Ducks Handed Referee Justice

OK, before I get started on my rant, the Ducks should have taken care of business last night. By the time the second period rolled around, they were gassed. The first period looked good, and even the beautiful goal scored by the RPG line seemed like the Ducks had things under control going into the second period. Even Lubo looked great, especially because after the last game against the Sharks, it looked like he was going to be on the DL with hard hit into the boards by one, Doug Murray. That's about all that was worth mentioning.

On to the real problem...the officiating. Now watching a game is much different live than on television. In fact, people often say, "I don't like watching hockey on TV; it's hard to follow." Agreed. Hockey on television is tough to watch mainly because the camera sometimes has a hard time following the action, and most of the time, the real beauty of the sport is seeing how a play starts at one end of the rink, and develops into a goal at the other. Its an emotional experience live, and sometimes that interferes with logic. So when the referees make a questionable call, and you have a unanimous crowd objecting along with you, it can be pretty convincing. Now add to that a playoff-like atmosphere, and the combination can be volatile.

There were two goals waved off in last nights game. One because of a kicking motion, which was not visible in the arena (not sure how it played on TV.) This morning I am reading that the call was actually goaltender interference.  *AHEM* Fine. Then the second goal waved off was determined to be a HAND PASS.        

Goalie interference? Hand pass? OK, if the referees want to make those calls, then be consistently good or bad. The other beef I have, deals with all the penalties that were handed out to the Ducks. There were six total penalties awarded to the Ducks, in comparison to the three awarded to Dallas. At one point, I believe three occurred in row, keeping the RPG line off the ice, and exhausting the Ducks penalty-kill units. And why were so many penalties handed out last night, of all nights? Its called referee justice. It exists in every sport and last night was an example of the NHL referees punishing Randy Carlyle for comments made about the questionable officiating in the previous nights game against the Sharks.

More recently, referee justice was exposed in the NBA, after convicted referee, Tim Donaghy admitted that NBA referees looked out for one another and would take care of "problem" players. (Video)

Last night was a prime example of the referee's punishing Carlyle for criticizing the NHL referees. That's why Randy and the Ducks were a bit more gentle and humble in the words they used in last nights post-game interviews.



The Ducks play the Sharks one more time this Wednesday night. It's going to be a better game than last night. And I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, clinching a playoff birth would be more apropos against San Jose. Whatever happens, don't say a word about the officiating, otherwise the referees are gonna get 'cha!!