"Let the Players Decide the Game"

Well, it's May, the playoffs continue, and having a go at Bobo the Clown Cole felt so good, I'm going to return to hockey. This time to those cranial nullities, whose preferred team drew a bucketload of penalties, who whinge on about letting the players decide the game. Jeebus but that pisses me off. Take, for instance, last night's Pens/Caps game, in which, I read, the Caps took 6 penalties in a row. Sure as sunrise in the east, some fan made the traditional whine on the CBC site. Let's look at it.

Games have rules. Games have arbiters of the rules. In hockey, on the ice, these arbiters are called linesmen and referees. Since the Linesmen's job is a lot more, umm, black and white, than the referees, and since their mistakes do not generally turn games and series, they take a lot less flak than the refs. Let's let them be.

Included in the referee's job is the task of monitoring play to ensure that play is generally kept within the bounds of the rules. If a player steps outside the bounds, the referee assesses a penalty of varying degrees of severity. Now, for the slow students in the back, we're going to go over that again, it's important.

The referee monitors play to ensure that play is generally kept within the bounds of the rules. He cannot do so perfectly, for there are 12 players on the ice. These 12 players are generally quite large, and in motion, many of them quite fast motion.

In addition, the ref generally concentrates on what is happening with the puck. The puck carrier is the most frequently fowled player, and one of the ref's duties is to determine if a goal has been scored and, if so, if it was legal. Thus, the referee will miss things, and he has a partner. Even with two, they are men, and fallible, and cannot see everything that occurs.

Much of that is an aside. The basic thing to concentrate on here, and I can't stress enough how important it is, is this; the referee monitors play to ensure that play is generally kept within the bounds of the rules.

If the ref determines a player has stepped outside the bounds of the rules, he assesses a penalty.

Did you get the order there? Player breaks rules, ref gives penalty. Again, for the slow students, (1) PLAYER BREAKS RULES, (2) REF GIVES PENALTY. The first is a pre-condition of the second. Or are you saying the refs were just making shit up?

How, exactly, is it, if the ref is doing his job by assessing a penalty, that he, rather than the players, is determining the outcome of the game? If the player didn't break the fucking rules, he wouldn't be going to the sin bin. So, Washington, in taking 6 penalties in a row, determined the outcome by...wait for it...taking 6 penalties in a row.

If you think the calls were chintzy, well, were the same calls being made against both teams? If not, complain to the league, you're right, the ref tilted the ice. But...I've listened to a lot of post game bitch sessions in which both sides thought the refs were calling bullshit on their team, while the other side got away with murder. Hell, I see this in me.

When watching a game I personally do not see how anything that does not put a Detroit Red Wing in the hospital can be considered a penalty. Yet, for some unfathomable reason, there are those out there who consider the Ducks to be the dirtier team. It's possible, while watching those dirty fucks in red and white, my personal blinding, searing, red hot hatred for the Wings is overcoming my general dislike of the Ducks, colouring my perceptions and overpowering my sense of justice and fair play. But I digress.

If the calls were chintzy and made against both teams, then your beef isn't with the refs, it's with the league. Specifically with the Board of Governors (i.e. the owners) who set the standards for rules enforcement, and Colin Campbell, the league's chief disciplinarian, who oversees the enforcement.