Why Are NHL Officiating So BAD???

[Scenicdrive]

Remember Brett Hull scored the goal with his skate on the crease incidence which caused the Sabres a chance of winning the Stanley Cup (Stars vs Sabres Stanley Cup Final)? Monday night Sabres’ game against the Canucks saw referee Kerry Fraser waved off a goal scored by the Sabres via a cross checking penalty on Sabres forward Gaustad. Replay clearly show the plug crossed the goal line before the net being jarred loose by a Canucks player. This player appeared to fall into the net himself instead of being crosschecked by Gaustad into the net. Still the ‘let me show you who is boss’ referee Fraser insisted on the penalty despite the replay showing otherwise. So the Sabres were robbed of a goal which clearly affected the outcome of the game.

http://buffalonews.typepad.com/

“11:37 p.m.: Well, that was an interesting final minute. Henrik Tallinder was called for hooking with 48.7 seconds left. Kelser hits the post after the faceoff, and three Sabres head the other way. Tim Connolly drops a pass to Chris Butler, with Paul Gaustad driving the net. Butler's shot gets past Luongo just as a Canucks defender hits the net off the magnets.
Fraser waves the goal off immediately, with the Sabres banging their sticks on the ice. The refs go to the phone for a video conference with Toronto, with replays showing the puck crossing the goal line before the net moves. Fraser announces it doesn't matter. He called a penalty on Gaustad for cross-checking, wiping off any potential goal.
Lindy Ruff hops to front and swears, but the Canucks have a five-on-three. There will be 1:12 left on the two-man advantage when the third period resumes. It's 2-1 Canucks, who have a 20-19 shot edge.”

Then about two weeks ago, The Canucks’ forward Burrows was accusing referee Stephane Auger of making pay back calls against him.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news?slug=ap-burrows-referee&prov=ap&type=lgns

There seem too many instances of bad officiating from all these NHL games. As it happened so often, the NHL top executives invariably sided with the referees. Why let these moronic referees act like kingpins and lawless thugs??? It just make NHL look really bad.

 

[Hard Idle]

There is too much officiating and the officials have way to much to do with deciding outcomes. That was bound to result tension, frustration and resentment form players which in turn results in officials who are defensive, imperious, teritorial and also stressed out.

By expanding the intervention envelope of officials, the NHL has them making much more calls... but the limitations of one or even two officials considering the pace of the game and inevitable human imperfection and what happens is for every call they make, there are bound to be two or three very simillar calls they should have made but didn't.

I can understand how this leads to feelings of resentment, frustration and vicitimization by teams and players during a game or a span of games (especially if a number of things seems to always go the other way).

I can also understand how the referees become defensive as the extra responsibilities are bound to generate an increase in mistakes or oversights which tjhey can't really do anything about. The more they have to do, the more they get challenged. They have to make quick decisions, appear decisive and assertive which often means defending mistakes, sending messages, trying to remain authoratative. They probably dont understand why players and coaches don't just take it up with thier own GM's & Owners who are ultimately responsible for the directives which the referee's are instructed to follow as best they can.

 

[blackrock13]

They want to try out for the WWE?

 

[fcuk]

All politics. Everything sporting event is fixed except for golf. Everthing is politics from behind.

 

[blackrock13]

All politics. Everything sporting event is fixed except for golf. Everthing is politics from behind.

Well this just nuts, but I'll just let the betters/gamblers among us deal with this one. If you feel this way, what the hell are you doing wasting your time in the sort of forum.

 

[Lapper]

what auger did to the canucks was a disgrace. it costed the canucks a win. burrows embarrassed the crap out of auger earlier in the year but that's no excuse to do what he did. too bad burrows wasn't miked up pre-game so there would be proof that auger said he was going to get even.

on the bright side, the canucks have gotten every break in the world from the refs since the incident. bad calls on the other teams. just ask edmonton who got totally screwed by the refs last week, with bettman and shanahan at the game. that sabres incident with fraser was a fiasco as well. it costed buffalo the typing goal at the time. as the announcers said, it was as if fraser looked for anything he could to disallow that sabres goal. the refs know the canucks are in the spotlight now and they're not going to make a wrong call against them.

toronto gets to see first hand ref bias saturday when the canucks come to town. the canucks have won 6 in a row for a reason. go canucks go!!!

 

[fcuk]

Wayne Gretzky high sticks Doug Gilmour in the face in front of Kerry Fraser and the all of sudden Fraser in not a referee. How about the NBA referee who was caught sports gambling. How about Bret Hull's in the goal crease goal in most crucial game.
Boxing and soccer are the two the the number 1 fixed sports in the world. It's just like buying scratch tickets were they aren't any winning tickets and the gov't offiicals who organized it take all the money. Did you forget the recent scadal. How about
e-health were billions of dollars missing and stolen from a bunch of white collar trashes. Did you forget gov't doesn't lose out on anything. They have their hands everywhere because the have the right to.
Everything is a business and there's lots of money involved.

I'm on this board for the same reason your on this board and that's to express our opinons. Sports are very unattractive if sports gambling wasn't involve. Just imagine if all types of sports gambling in this world was banned. We wouldn't
be seeing that many milliionaire sports athletes and the federal goverments would be a alot less poorer due to the lack of income.

 

[Hard Idle]

Don't forget disallowing Martin Gelina's OT Cup winner in '04 to give the right team another chance to win...

 

[21pro]

The game is getting too fast for the officials to keep up.

 

[blackrock13]

Wayne Gretzky high sticks Doug Gilmour in the face in front of Kerry Fraser and the all of sudden Fraser in not a referee. How about the NBA referee who was caught sports gambling. How about Bret Hull's in the goal crease goal in most crucial game.
Boxing and soccer are the two the the number 1 fixed sports in the world. It's just like buying scratch tickets were they aren't any winning tickets and the gov't offiicals who organized it take all the money. Did you forget the recent scadal. How about
e-health were billions of dollars missing and stolen from a bunch of white collar trashes. Did you forget gov't doesn't lose out on anything. They have their hands everywhere because the have the right to.
Everything is a business and there's lots of money involved.

I'm on this board for the same reason your on this board and that's to express our opinons. Sports are very unattractive if sports gambling wasn't involve. Just imagine if all types of sports gambling in this world was banned. We wouldn't
be seeing that many milliionaire sports athletes and the federal goverments would be a alot less poorer due to the lack of income.

So you've named two sports that are known for fixes. That's a far cry from 'ALL' sports. There have been individuals and some small syndicate actions that have come to the surface over the years, but it's a long way from your 'ALL' statement.

 

[nottyboi]

the whole league is a circus, why worry about officiating. It's pretty much WWF on ice!!! lol

 

[blackrock13]

the whole league is a circus, why worry about officiating. It's pretty much WWF on ice!!! lol

So I'm guessing you don't go to the games then; their loss. Stick it to them. Make them beg for you bucks.

 

[spankingman]

You would think with the TWO Ref System they would get more calss RIGHT!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Yea , I would agree the game is way too fast for a mere human to catch all the quick little ticky tacky stuff that goes on out there and it's a million times easier to lean back in an easy chair and type in sanctimonious complaints about referees on a sports web chat site than it is to be in an NHL arena and keep a game going smoothly as a referee.

It's hard to believe; but, even if the talented scenicdrive and spankingman themselves were out there refereeing the games personally, people would still make comments on sports sites and radio call in shows about how stupid and incompetent they are due to all the blown or non calls made.
Being in that hot seat is not an easy job.

 

[dj1470]

I don't think the offciating is bad in itself. I think the NHL bigwigs have really put refs in a bind with their memos and edicts as to how they want them to call games. I think refs are confused, as well as players and coaches. If you put in a crap position it's hard to make everyone happy. Also, I think there are far too many new refs with little experience at the pro level. It's not their fault they are just newbies and newbies always make dumb mistakes. Take the no penalty shot call on Spezza last night vs the Habs. Really should have been a penalty shot. It was a rulebook definition of what a penalty shot should be but the ref was somewhat out of position to make that call. Just a rookie mistake. You wouldn't have found Fraser or Myers or Van Hellemond out of position like that in a game. It wasn't a bad call it was just fundamentally bad all around.

 

[dj1470]

All politics. Everything sporting event is fixed except for golf. Everthing is politics from behind.

Really? You don't think the PGA wants Tiger (or another American) to win every tournament he is in? Please.

 

[Scenicdrive]

The game is getting too fast for the officials to keep up.

Yes and No. Yes in that the human eyes are not always quick enough to keep track of what happened on ice. No in that technology such as instand replay and communicating with Toronto central command for review always help to justify or correct the calls on ice. One of the failings of referees are that they are not fair enough to correct their bad calls upon instant replay or review. They are supposed to be fair and impartial, aren't they???

 

[OddSox]

I don't think the offciating is bad in itself. I think the NHL bigwigs have really put refs in a bind with their memos and edicts as to how they want them to call games. I think refs are confused, as well as players and coaches. If you put in a crap position it's hard to make everyone happy. Also, I think there are far too many new refs with little experience at the pro level. It's not their fault they are just newbies and newbies always make dumb mistakes. Take the no penalty shot call on Spezza last night vs the Habs. Really should have been a penalty shot. It was a rulebook definition of what a penalty shot should be but the ref was somewhat out of position to make that call. Just a rookie mistake. You wouldn't have found Fraser or Myers or Van Hellemond out of position like that in a game. It wasn't a bad call it was just fundamentally bad all around.

Out of position? Where was he - up in the 300's? Or maybe he stepped out for a quick pint?

 

[fcuk]

Give me break ! The Pheonix Coyotes couldn't score a goal last year and after all of the Jim Balsillie fiasco about him saving the team and moving it to Hamilton to the point were Pheonix is winning every home game this year and finishing first.
NHL bought the team and are fixing the games to support it in order the franchise to survive. What a coincidence !

 

[blackrock13]

Give me break ! The Pheonix Coyotes couldn't score a goal last year and after all of the Jim Balsillie fiasco about him saving the team and moving it to Hamilton to the point were Pheonix is winning every home game this year and finishing first.
NHL bought the team and are fixing the games to support it in order the franchise to survive. What a coincidence !

It's ok people, it's set, we can all save our money, spend more time with our SO or kids and PM fcuk for his prediction as to who's going to win. Apparently it's in the bag.