Last night, as I sat at the bar of my favorite watering hole, I was watching the Calgary Flames get their ass handed to them by the Washington Capitals. The flames looked extinguished for much of the contest, but the one play that inspired me to pull out the old keyboard and start typing was a Calgary goal that was called off for Goalie interference.
This non goal is what pisses me off about the NHL and their lack of consistency, or rather their habit of consistently being inconsistent. Alex Tanguay fired a shot to the back of the net that was waived off because Jarome Iginla was called for goaltender interference. This was total Bullshit! Why do I say this? Well the rule is that the goalie must have a fair shot at making the save. And in this case, he did. Iginla did fall into the goalie, but by the time the shot was made, the Capital's net minder was free, and was able to move unimpeded to attempt to make the save, which he in fact did.
Last week, the game winning goal scored by Toronto enforcer Colton Orr, was pure goalie interference. It was textbook stuff. Orr side tackled the goalie with a ref standing right there watching. The goal was not even reviewed. I am a Leaf fan to the core, as you can probably guess from this blog, but when I see one blatant call not made, and another clear case of a good goal being disallowed, I get a bit worked up.
That one goal would not have changed the outcome of the 7-2 ass stomping the Caps were dishing out, but the principle of fair officiating is what is important.
This extends past good goals and bad goals, but all season long there have been calls that make no sense at all. This new blindside rule is one that is getting a lot of attention. Players, coaches, and even the refs themselves all seem to have no real solid grasp on the the rules. We have seen clean shoulder to shoulder hits get called as head shots. We have seen head shots get no calls at all. Slashes that not been called, and on and on.
The more I see, the more upset I get. There are 4 guys on the ice for reason, yet so much is missed, or allowed to happen that shouldn't. With technology the way it is, someone could easily be streaming the live game on a laptop and showing the refs what they missed. Sure there is a delay, but its still faster then what they do now. I also mention that because there was a goal review last week, I can't remember the game, but I remember it taking over 10 minutes because they were waiting on the TV Network's feed because they had better angles on the goal then the NHL had. So they do actually use the TV networks feeds form time to time.
Maybe one day the game will be fair for all teams and all games, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
At the end of the day, we are all fans of teams that have gotten screwed at some point in time, and despite who we root for, that is a common reality that binds us all together. I feel your pain Calgary.
That's all for now...
Till next time
Stay Angry!
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