Quote:
Originally Posted by BarDown
The almost unanimous opinions about this issue in this thread show that pretty well every fan sees NHL reffing for what it is.
I'm glad the league took action (they had to) but they are also hypocritical here. The make up call, game management, etc is the worst kept secret in hockey. The league is complicit as NHL games have rarely (never?) been properly or consistently officiated. Different standards for playoffs vs regular season, late in games vs first period etc. The NHL is only doing anything because he was stupid enough to say this while being mic'ed-up. Which is a special kind of stupid, but they have to know that all their refs do stuff like this all the time.
The gold standard of sports officiating for me is rugby. The concept of game management would be completely foreign to rugby officials. Any rugby fans - can you imagine a "make-up" offsides call? Or a rugby official just deciding to not call a foul because it's late in the game? The NHL could expect the same level of consistency from their referees... they just chose not to.
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In some ways you might say the Flames are the poster children of NHL hockey - the whole system is designed for every team to be 16th in the league. The Flames should get some kind of trophy for consistently being the ideal NHL franchise.
The points system designed to artificially bunch everyone closer together. The refereeing designed to ensure that every game is tied going into the last 5 minutes. The refusal to actually make telling rule changes that reflect that things have changed since 1952 (such as the size of players and goalies, in particular). The league basically tries to ensure that nobody is too good or too bad, which makes the whole thing boring to me. At least you used to have brawls to make it a spectacle, but now it's just corporate staff meetings on ice...
The idiot spoke the unsaid. Ideally for the NHL he was done in a month anyhow. But I am sure even if he had 2 or 3 years left, they would have fired him and just paid him his salary to ensure he kept his mouth shut and did not say something embarrassing like "Colin Campbell told me how to call games". Speaking of embarrassing, the fact that CC is still employed in a prominent and important capacity...