Quote:
Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
The thing about NHL officiating is that I wouldn't use the word "bad".
This isn't a bunch of amateurs or idiot replacement refs who don't know the rules or can't follow the fast pace. Bad to me denotes a lack of talent or understanding.
It is the intentional inconsistency, game management, putting away the whistles in close games, late in a game, the entire playoffs, even up calls, being afraid to call too many penalties against one team, changing the standards of a call if a team is already shorthanded. The result is poor officiating but it isn't incompetence, it is by design.
And all of that is because the league refuses to deal with the issue. I'm not sure if it is because of the refs tight brotherhood and union, that the league doesn't want to rock the boat but along with the lack of transparency on ref ratings and evaluations, it seems to me that the NHL is totally fine not just allowing inconsistent reffing to continue, but to actively encourage it.
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This, 100%.
It's an internally inconsistent system and it's stupid. Everybody knows there are these unspoken rules that less is called in the 2nd half of a game and in the playoffs. But that leads to a situation where there is a penalty that just
has to be called even in spite of that rule, so the refs are faced with not calling the rulebook or not calling the "unspoken" rulebook, and one team and its fanbase inevitably feels like they got jobbed.
Bettman said that every fanbase feels like they are getting screwed by the refs means it is working. No, it means the
exact opposite, you dolt. There are two different rulebooks in the NHL and that is just ridiculous, and it means everybody feels like they're getting screwed because there is just way too much discretion involved in refereeing a game.
Call the god damned rulebook. Even if that means one team gets 16 penalties and the other gets two.
They've already thrown the "slashing crackdown" right out the window. Goalie interference is legendarily inconsistent.
No one should ever again utter the phrase "oh come on, you haven't been calling that all game!"
This has to be fixed.