Thanks NHL

March 28, 2009   ·   Derek Felix   ·   Jump to comments

I don’t really know what to say after watching that. Congratulations NHL! Your programmed referees did an outstanding job calling every penalty on our team against the league’s chosen one.

I’m not going to say the penalties decided it because our penalty killers were so good that somehow the chosen team didn’t score. It felt like they had 100 power plays.

However, there is really no excuse for the garbage call you made up tossing Colton Orr out of the game because a clean hit bloodied Mark Eaton against the glass before an icing. How in the world could you call that a major and toss Orr for it? It didn’t even look like a penalty. It was just a hockey play with a hard nosed guy finishing his check.

I guess that’s what you get in this soft NHL. Unlike other fans, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. I don’t think any team gets the benefit of the doubt so much that it decides games. Lately, I’ve seen instances where there were very questionable calls where you wondered what the stripes were thinking. Unfortunately, that was indeed the case in that third period ruining a good competitive hockey game where two teams were battling for playoff positioning.

The invented Orr major and the turn the other cheek of an obvious minor penalty on Pascal Dupuis in which he took down Ranger goalscorer Nik Antropov (so obvious that Mellon Arena groaned) with Pittsburgh up a goal late made me feel helpless as a hockey fan. That my team couldn’t overcome such one sided officiating. Sure. They got their one quality chance late with our overrated goalie on the bench when Antropov was setup pointblank and robbed by a real goalie Marc Andre Fleury.

It just wasn’t enough thanks to how the third period was called. That is what this pansy league has become. Pretty soon fighting will become extinct. I guess so too will rugged aggressive physical hockey that most diehards love.

I can’t help but feel disappointed with the direction the game is going. Who cares about the playoffs which were put in serious jeopardy thanks to the most brutal remaining schedule in the league. I’ve come to understand one thing from today. A hardworking team like the Rangers has no chance to do anything.

This league rewards skill and that was on display today with Sidney Crosby doing whatever he wanted before beating our fake netminder who cares more about his image than what happens on the ice. A Mike Richter he’ll never be.

A team can only fight through so much. I saw my team try like Hell despite all the trips to the penalty box including an egregious error by the refs who forgot to inform John Tortorella to put a player in to serve Orr’s major penalty. Remarkably, after they’d killed the 2:56 off the clock following another invented call on Chris Kunitz (phantom hook), due to no one being in the box, the Rangers were forced to play a man short until the next whistle eventually icing the puck.

My Dad said he’d never seen anything like it and neither have I. It spoke volumes about what’s wrong with this game. How could they make such a mistake? What if they’d gotten scored on? Do they even give these guys standardized tests they must pass just to become NHL officials? I am left scratching my head.

There’s another game Monday versus the close Hudson rival. We’ll be going to it. Why do I feel as if it suddenly isn’t that important?

Sports are supposed to be fun. Today’s game wasn’t unless you were a Penguin fan.