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TONY GALLAGHERS ARTICLE


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You misunderstand me. I think it's unfortunate that things are the way they are with Burrows, but people need to understand the referees mentality. Like any of the enforcement professions, police, prison guards etc. the refs have a 'us against the world' brotherhood thing going on and if you harm one, you're taking on the group. For life. That's just how it is with these guys and for Gillis to allowe this to happen is the real disaster here. He knew better.

It rivals the Luongo contract as Gillis' worst rookie GM gaffe.

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Actually, no, as I recall Burrows had spoken to some of his teammates and to AV before he went public. I believe Gillis was also alerted to the situation and still greenlit the interview. Or so he said at the time.

That is why I hold Gillis responsible for what I consider a generational franchise damaging gaffe.

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Come on now, Lulover88...don't sugar coat it...how do you REALLY feel about Bettman?

It's too bad the squirrely ferret didn't get considered for Stern's job with the NBA. It would have been great to see him vacate the Chairman's role...you know he's just a mere puppet of the owners, don't you? And you know where hands go on a puppet, right? Probably explains why he's twitching all the time.

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do you guys think Gillis should just eat the huge fine and end this mess ?.. or hope that playing out of this will stop the bias ?... either one could fail just as badly .. its so ridiculous that those are our options ..

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NHL reffing is an esoteric system of line riding.

Incidents, whether obvious, minor, or phantom, are evaluated and each contributes, or takes away from, the team's current probability of getting a penalty on a play. Eventually the line, its limit known only to the ref, is crossed, and a penalty is assessed. And not only that, the line seems to change within periods with the same ref! Not to mention the differences between refs.

Make sense? No?

Well it doesn't to me either. But this is the best I can do to describe the system. And it makes the game a joke to new and old fans alike, let alone potential fans/outside observers.

Players, coaches, equipment, and strategy are on the cutting edge of 21st century technology.

NHL reffing is somewhere in the dark ages.

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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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It doesn't matter if it's "more than other players and other teams"; he has a bad rep and it cost a ref his job (at least that is the perception amongst the officials it would seem). Other players (barring a select few) have less of a rep. No ref is going to risk his job b y falling for Burrows' nonsense so the knee jerk reaction is to let it go. Burrows will have to bleed to get a call from here on out. Maybe it's time to trade him while he has some value. It would be a tough pill to swallow but IMHO the only way the Canucks are going to shed their rep as diving rats is to get rid of the worst offenders and that means losing Burr, Kes and Lappy. Bitter medicine to be sure but is there any other way?

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I think you're a bit confused about the timeline.

Gillis and AV went on record after the interview, saying that they supported Burrows and believed what he said. However, I'd bet the farm that if word had gotten up to Gillis that Burrows was planning a national TV rant, calling out one of the referees for basically throwing the game due to a personal issue, he absolutely would have put a stop to it.

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