Playoff Officiating

[micknugget]

I have to admit that I couldn't watch some of game 7 between the Wings and the Ducks because of being too aggitated by some of the calls. I think that this series was a perfect example of how bad officiating is getting in the NHL.

Now as a big Wings fan, it's hard to be objective but I know for a fact that the calls in this series were poor at best. I would be watching the game on FSD and when a bad call took place, I would switch over to CBC and sure enough, impartial announcers would agree that the call was not a good one.

Thw Wings were cheated out of a game tying goal in game 3 and things never got any better. It seemed that if the puck got lost under Hiller for a microsecond, the whistle would blow. If it was under Osgood, it would be 3-4 seconds before you heard a whistle.

They say that as long as the calls go both ways and that infractions are called with the same consistancy, then it's ok. This really wasn't the case at all. Guys could get pulled down by their head with no call and on the next play a guy would get tapped with a stick and there would be a call.

How about the high stick where the stick never actually touched the Duck players head? It was a great acting job but this kind of crap can't continue. I would like to see the NHL review some of these games and hand out unsportsmanlike penalties or even one game suspensions for making the game look bad and making the officials look like a bunch of retards. The NHL invented a diving call but it rarely seems to be used.

I hope things get better in the next round. The Wings took a lot of abuse playing the Ducks and the officiating has to get better. This starts at the top. Although I have never liked Commisioner Bettman, he was at the game and saw what happened first hand. I like him even less this morning.

[WTFchris]

Game 7 was terrible all around. I'm not sure it was slanted, but they let clutching and grabbing run rampant and called two high sticks in the second period that were pretty questionable compared to all the holding.

[Zekyl]

I'm just glad to be out of that series. We'll see how they call things against Chicago. I didn't think the officiating was horrendous in the 1st round (it wasn't great either)

[DE]

The officiating sucked. The regular season officiating was terrible too. I always go on Bettman rants, but think about this, was officiating ever such an issue as it is today both in the NHL and the NBA? I don't think so, and I think we have Stern and Bettman to thank for that.

Once upon a time there were only two refs in basketball and one ref with two linesmen in hockey. They knew the rules but also established a criteria for the flow of the game. In other words, if both teams were playing a very physical game, the ref (or refs in basketball) would call the either the obvious or the egregious stuff and let a few things go on both sides. Back then, calling it the same way was important. It didn't mean both sides got the same number of calls, but the attempt was to call the game evenly.

Now we have more refs and their job is to apply micro criteria in a micro-second and are told to apply it in every situation. Did he graze his hand just as the shot was being delivered? Who really initiated contact? Was the stick just touching his knee or slightly wrapped around it?

That to me leads to two problems. First of all, you get way more calls, a much higher number of fouls and penalties. That leads to officiating becoming an important part of the game. It used to be you had to mug a guy under the basket or really just yank him down with your stick to get a call in the final minutes of a playoff game. That's not the case anymore. Whether that's right or wrong that does mean that officiating has become part of the game.

The second problem then is that, since it's become part of a game, we as fans are more suspect of the officiating. We watch and get upset with every call (and again, we probably did this 20 years ago too, but there were a lot fewer calls). Since the refs are supposed to apply that micromanaging criteria, we can too and openly judge every call they make (and boy do they mess up a lot of them).

Of course sometimes calls, non-calls, and officiating mistakes affected games years ago. But they were the exception not the rule. Every little thing a ref does affects the game now because the NBA and the NHL have made it that way.

[Jethro34]

One only mildly related thing:

This isn't the officials fault but it irritates me. It happens all the time, but here it is.

Penalties should be carried out completely, even if it means rolling over into the next game.

At the end of game 6, 4 Ducks players were given penalties and 2 Wings were. The Ducks penalties were more severe, but in essence it didn't matter because the game was over so do whatever you want right?

If, instead, those penalties would have been enforced to start game 7 I think the Ducks would have thought twice before doing some stupid things. In fact, Detroit would have started game 7 with a long 5 on 3.

That may seem like I want to put an end to fighting, which I don't. I just think if you're going to fight, fight. Don't do stupid little cheap things that are often fairly harmless but could end up seriously hurting someone.

[MoTown]

^Or at least give suspensions once you hit a certain amount of penalty minutes, especially after the game...

The biggest problem I had was the officiating of Pronger - he did some blatent things in front of the ref, knew he was guilty, yet got nothing for it.

Example one: grabbing Hossa by both shoulders and pulling him to the ground right in front of the ref, to which Mickey called it "a rodeo takedown."

Example two: Cross checking Hudler into Hiller, throwing his arms up saying "what'd I do?" to the ref because he's guilty, and then Hudler getting the interference call. The Ducks, of course, scored on that power play.

I seriously hope things are better here in the Chicago series, because the Wings can't play 7-on-5 every night.