A Late Thought

March 29, 2009   ·   Derek Felix   ·   Jump to comments

Before I called it a night, I wanted to just post a quick observation about yesterday’s tough Ranger loss to the Pens.

What was said yesterday wasn’t so much about the team they played but more to do with the standard of officiating in the NHL. There are just way too many instances where questionable calls are made that can affect the outcome. That’s not what hockey should be about. We enjoy the battles and yesterday, that was taken away probably wearing out the road club, who finally succumbed to one of the game’s best players.

Ever since they went to the two referee system, it’s this respective blogger’s opinion that the level of officiating has gone down. Are they pushing guys up who aren’t ready for primetime? Possibly. My biggest gripe is how they interpet rules. Much of the focus has been on eliminating the hooks and obstruction. Sometimes, I get the impression that’s all they look for which is wrong. What about more blatant infractions such as missed high sticks, slashes and cross checks? Aren’t those more dangerous?

Lately, the talk of eliminating fighting is classic overreaction to one very unfortunate incident that cost someone their life. It’s extremely sad but if they got rid of fights altogether, the sport would become that much more dangerous with sticks coming up even more leading to all sorts of chaos. The kind this sport doesn’t need. I agree with making helmets mandatory to protect fallen scrappers from hitting their heads on the ice.

I also believe they need to make certain every helmet is secure enough that it doesn’t just fall off a player while action is going. What if they get leveled minus the headgear into the boards? We could be talking serious concussion/injuries.

I care about the livelihood of hockey and want it to succeed. The league brass must be extra careful in assessing what needs to be done to improve the sport. So many times, they are tweaking rules looking to make it more geared towards offense. The power play rule with faceoffs moved up has been fine. It at least makes it harder for penalized teams.

However, by continuing to add more rules, it also makes a hockey fan question how far they’ll go to dumb it down in favor of a new audience. I don’t see most other sports inventing so many rules yearly outside of football where pretty soon, the quarterback will become off limits.

It’d be refreshing to see our sport just get things to the point where they don’t have to keep making changes. One can only hope.

Finally, the Penguins did nothing wrong to get their 4-3 win at Mellon Arena. They earned it thanks to a highly skilled player making a great play to score with under 10 minutes left. It just would’ve been nice if it didn’t feel so onesided in terms of the whistle blowing. Especially when they botch a call and miss another which could have provided the Rangers with a better chance to get it tied in what was a huge game.

When the players begin questioning why the penalties always seem to become an issue in Pittsburgh following the game, that’s a problem.

One which needs fixing moving forward.