[Dion]

Canucks: Officiating conspiracies? Stop whining and just shut up

What matters is the Canucks have a loathsome reputation for antagonizing referees, both on the ice and off it, and it seems to have put a target on their backs and it’s one they can’t seem shake.

It sure hasn’t helped them. Instead, the more they complain, the more there is to complain about, creating a vicious cycle they have to end and the only way to do that is silence. A lot of it.

For the Canucks, none of this should matter. The reality is they didn’t lose because of calls. They lost because they weren’t as good as the Sharks.

Try and blame the officials during their locker cleanout today and it only fortifies the narrative that the whiners are at it again, and this time they’re complaining about calls in a sweep.

Off camera in San Jose, Ryan Kesler shared with TSN a telling story about his reputation as a diver. He worked diligently last year to change his image. He kept his head down instead of snapping it back. He didn’t bewail calls on the ice. But when the playoffs started he saw Dustin Brown’s act. He viewed him as a player trying to do everything he could to do win and thought he needed to do the same.


He admitted he started diving again. On the first one, all the work he had put in rehabilitating his reputation was gone. Poof.

http://www.theprovince.com/sports/ho...415/story.html