Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
Not sure if anyone was watching any of that game last night but McDavid drew another one of those penalties where he grabs the opponents stick. When are teams going to start sending film of this stuff to the NHL? It's garbage. He purposely reaches back with his hand when on the rush to grab the checking player's stick making it look like he's being interfered with. Last night the Kraken player even let go of his stick once McDavid grabbed it so show what was going on and he still got the only penalty.
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I call it the Henrik Sedin special. Bouwmeester used to chase him along the boards and use his stick to try and push the puck off Henrik's stick. As soon as he did that, Henrik would grab Bouwmeester's stick, wrap it around himself, and then lean back and fall down. Penalty every time.
Soccer became downright silly at times with the fake penalties and dives. Hockey started going that way with that Canucks' team with the the Sedins, Burrows and Kesler, but then it seemed to right itself a bit. Now it is going that way again.
NHL still does fine diving/embellishment. There is a private warning first (get rid of this warning - make it a public warning at least), and then for every subsequent offence, the player gets fined an incremental rate, and eventually the coach does as well. Thus far this season, there have been zero players who have embellished more than once. Obviously the incidents that EE saw McDived do is the same one from different angles (just ignore the different jerseys - from the different angles, trust me, it must be the same and only instance!).
Last season, there were only two players fined for diving - Mason Marchment and Max Fridman. Only 2. Again, I find this low number difficult to believe.
I guess as long as we don't see a return of those disgusting Sedin-led Canucks teams, I won't complain so much. That was downright disgusting. Sedins, Burrows and Kesler the human tumbleweed.
I want a real professional sports league to call their rules without bias. That's what makes sporting events legitimate. If someone hooks, slashes, holds, trips, etc., on McDavid, I have zero issue with it being called. However, if McDavid dives, call it. if McDavid hooks, starts acting like a tough guy again and starts roughing players up in scrums and then running away, call it. Call his offences. Just call the damn rules down the line as they should be. Don't call it, and we will see the reemergence of the Canucks Diving Team again, only this time it will be the Slimy Grease Flops.
In case I get called out for being bias, I really started hating Gaudreau's hand shaking when he got slashed - and they were more often than not from real contact. Sometimes they weren't, and it made me hate it even more, but he got it out of his game, thankfully. I can't stand diving on any team, including the one I cheer for. However, when it is the best player in the world doing it, it becomes even more disgusting. Here is a guy with godly ability, and he still cheats. Kids emulate the stars in this league. It becomes extra-disgusting if you ask me the more you think about it.
/McDiver diving rant