Originally posted on 1/17/10
NHL Referees.
Chances are if you're reading this, your exposure to the NHL is minimal at best. There has long been a problem with the disciplinary part of the NHL which deals with suspensions however, which was most evident in last years playoffs. In Boston's opening series against Montreal, Milan Lucic was suspended for one game
Lucic got his stick up into the neck and jaw area of Lapierre near the end of game 2 in the Boston-Montreal Eastern Conference Quarterfinal.
Lucic displayed “reckless use” of his stick, according to Campbell and was punished by the NHL to sit out game 3.
The very next night, a similar incident occured when Mike Cammaleri (then of Montreal) took a direct swing at Martin Havlat (then of Chicago). He wasn't suspended for this, quote Colin Campbell, the guy in charge of suspensions and stuff at the NHL:
“Cammalleri is not a repeat offender and he’s no bully"
You can see where this is going. Alex Ovechkin is a prime example of disciplinary indiscretions this season, with his bad habit of knee-on-knee checks with zero retribution. But then, it wouldn't make sense to suspend one of the biggest stars of the NHL for trying to cripple someone once? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM8J9uWKMSw Maybe he just confused a human with a net in this case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqCzYgKw4no Oh wait he's back to his old ways, and only NOW does he get suspended: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCH2S1ve1xg (turns out Gleason got the last laugh a few games later: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQY3mX4UayA) The difference between how many times a superstar must commit the same offence before being reprimanded and an ordinary scrub in the NHL is appalling. Imagine this happening in any other sport league in the world. Can you? Of course you can't, none are run quite as comically as the NHL.
There are plenty of problems on the ice too, most recently in the Burrows/Auger fiasco.
In a Dec. 8 game between Vancouver and Nashville, Predator player Jerred Smithson was assessed a five-minute charging major and a game misconduct by Auger for a hit on Burrows. Nashville won the game 4-2, but in the aftermath of the game, the NHL rescinded the major/game misconduct against Smithson because the video evidence strongly suggested Burrows embellished the hit and faked an injury.
Fast forward to last night's game between the same two teams in Vancouver.
Burrows alleges that Auger came up to him in warm-up, before the anthem, and there is video showing the two having a conversation.
''A ref came over to me and he said I made him look bad in Nashville on the Smithson hit and he said he was going to get me back tonight,'' Burrows said after the game.
Auger called a diving penalty on Burrows early in the third period and then called him for an interference penalty in the last five minutes of the third period. Shortly after that, Canuck forward Henrik Sedin was assessed a tripping minor and the Predators scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal in the third period. In the final seconds of the game, Burrows received a 10-minute misconduct from Auger for telling the ref what he thought of him. Burrows, by the way, scored both Canuck goals and came close to getting a third hat trick in four games.
When Burrows was asked how this “personal” thing originated, he replied:
''When Smithson hit me from sideways and (Auger) said, ‘I saw the replay, you had your head up, you weren't really hurt and you made me look bad so I'm going to get you back tonight' and he did, and he cost us two points.''
If the allegations are true – and Burrows has far too much detail and at the very least a compelling case of circumstantial evidence (the video of the pre-game conversation, the diving penalty, the interference penalty and the misconduct penalty) – then the league has no choice but to discipline Auger. In the wake of the Tim Donaghy scandal, the NBA referee who was part of a game-fixing scandal, the NHL has no choice but to ultra-sensitive to allegations that one of its officials may have, wittingly or unwittingly, affected the outcome of a game to send a message to a player who showed up that referee in a previous game.
Want to know what happened? Burrows was fined $2,500. Auger got nothing. Now Alex Burrows is a play renowned for his ability to mouth off, but this is beyond appalling.
My disgust at the way the NHL is refereed could be seen as biased. Mainly because in some Avalanche games this year the complete inadequateness of the refereeing has cost us dearly on more than one occasion. Take a game against Anaheim a few weeks ago. Being 2-0 up with 8 minutes to go, Craig Anderson (Avalanche goalie) was obstructed, Anaheim scored, and ended up winning 4-2. Avs' 3rd period problems aside, when you see the goal that started the slide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp3VgrUgQ9k you see that for the two officials looking at that directly and miss it, that there's glaring deficencies somewhere.
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Sources:
http://national-hockey-league-nhl.suite101.com/article.cfm/nhl_suspensions
http://tsn.ca/blogs/darren_dreger/?id=305888
http://fans.avalanche.nhl.com/topic/3764?page=28
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