Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
(Post 12181201)
Turned the channel when they upheld the Hawks goal.
And I see no reason to ever watch another NHL game under Gary Bettman's leadership.
They do not even attempt to mask the favoritism and the bias. It's in every part of the game from suspensions to penalties. With replay in place they'll just openly manipulate scores now.
I'm done with the NHL.
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Wish I could have done that, but I was 5 rows behind the Blues bench.
I've been watching hockey since I was 5 years old in the late 70's. I've never seen an officiating crew so obviously biased towards one team in a game before - much less in the playoffs.
Hawks 1st goal - VanRiemsdyk quits skating at the ****ing blue line, loafs back and the linesman actually calls icing. What you guys didn't see on the broadcast was the back referee discreetly waving his hands in front of his waist to try to signal the linesman to waive icing. When the whistle blew, the back ref dropped his head as if he knew the linesman blew it.
Of course, Hawks win the faceoff and they score on a shot that Elliott saves 10/10 times if he sees. Who scores? The guy who only received a 6 game suspension for deliberately hitting a player his the face with his stick.
Like I said, I've watched hockey since I was five, started playing when I was 10 - and I still am disgusted with the offsides call. All the talking heads are right, Lehtera's back skate was off the ice. What no one is bothering to mention is that because Lehtera was in the midst of his crossover to accelerate, his FRONT skate was off the ice as well, which means he never technically left the neutral zone. The league spent 6 ****ing minutes looking for anything they could find to overturn the call, and didn't bother to look at the front skate.
Of course, within minutes, Schwartz is chopped down in the slot - no call - and 91 takes a bad penalty. Then again, if the stick doesn't break I'd bet anything it doesn't get called. Watching the league this year, if they see a broken stick, they're sending someone to the box.
Blues just about kill yet another Hawks PP, and Shaw clearly interferes not once, but twice on Elliott. The rules on GI are as clear as day, no contact allowed. Of course, clear as day to the NHL is code for, "let's find a way to **** this up" and they do. There was damn near a riot last night.
I'm typically not one to complain about officiating, but the phantom icing that led to the first Chicago goal got me thinking.
The play that convinced me was the embellishment call on Fabbri. That's the most obviously biased call I've ever seen in a professional sporting event. How do you embellish getting cross checked from behind? And according to reports, the ref actually told Fabbri that he "folded like a cheap card table." Yeah, no shit. When you're 170 pounds soaking wet and get two handed in the kidneys by a guy weighing 220, you're going down. Negates a Blues PP.
Hitch is right - without actually saying it - we're playing 5-on-9 out there. The Cup Champs are going to get most 50/50 calls. Past Blues teams have flat out folded at times like this, I'd like to think this team is different - I guess we'll see over the next few nights.
2015-2016 NHL Offseason/Regular Season Thread
(https://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=293120)