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Something We Can (Hopefully) All Agree On

by Mike Chen on 06/11/09 at 01:30 AM ET
Comments (18)

I haven’t written too much on the Cup final as Tony and the Chief carry their respective flags pretty well, and most of the other media attention is thoroughly covered on the main KK page. That doesn’t mean I haven’t watched, though, and I think we can all agree on the fact that the officiating’s gotten worse as the playoffs have gone on.

There was a time after the lockout when it wasn’t like this. If you’ll recall the 2006 Final with Carolina and Edmonton, the level of officiating wasn’t at the regular season level, but fairly close.

Instead, this has gotten to a point where the refs (and their overseer, Stephen Walkom) have established a precedant and now they can’t seem to go back on it. Interference, hooking, cross-checking, all of it goes uncalled by both teams except for either really blatant fouls or random “statement” calls.

Obviously, you’re going to get officiating complaints from fans involved with any playoff series. Maybe the magic powers of the internet have made them all the more vocal, but I get the sense that people are more disgruntled with officiating than in previous years. And I know I’ve seen more mainstream articles calling out the officiating in previous years. The fact that ref complaints are so loud and so numerous, not only in the typical fan situation but as observations from general hockey media, seemingly points to a desire for the standard to be upheld. In other words, as much as there’s support for the notion of “let the boys play,” ultimately, most people want the rules to be called.

I’ll say that again in hopes that Walkom is somehow paying attention: ultimately, most people want the rules to be called.

The pro-"let them play” contingent includes MSG’s Sam Rosen, who was on NHL Live saying that he didn’t want any interference, hooking, etc. called if it didn’t directly take away a scoring chance. Isn’t that a little bit of a catch 22? If you interfere with a forechecker, it might not be a direct breakaway but how can you say with 100% certainty that that forechecker wouldn’t have produced a direct scoring chance? Perhaps that high-speed forechecker forces a bad turnover and leads straight to a goal. There’s no way to know, but the idea the notion that Rosen is perpetuating winds up killing the notion of what the post-lockout NHL was supposed to be about.

Rosen even said that he believed in the notion that the game should be called differently in the first 10 minutes compared to the last 20 seconds. That’s something I’ll never, ever understand. If it’s a penalty in one instance, it should always be a penalty—the context of a rule should never be applied. The fact that someone respected in the league like Rosen has this mentality tells me that there’s still a long way to go with erasing it.

Perhaps the refs let the Final slip even worse because the Wings and the Penguins statistically don’t take many penalties and are skating-based systems, so things can still remain fairly up-tempo with the extra interference going on. Twisted logic, but I have to wonder if the refs would call it tighter if it were two teams with bad reputations, like the Ducks and the Flyers.

In a perfect world, I’d love for the refs to meet with both teams before Game 7 and say, “Look, we know we haven’t been calling it tight but this is one game for the Stanley Cup and we’re going to call it by the book. Know that and don’t push it.” But that’s not going to happen. The league has fallen into its old habit of letting the rules erode away.

The bottom line is that pro athletes will try anything they know they can get away with. It’s their nature as competitors of the highest level. To let it go on a slippery slope gives way to the old “give an inch, take a mile” notion. It’s marred what has been otherwise a gloriously entertaining playoffs, and I can only hope that Walkom can look at the fairly vocal outcry from fans and media and say, “Not again next year.”

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Tags: Officiating, Stephen+Walkom,

Comments

A great example of the “direct scoring chance” fallacy happened on the GWG in game 6. The puck is knocked to the boards, Lidstrom is the closest man to it, but Fedotenko’s stick between his legs prevents him from retrieving the puck. Another Penguin grabs it, tosses it to Kennedy, 2-0 Pens.

Though from what my friends not near the border said, NBC never noticed that one. CBC was all over it.

Posted by Andrew on 06/11/09 at 01:26 AM ET

Good piece Mike. It’s rough when the stark difference in calls just between the semifinals and the Finals has been quite noticeable and the seeming “no blood, no foul” style has been the law in the Finals save for seemingly allowing teams to get a couple of power play opportunities a game.

That said, the seeming consistent inconsistency we’ve seen throughout the playoffs presents a bigger issue for Walkom to tell us didn’t happen but they’ll find a way to handle in the offseason.

Posted by HockeyJoe from Upstate New York on 06/11/09 at 02:31 AM ET

As pansy as the other major sports are to me. They at least have the guts to enforce their own rules, no matter how stupid they may be. In their desperate efforts to become a major league sport again, the NHL keeps stepping on their own dicks.

Posted by yreland from Paul MacLean's Moustache on 06/11/09 at 04:04 AM ET

Your point about Rosen is 100% right on. You can’t call the game different at different points of the game! Please,someone show me where that rule is written. Oh, that must be one of hockey retarted “unwritten” rules. Having said that I do get sick of fans constantly blaming the officials when their team (Red Wings) lose.

Posted by Linda1st on 06/11/09 at 06:00 AM ET

Great article.

I agree that it is completely absurd that the context matters to the penalty being called.

“You would be charged with DUI and reckless driving, but its 4AM and it didn’t lead to a direct accident with another driver chance”.

I can’t imagine that the GMs and owners don’t see what’s happening.

Very interesting point about I have to wonder if the refs would call it tighter if it were two teams with bad reputations, like the Ducks. The fact that you can make a legitimate argument that this is so is twisted, itself.

Very few people are calling for absolutely everything to be called every time. Fans, and surely players too, are just asking for consistency, at least between two rounds if not across a season.

Posted by MarkK from Maryland on 06/11/09 at 06:16 AM ET

“You would be charged with DUI and reckless driving, but its 4AM and it didn’t lead to a direct accident with another driver chance”.
“Thanks Officer”

“Now drive on home. But if another driver is on the road later on, then I’ll charge you.”

Posted by MarkK from Maryland on 06/11/09 at 06:17 AM ET

but I have to wonder if the refs would call it tighter if it were two teams with bad reputations, like the Ducks and the Flyers.

One thing that I think would be interesting to watch, but I never want to see, is a play-off series between Anaheim and Pittsburgh. You really can’t get a full sense of just how rough and tumble the Ducks play until you have your team playing against them. Seeing Malkin and Crosby take the Pronger hits to the head and Perry cheap shots like Zetterberg and Datsyuk have taken makes me wonder if the league would be so prone to “letting the boys play”. The Flyers are made out to be the Thugs of the East, but after watching them play a lot more of the past two seasons (I like Mike Richards a lot), I don’t see any more “thuggery” than your typcial Western Conference game.

I say that I never want to see this play-off series because that means that Pittsburgh would be in the finals again, and that Detroit was not (completely selfish reasons I know, but I’m just being honest). But the thought alone of the Ducks/Pens in a 7 game series would have a RIDICULOUS amount of whining…

...agreed?

Posted by Animal Drew from A Nightmare on Helm Street on 06/11/09 at 06:33 AM ET

Despite the fact that my favourite team is in the finals, I’ve had a hard time stomaching the officiating level applied to the series. Violations that leads to goals and offences that preclude the ultimate display of skill and speed annoys me to no end. (Add the moronic NBC coverage with clueless commentary and it becomes almost unbearable, but that’s another thread in itself.)

The level found at the start of the playoffs was just fine, ie. something like the regular season minus most of the borderline calls. For some reason that wasn’t good enough for the finals and a third level had to be invented, somewhat randomized to keep the players guessing. Now there’s no turning back and one can only hope for a seventh game without an egregious decisive error to feed the paranoid and conspirationally inclined nutters on both sides.

The NHL lacks consistency, translucency and professionalism throughout the organisation. Officiating and the awful disciplinary system has shown that. Given the quality of the product and its potential, it’s a real shame.

Posted by Moq from Denmark on 06/11/09 at 07:33 AM ET

Coming into game seven, I can’t see a way for them to do it any other way than they have been. If this one suddenly turns into a penalty fest, the league is going to lose a lot of potential fans who are just starting to tune in. Not only that, but established fans who know what they’ve been seeing through the first six games are going to go ballistic as the league once again shows there is no standard for enforcement. It’s kind of funny that the fans have gotten to the point of expecting things to be bad. We have no idea what a playoff suspendable offense is supposed to look like anymore.

It’s too late for this year, but starting next year, I think the NHL owes it to the fans to start rectifying this. If they want to stop short of calling the officiating this year a mistake and protect the refs’ feelings then ok, but it needs to be made clear to each team that things won’t be called next year like they’ve been called this year and that no players are immune from suspensions.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 06/11/09 at 07:46 AM ET

Good article.

Pens fans will see the officiating tilted in the Wings favor; the Wings fans will see it tilted in the Pens favor. Both are correct.

The reason both are correct is that the officiating has been used to force a game seven.

Not in a tinfoil hat-kind-of-way; but in just a subtle enough way to manipulate events on the ice to tilt towards one outcome: a game seven.

Follow the money. It’s always about the money.

Posted by Red Winger from Sault Ste. Marie on 06/11/09 at 08:14 AM ET

...as much as there’s support for the notion of “let the boys play,” ultimately, most people want the rules to be called.

Amen to that. No one really wants to see a dozen penalties per team per game, but if that’s what it takes to get players to respect the rules, then so be it. But it never has to come to that. All the refs have to do is call the first 10 minutes according to the rulebook. If they do, the players will get the message.

But even if they do that, they will still have to deal with why there were so many blatant calls missed in this series. Pens fans hate it when this gets brought up because they know they got away with a lot...six skaters on the ice for 24 seconds, Malkin offsides before he scores the first goal of Game 4, Zetterberg pushed into Fleury and then called for goalie interference, Rafalski knocked down behind the net with the puck 20 feet away, the Lidstrom incident Andrew mentioned, etc., etc., etc.

As Mike correctly points out, we just want to see are the games called fairly. Please.

Posted by OlderThanChelios from Grand Rapids on 06/11/09 at 08:36 AM ET

As Mike correctly points out, we just want to see are the games called fairly. Please.

Posted by MarkK from Maryland on 06/11/09 at 09:18 AM ET

OlderThanChelios:

Pens fans hate it when this gets brought up because they know they got away with a lot…

Not really. You clearly underestimate our ability in chronicling the transgressions performed by Detroit. The similarly deluded Penguins fans would probably assume that “Detroit fans hate it when...”

As Mike correctly points out, we just want to see are the games called fairly. Please.

You got that one right.

Posted by Moq from Denmark on 06/11/09 at 09:50 AM ET

If they want to stop short of calling the officiating this year a mistake and protect the refs’ feelings then ok, but it needs to be made clear to each team that things won’t be called next year like they’ve been called this year and that no players are immune from suspensions.

I don’t think there needs to be a public flogging but I really hope the competition committee gives Walkom a stern WTF when reviewing the officiating. Like in many corporate cultures, the worker bees probably move to the will of the department head, and if the refs’ boss is letting stuff slide, then he needs a health wake-up slap.

He also needs another awesomely awkward video of him explaining the rules to dramatic movie music like they had coming out of the lockout.

Posted by Mike Chen on 06/11/09 at 11:26 AM ET

The rule book is, a book of rules, that interprets the rules. Which then allows suspension of the rules. Confusing?

Lets Go Red Wings!!!!!

Posted by Kate from Pa. on 06/11/09 at 11:35 AM ET

The bottom line is that pro athletes will try anything they know they can get away with. It’s their nature as competitors of the highest level. To let it go on a slippery slope gives way to the old “give an inch, take a mile” notion

That’s about right. Game 1 of this series I didn’t have a problem with. I would’ve liked to see a couple more things called, but overall not bad and mostly fair both ways. But as the series progressed, the teams have gotten away with more and more; particularly interference away from the puck and the rough stuff.

I hesitate to compare to the “old” NHL, but things are not as fluid as they should be with two teams of this skill level. At a certain point “fight through it” becomes ridiculous. These guys aren’t supposed to fight their way past a wall of defensive backs on a goal line stand.

There’s a balance to strike between let ‘em play and the whistle orchestra from some regular season games. Yet the league just keeps missing the mark.

Posted by Nate A from Dark side of the moon on 06/11/09 at 11:48 AM ET

I don’t think there needs to be a public flogging but I really hope the competition committee gives Walkom a stern WTF when reviewing the officiating. Like in many corporate cultures, the worker bees probably move to the will of the department head, and if the refs’ boss is letting stuff slide, then he needs a health wake-up slap.

He also needs another awesomely awkward video of him explaining the rules to dramatic movie music like they had coming out of the lockout.

Posted by Mike Chen on 06/11/09 at 12:26 PM ET

Walkom probably does need a talking-to about it, but it’s still a two-pronged problem. Not only are the regular calls blaringly inconsistent, but the league’s after-game punishment system is broken too. Round one had the exact same cheap shot punch to the face during a faceoff by two different people and resulted in exactly one suspension; that’s not Walkom’s fault. What could end up being Walkom’s fault is an entire class of relatively young refereees getting the wrong idea about what they should be calling. I’m praying the competition committee recognizes and deals with these two shortfalls during the offseason and, if they’re not going to tell us too much about it fine, just show us next April, May, and June that they’ve taken the right steps forward.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 06/11/09 at 11:55 AM ET

Great article, Mike. You summed what’s going on up in a way I’ve been too biased to.

In the first two games of the matchups, I really thought I enjoyed the wide-open game they were letting unfold; it reminded me of the old days. In the next two games, I couldn’t believe that they weren’t calling anything. I do see the folly of my ways there.

But the truth is, I’ve seen some weird activity by the refs of games 2, 4, and 6:

Not in a tinfoil hat-kind-of-way; but in just a subtle enough way to manipulate events on the ice to tilt towards one outcome: a game seven.

Follow the money. It’s always about the money.

I don’t understand how this isn’t a tinfoil-hat argument. I mean, I agree with you Red Winger—I and a friend of mine who actually refs hockey for a living caught FIVE penalties in game 6 that weren’t called, all Pens, two hookings, one trip, one interference, and an elbow. I was beside myself that the Pens went so long without a penalty call. I just have to imagine they were trying to give the Pens a fighting chance. Not because Gary loves Sid, but because a game 7 on a Friday on NBC makes money on the eve of renewing an NBC contract.

Just makes me sick. Almost sick enough to stop watching. This isn’t the WWE, it’s the NHL, games shouldn’t be scripted.

Posted by Hippy Dave from San Francisco by way of Detroit on 06/11/09 at 12:13 PM ET

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About Mike Chen’s Hockey Blog

Mike Chen prides himself in being the only hockey writer integrating puck discussion with both Morrissey quotes and Star Wars references. Since 2004, he’s blogged about all things hockey and currently contributes to FoxSports.com, the Battle of California, and RotoRob.

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