serious offense and deserves a "major" penalty. The natural response by the Sharks to these two separate events was to begin to start a fight which is tolerated (and almost encouraged) in hockey. Interestingly though in each case the offending Kings players did not receive "major" penalties but rather only received minor penalties even though the referees clearly saw both events.  Because the Sharks retaliated they also received minor penalties which meant everything offset meaning the Shark were penalized exactly the same as the Kings

As I was watching this whole thing I just kept thinking that I wish I had my say in the matter, which I obviously do not.  This got me to thinking about applying the wisdom of crowds to real time refereeing.  If this were possible you would have to make sure that you had more than the fans of the opposing teams as the judge.  In order to truly come up with the most accurate refereeing call you would need both the passionate and dispassionate judging every game.  Now I know that it is unlikely that professional sports will come up with a process whereby each call is pushed to the crowd to determine the "right" call but I can see a world whereby the crowd will at least have their say along side the game.

Although this would not have solved my problem last night - it would have at least made me feel better.