I want to be clear; the refs didn’t cost the Fighting Sioux the game on Saturday night. That is not the intention of this blog post; my point of this blog post is to hammer home a point that the leagues officials are incompetent and there needs to be a change in the WCHA. Here is a very clear video of the alleged CFB penalty at the end of Saturday's game. Please tell me I am seeing things and that a WCHA on ice official didn’t stop a potential scoring attempt to call a penalty on a legal hip check. Second, Hextall didn’t check the Badger player it looks like Malone did.
Oh yeah the email address for the WCHA Commissioner is bmccleod@du.com
It looks like he hip checks him from behind. Now, I don't know the rule book and am not going to bother looking...but does it say it has to be a cross check or anything? If not, technically he hit the guy via his hip from behind and sent him head first into the boards/ice.
ReplyDeleteWhile you and I will agree that the refs suck, you can't call it both ways. One post you're arguing about the refs letting dirty play go on and people getting hurt...but then the next you're arguing about calls like this. It was a close one and probably the right call given the fall of the WI player.
You can't have it both ways Goonster!!
Amy, Hextall didn't even touch the Wisconsin player it was Malone. It was a legal hit. I am for calling the dirty stuff but penalizing someone for a legal hit is a bit much.
ReplyDeleteOk, I don't know your players numbers and the video is far away. So, they got the wrong kid but I still think the call was right.
ReplyDeleteTake off your green glasses and watch it again. He hit him from behind and the WI player went down, head first to the boards.
Amy I watched the video on my TV as well about 10 times it was a legitimate hip check. We are going to agree to disagree because I saw it in real time at the game as well and it was horrible call.
ReplyDeleteBy the way the officating in this series was brutal, and yes it was Anderson again.
ReplyDeleteI think we can all agree that Anderson sucks and needs to be fired. Luckily I don't think we've had him yet. I would guess that some sort of complaint had to have been filed after we had him so much last year. That was total BS!
ReplyDeleteAs far as the hit, it looks like a hip check from behind on the camera...so we'll have to agree to disagree cuz I do think it was a CFB from what the camera shows.
Also, I'm not buying your "I saw it in person" theory because I've seen where your seats are. Being so far from the ice I think it's safe to say that your argument there is null and void! :)
Greg Shepherd was interviewed during one of the intermissions of the SCSU-CC radio broadcast. It was pretty embarassing.
ReplyDeletePulverized Concepts any summary of what the head bufoon had to say? Did he tell the host basically that you have to murder a guy on the ice to get anything other than a 1 game suspension. That is what McLown said when he was interviewed in Denver...
ReplyDeleteAnderson didn't even know who supposedly checked the guy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with LGM (not going to look it up either but no, I do not think it has to be a cross check.) The Badger didn't turn into the board and he was clearly checked from behind into the boards. If you want to get rid of dirty play, this is a call that has to be made, because it is a slippery slope. It was not as dangerous a play as many other examples but it's not a legal hit under the current rules. This is the call the way the league wants it to be called. If years later you are incensed about the Bina hit, you have to remember that this rule and its application are in place because of that hit, and you should support it.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell who it is because I watched it in little mode, not full screen. Getting the player wrong is a problem, yes. That happened to Aaron Marvin/Chris Hepp as well. It happens more than we may notice.
I'm cool if you're biased in favor of your own team (and also in favor of Bemidji), because I am, too, my precious Bulldogs can do no wrong ever; but own it! Revel in it! Make no apologies. We're bloggers, not sportswriters, and are allowed to have a bias.
Listen, even if you could watch a replay and find some infraction, it was a very, very marginal call with 16 seconds left. It's not right, but we've all seen people get totally mugged with under two minutes left with no calls. I believe it was even originally called a 5 min major...at least that's the way they announced it during the game. WEAK call any way you look at it.
ReplyDeleteEveryone's frustrated due to the total lack of consistency in calls. The Denver / Sioux game was horrendous, Ben Blood goes to the box if he looks at people the wrong way, the Gophers (Flynn) play harder after the whistle than during the game with no consequences...ever. Fans just don't want the league and refs influencing the game like this.
Dan it wasn't a penalty it was a legitimate hip check. Andersson as ussual wasn't even watching the play.
ReplyDeleteI was waiting for someone to turn this into everyone is picking on UND while those damn gophers can do what they want, thanks "Dan."
ReplyDeleteCharles no one is making that charge, a lot of fans are sick and tired of the officials in this game acting like a bunch of keystone cops or morons on skates. Funny you should bring that up your team got screwed by a bad call by the ref as well. I don’t know if you heard or not?
ReplyDeletePeople are confusing what Malone did with what Hextall did. Hextall is the player who comes flying down the boards. He goes between the boards and the Wisconsin player. The Badger didn't even go down as a result of the contact, which was fairly minimal by hockey standards. There was no checking for behind. Nobody was "drilled" into the boards.
ReplyDeleteAnderson is looking directly at the play and doesn't make any call. His arm goes up after Malone takes out the Badger player. If there as a penalty on the play, it was on Malone, not Hextall.
Charles, if you are seriously happy about the quality of officiating in the WCHA then good for you. I'm not the typical homer, I enjoy good quality hockey period. If I can't watch a Sioux game, I'll find a WCHA game somewhere and enjoy it. What we've seen the last couple years is refs influencing the flow of the game and I don't like it.
ReplyDeleteAs for your "damn gophers" comment...it's pretty accurate. I have no respect for a team that wants to hit harder after the whistle than they do during the game. In my opinion they have a pure talent to recruit princesses that wont skate or work to their potential. Sad.
In the last two seasons we've seen poor calls between Denver/Wisconsin, MN/Mankato, at Alaska Ankorage, Denver/Sioux....on and on and on. Are you seriously satisfied with this?
Dan I agree with your list and add the debacle from UMD on Saturday night when the puck left the ice and came back on and none of the bafoons on the ice caught it. I have talked to many people include a few UMD fans that said the puck left the ice. That is incompetence.
ReplyDeleteI actually thought after Randy Schmidt was fired for his two bad calls that the WCHA would clean up it's act but they haven't...
ReplyDeleteGoon, I am not complaining about the officiating in the BSU-MSU serious, I know others have. If you are referring to Read's 5 minute elbow major, I don't know if it was worth 5 minutes, but the penalty was deserved because Read was the second guy to come in and hit the MSU player and he left his feet. It was totally unecessary hit by their best player and it put them in a terrible position. He needs to play smarter than that. That penalty was a major reason, but not the only one, why they lost that game. If their PK had showed up at all that game, maybe they wouldn't have lost, but they were not going to win that game, they were not playing well.
ReplyDeleteAs for officiating in general, there is no good solution to any of this. If you fire all these "bad" refs and bring in new ones, I will bet you the results will be the same. Everyone complains when players are hit too hard and everyone complains when penalties are called after players are hit too light. So what is the deal here? Should they just be calling penalties on players when there is a loud noise or someone crashes into the boards or fails to get up right away? Isn't the rule something along the lines of any check from behind? So regardless of whether the player is hit hard or falls or gets hurt, if he is hit from behind and COULD be injured, should the penalty be called? Any player could be hurt by any hit on the ice so where is the line here. I think the biggest question is, if this penalty or one like it is called but your team still wins, do you still care so much? So if Hextall still gets this penalty but the Sioux win this game, do you still care Goon? Maybe Hextall got called because he is earning a reputation in the league as a hard hitter and they want him to tone it down. Who knows, this is part of the game now, more penalties to try and create more offense. The refs aren't perfect but none of you could do any better. Maybe you wouldn't have made this call, but you would miss five others so it all evens up. You want them to stop calling penalties, then get ready to enjoy a bunch of 2-1 ECAC games.
And I really don't care who hits who after the whistle, it is part of the game. And if you don't like that the gophers did it to one of your players once upon a time, one of your players should have stepped up and beaten Flynn's ass to a pulp and taken the DQ cause I bet he would think twice before hitting after the whistle again.
ReplyDeleteClassy Charles. Didn't a certain Gopher literally run away last year when someone actually dropped the gloves. I believe it was Lucia hiding like a little girl. Yeah, it's part of the game, typically mastered by teams that can't get results while the clock actually clicks.
ReplyDeleteAll I want is consistency in the calls throughout the game...PERIOD. Right now we have refs that are inconsistent, making serious errors, that are actually impacting the results. Don't defend this. You are right, I couldn't do any better, I'd miss calls... but it's also not my JOB! These guys get paid to do it right and they are not.
As for Hextall getting "the call" because he's getting a reputation as a hard hitter and they want him to tone it down...that's bs. I want a dozen guys just like him on the ice. If people don't like the hard hitting of hockey (while the game is actually being played), let them play softball.
Charles I talked to a really good source on the BSU game in question and the refs blew the call from what I was told.
ReplyDeleteHitting someone hard and legally is not a reason to call a penalty. Hitting someone from behind is.
I return to what Pat said, "There was no checking for behind. Nobody was "drilled" into the boards."
I think I am on record as saying that.
Charles, point of clarification, when I say that the ref blew the call, I meant to say is that it wasn't a 5 minute major or a hit to the head but it probably was a 2minute penalty. Like I said I had a good conversation with someone on this play from a good hockey mind.
ReplyDeleteI think there was definitely a hit from behind in that clip...it just wasn't Hextall that did it. They got the wrong guy.
ReplyDeleteSeems to be happening a lot to Hextall this year (See the Denver series). Must be his reputation haunting him. Yeah he is a trash talker and he trash talked Denver into about 40 penalty minutes last year, but I wouldn't really say he is a cheap player. His reputation as a dirty player is undeserved, he is a physical player who likes to talk. That shouldn't make him the default player to go to the box when the refs screw up and can't make a correct call.
Dan If I was an official I wonder if I would be able to ref my former colleges hockey games?
ReplyDeleteI guess the lesson is that the officiating isn't going to get any better and that is out of our control. We must control and continue to build upon our season. A lot of our losses have been due to lapses in our own end. Let's play Fighting Sioux Hockey with fast skating and hard hitting for 60 minutes a night and shove it down the throats of everyone who thinks the world should be a kinder, gentler place. They can all go watch gopher games!
ReplyDeleteI didn't say he was a dirty player at all. I think Hextall is a great player and I agree I would rather watch him that a bunch of pansies, but I was suggesting that maybe he was being targeted on that penalty.
ReplyDeleteThe BSU penalty might have been BS, I don't know, I only heard the call, not saw it. But a good team doesn't let one bad call or ten bad calls lose the game for them. Their aweful penalty kill and ineffective powerplay are what lost BSU their game with MSU. And while people think that Read's penalty was more of a 2 minute minor, anytime you hit someone and it looks like it is from behind, you are putting yourself in a position to get called for a 5 minute major. It sucks but the game is called at the discretion of four referees that don't see everything and overlook some things too. He was the second BSU player to hit the MSU player which was unecessary and deserved the penalty.
Dan, I am pretty sure that UND players have hit people after the whistle before and I bet it even happened last weekend since it happens in EVERY game.
And no, it is not your job to be a ref, but how would you like thousands of people watching you do your job and then criticize you and claim that you missed doing tons of things and point out your flaws every time you do it, probably wouldn't make you feel too good and you probably wouldn't like people like me that have never done your job to tell you how to do it. They are human and the only reason it seems like it is such a recent trend that the refs are bad is because video of games, blogs, etc. has made the information more readily available. One penalty shouldn't make the difference if the team is good enough. UND had 7 powerplays and Wisconsin had 8 and they score on three and UND on two. I will bet you if the reverse happens in this series, no one is complaining that Wisconsin got screwed.
It would be great if games were called perfectly, but I imagine that will only happen if your team wins every week.
And when is the blame for some of these losses and bad games going to fall on Eidsness and at times the shotty defense.
Charles, I didn't mean to imply that you personally thought Hextall was dirty but that I think he is generally perceived that way by other schools' fans and referees.
ReplyDeleteCharles, we're probably all closer than we think on these issues. I totally agree...The Sioux are responsible for their own losses, especially the defensive lapses. That's what we can control. But making excuses for the lack of professionalism across the league is inexcusable.
ReplyDeleteYou said that "maybe Hextall was being targeted" and then went on to make excuses about the pressures of being a ref, give them a break, their human, blah, blah, blah. Fans are not excited to pay hard earned money to see quality players that bring excitement to the game get "targeted". Chirping, and getting under the skin of the opposition is not an infraction and does not deserve "targeting". In my opinion, Ben Blood is also being "targeted" and it's crap. I'd say the same thing for any other player on any other team that this happens to. It's not what we want to see and that's why people are going off on it.
Finally, if you call a penalty with seconds left, you'd better be sure you got it right. They didn't, that is the end of the story! If you can't take the pressure to at least call the last two minutes of a tight game right, you are in the wrong profession. I refuse to make excuses for that.
The Sioux and Hakstol will work on their game without excuses. This we know. As a fan I typically call a sloppy game what it was, but I also expect league officials to do their job and they are not. If you want sympathy for them, find it from some bunny huggin liberal, not me. You watch the Marvin clip where he chases Genoway from end to end and you'll see a true CFB...and guess what? The db on the ice turns his head and ultimately puts the wrong player in the box for 2 minutes on what could have been a career ending hit. This in not what we want as fans. You are defending incompetence!
Goon --
ReplyDeleteI know it's really easy to rip the officials when you have a replay and you have a high view of the play, but you need to take something into account.
That's that the game looks totally different when you're on the ice. What appears to be a clean hip check on that high shot might very well look like a dirty hit at ice level.
As for the net controversy, it's kind of the same thing. If you think it's easy to always see the puck hit the netting, you're wrong. In my five years of calling games, I've seen officials in all sorts of different venues miss net contact.
It sucks, but it's a part of life. It's simply not something that's always easy to see at ice level.
We have flaws in the WCHA's officiating system, but I think people go way overboard in criticizing these guys sometimes. Myself included.
I see what your saying Bruce but the officials in the WCHA are the worst in college hockey and it's a mind set that starts with the leadership...
ReplyDeleteI will give Shep are marco credit because they are the best in the WCHA unforunately they were in duluth last weekend.
I'm a hockey east fan (UMass) and I thought the HE officiating was terrible. I watched the end of this game on FSN at my house and clearly this was a legal hipcheck as you said. I don't know how LGM can claim it was from behind because clearly it was from the side, and although the player fell awkwardly (maybe to embellish the play) it was clearly still clean.
ReplyDeleteI think you are right in saying it was Brad Malone as Hextall can be seen near the blocked shot. As he was being taken to the box he looked like he had no clue what was happening. Maybe this is the WCHA's way of making up for its blown call in the UW-DU game a couple of years back. Boy, after seeing this, I am glad UMass usually has to deal with only Hockey East refs, cuz clearly the ones in the WCHA suck!