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TONY GALLAGHERS ARTICLE


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Anyone see tony's article today in the province about burrows being a target by the refs ? He is basically saying that the refs are making biased decisions based on their personal feelings , and that its a disservice to the sport and the job of reffing .. if someone could post it that would be great .. im really crap with technology .. thanks guys

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Here you go...

You saw it once again Tuesday night in Columbus. Seriously, you see it almost every game.

We speak of Alex Burrows standing in front of the net trying to do what lots of other players in the league do all the time: screen the goalie and try for a deflection on any shot he might be able to get his stick on.

But with Burrows there’s a difference, and every defenceman in the league seems to know it. You see, it’s perfectly alright to cross-check him as hard as you like, perhaps punch him in the head or the face if you like, and there’s virtually no chance the referee will give you a penalty.

Evidently, the rules go right out the window when it comes to this guy, for two reasons.

One is that he told the world that referee Stephane Auger had threatened before a game in December 2010 that he was going to get him for showing him up in a previous game — and then the referee did precisely what he said he would do — gave him a ridiculously undeserved penalty.

And secondly because there was that bevy of publicity during the 2011 Cup final that Burrows and a whole host of Canucks allegedly took dives all the time, and therefore any time Burrows hits the ice — no matter how hard he’s hit — it’s embedded in the minds of the officials that he is “probably diving.”

It’s like media hype has become reality. Ergo, open season on Burrows.

You keep thinking that this will end, and they’ll let Burrows out of this penalty box he seems to be in. But no. It never ends. It goes on and on.

The league dismissed Auger at the end of last season, and now, for all anyone really knows, many of the officials seem to think of Burrows as the guy who got one of their fellow officials gonged.

In fact, Auger was removed for a series of gaffs, not the least of which was disallowing a goal in Detroit, saying the whistle had gone, when in fact Brad May had backhanded the puck right into the goal, the whistle clearly blowing two or three seconds after the fact. Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, he stuck with his original call. It was a blunder of stunning proportions, even for a league which refuses to admit it has an officiating problem.

But this isn’t about Auger, it’s about the integrity of the officials and the integrity of the game.

We all know that the referees and linesmen are human and they have their personal feelings. And many may feel what Burrows did was betray some sort of unwritten confidence rule whereby what’s said on the ice stays on the ice. But these guys need to look in the mirror and ask themselves, are we doing the job the way it’s supposed to be done?

A referee’s job is to impartially call the very best game he can every night to the very best of his ability. He might be a better official if he remembers a certain player can sometimes have the temptation to embellish a hit and perhaps be aware of that tendency, but ego and personal feelings have no place in his role.

It doesn’t matter what he thinks of a particular player or a particular coach or team. His job is adjudicate the rules of the game to the best of his ability. What happened in the past is not relevant. If a guy who strangled your mother gets tripped in a game you’re working, it’s your job to call a penalty. To do otherwise is a betrayal of your profession, your ethics and it subverts the integrity of the game. That’s one of the things that makes the job so tough. There’s no “me” involved, only the rules and the imperative the game be judged as fairly as possible.

Naturally, there are mistakes made which go in favour or against any given player or team on any given night. Heavens, we all saw how Henrik Sedin got lucky when the officials seemed to miss him jamming his stick into Sergei Bobrovsky’s mask in the third period Tuesday night, so this isn’t a homer rant — or at least wasn’t meant to be.

But this open season on Burrows has got to stop. It does the game and the officials a shocking disservice.

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"One is that he told the world that referee Stephane Auger had threatened before a game in December 2010 that he was going to get him for showing him up in a previous game — and then the referee did precisely what he said he would do — gave him a ridiculously undeserved penalty."

Assuming this is all true, I wonder what his reasons would be for the NHL not addressing this. Certainly refs aren't supposed to be holding grudges?

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"One is that he told the world that referee Stephane Auger had threatened before a game in December 2010 that he was going to get him for showing him up in a previous game — and then the referee did precisely what he said he would do — gave him a ridiculously undeserved penalty."

Assuming this is all true, I wonder what his reasons would be for the NHL not addressing this. Certainly refs aren't supposed to be holding grudges?

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Although I don't think it's a conspiracy where they purposely told the refs to not make calls when Burrows is involved, you would have to be blind to see that they do a lot of stuff slide when Burrows is on the receiving end. Probably has more to do with subconscious bias than anything.

There was a game where Daniel got called for embellishment when he was clearly trying to stay on his feet during an interference. All this has to go back to the 2011 cup run where the media hyped the Canucks as divers. We do have divers on the team but the Sedins are definitely not part of this group. When Brown ran Henrik, he tried his best to pop back up. Even when Daniel got viciously elbowed he didn't lay on the ice to draw a major penalty. The Sedins have had some vicious attacks on them and always pop back up so it pisses me off when someone calls them divers.

This is an example of how the media can affect the perspective of even the officials which shouldn't be the case. However, the Canucks are not the only people affected by this. For the longest time, Mike Ribeiro couldn't get a call if his life depended on it. It's human nature I guess but it is quite obvious in the NHL when compared to every other league.

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The officiating in the NHL, league wide is horrible. This isn't just a Burrows or even Canucks issue (though I do slightly agree with Crypt Keeper on this one that Burrows seems to have a bad rep with refs).

The league really should address the issue with three things. Better training, more punishment for screw ups and an NFL style review of all questionable calls where a head of officiating explains why things were called a certain way and admits mistakes when they happen. A simple: "Sorry we missed that one. Referee X has been spoken to/suspended a game(s) (if appropriate) etc" would go a LONG way to appease both players and fans and offer an opportunity to learn from those mistakes and become better refs. All to the benefit of the game we love.

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As long as the officiating is this awful, the league will suffer. It seems that Bettman and company don't care and would rather the refs stick to "game management" vs being competent. There is no doubt that there is bias against certain players, not really teams though.

Burrows is one of them. Blacklisting a player cheapens the whole system and puts the whole game into disrepute. Games are never called fairly, and the fact that no one is demanding a change to the system is pathetic.

Every team has been on the business end of some pathetic call or suffered because a call wasn't made when it should have been (Boll on Barker). The fact that those idiots working the Columbus game didn't call that will directly end up causing an injury later on. Boll crossed the line but didn't get punished. He'll be more apt to doing it again now

The NHLPA should make this an issue and demand that all officials in the league are held accountable through a review system as well as an NFL style review of questionable calls as J.R. mentioned above.

Until that time, the definition of offside, icing, boarding, roughing, tripping, or slashing are up for interpretation in the NHL.

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"The NHLPA should make this an issue and demand that all officials in the league are held accountable through a review system as well as an NFL style review of questionable calls as J.R. mentioned above."

This is another good point. I guess this is my problem with the article. It is one thing to say some guys get more calls against them than others, however when both sides (owners and players union) doesn't seem to think its a big deal I wonder how much merit there is to Ghallagher's point.

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I agree - it does look like there is a separate rule book for Burrows. As much as I can accept that there may been a bit of a backlash after the Auger incident and some calls about his diving, this is now years ago and Burrows has changed his game a lot (esp. chirping after the whistles). The officials need to move on now - they just make themsleves look childish and unprofessional at this point.

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