My unpopular opinion is the NHL refereeing is very good.
Very few mistakes are made and many that are only detectable in multi-angle super-slow motion.
First it is so difficult to make so many split-second decisions in a high-speed collusion sport it is impressive that they get the vast majority of them exactly right.
Second the above multi-angle, super slow point.
Third, I like the human element. Mistakes are the main cause of things happening in the game. Like goals and stuff. Mostly player mistakes but very occasionally referee/linesman mistakes. Perfect reffing isn't going to happen and I don't want to see it.
Fourth, good teams play and win games in a way (dominance, resilience etc.) that a reffing error rarely has a make or break impact on the game result.
Fifth, it all tends to even out in the end. What goes around comes around. Karma is playing the long game and so on.
Sixth, "the refs have it in for us" or "we always are on the receiving end of all the bad calls" are among the most easily disproved excuses/rationalizations out there. Side note, if I was a ref after the Wideman incident I would have hit the Flames hard and Wideman really hard in my decision making but the so-called 'Wideman effect' was truly negligible.
I could make a longer list but I feel I've made my point. I'm no Ron 'too biased in the other direction' MacLean apologist here. I am just super tired of this non-stop complaining about the refereeing. It's good, very good.
I have some issues with the 2019-20 Calgary Flames as they are average, very average, but I am giving them some more time to work that out.
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