For Those Of You Who Believe Reffing Is Biased Against The Canucks, Look At This From The Nhl Website.

[DooBie604]

Thanks to those of you who responded with some intelligence. It's a shame that there are a lot of Canuck fans out there that give the rest of you a bad name.

This is how I see the situation:

Referees have been known to make "reputation" calls; meaning, there are players who have earned the respect of the refs, those who have yet to earn the respect of the refs (many of the youngest players), and those who have earned the disrespect of the refs. So, when there are calls that depend on the ref's view of the situation, whether or not what happened actually warrants a penalty, they sometimes take into account who the player is and make their call accordingly.

Whether or not you like this or if it should be in the game is not what I am arguing for or against here, so I will just leave it at "reputation calls do exist."

With that established, I will continue by saying that, in my opinion, as well as the opinion of MANY people outside of the Lower Mainland, there are players on the Canucks who have earned disrespect, or at least yet to earn respect. The Sedins have dived and embellished calls in the past. That is a fact that cannot be argued if you aren't a Canucks homer. Burrows does juvenile things like the finger biting incident or the attempt to knee Duncan Keith in the groin as he was on top of him last night. Again, fact. Also, the Canucks as a whole are known to do a ton of complaining, whining, and woe-is-me-ing - that means the players, the coach, and even up to management. (How many other GM's do you see make a public spectacle of complaining about the refs to the extent that Gillis has? http://www.nhl.com/i...s.htm?id=560996 None.)

When all of these thing are objectively taken into consideration, is it really that surprising that, on a game-to-game basis, the Canucks don't get the benefit of the doubt or help from the refs?

If the Canucks cleaned up their act, meaning stopped complaining and certain players stopped digging for calls or doing things that completely destroys their integrity, then perhaps those split-second decisions made by refs would turn out differentely.

There is no conspiracy to do whatever it takes to make sure that the Canucks never win a Stanley Cup. Their own actions have earned them the reputation that the refs, consciously or unconsciously, and rightly or wrongly, take into account when having to make split-second calls. The refs don't have replays for penalties. The refs don't have multiple angles for penalties. The refs don't have slow-motion for penalties. All they have is human eyes to track a fast game with a ton of things going on, so it really isn't surprising that the Canucks' previous actions and reputations effect a decision made in 1/10th of a second.

Agree or disagree with me, but this argument is built on what I have seen and what I have gathered from other people who assess the situation from facts alone and not with an underlying preferential view in favour of the Vancouver Canucks. They are not the saints so many people try to make them out to be.

[Ace_of_Spades]

I don't think they are biased against the Canucks.

I just know, from watching a lot of hockey, that they are incompetent, inconsistent and sometimes blatantly ignorant to what happens on the ice.

[Airjasper]

Whoever the ref was that made the call Keith should only get a 2 minute minor needs to be suspended himself. That is the most mind boggling officiating decision I can recall seeing in a long time...Which says a lot because i've seen a ton of bonehead calls this season.

[pce playoffs]

What i want to knows it why the frack the refs don't have to explain their calls they get paid crap tons to make all these bull calls and no explanation. Then they skate off the ice untoched by the media....its a joke they are a big part of the game and they just get overlooked like its nothing. last nights game was reffed horribly i mean there were two cases where we got a penatly in a scrum and you watch these repays and wanna smash your tv. No call on crawfords slash after the play.....he didn't even have the puck covered and kes came in for a second poke.....we get a penalty.

THE REFS SHOULD BE HELD LIABLE its pathetic make them sit there infront to 50 mics and explain the calls......

also 2 mins for elbowing is a complete joke HEAD SHOTSSSS HEEEEEEEEEEEEAD SHOTS

[Burnsey]

the one thing that annoys me about CDC is that when we lose everyone turns to the refs as a blame. I mean all teams get away with a few things. Refs cant call everything, although with saying that they have been quite bad this year imo compare to previous years..... :S

[poetica]

The media propaganda painted this on the Canucks last year and influenced everyones mind including the refs in my opinion. Henrik gets cross checked in the back from his blind side from a guy that out weighs him by a good 40 pounds and he gets called for diving in the finals? Rome makes a somewhat late hit and gets one of the most severe suspensions of all time? Raymond laying on the ice with a broken vertabrae and the fans and players in Boston taunt him as a faker and get off without a penelty even though the puck was gone longer than it was when Rome hit Horton. That was all created because the social media decided that they didn't want the Canucks to win because they are not Canada's team. Top that off with Ron McLean on CBC making it his personal agenda to make Burrows look bad every chance he can get and you influence the minds of the masses. And the media in Vancouver is the worse creating controversy whenever they can.

....

It's funny because I see players on every team dive and complain yet the media paints the Canucks as the only ones. I saw Shaw do it twice last night on a hit where he flung himself into the boards head first when he got hit from the side. I see Crosby do it more than anyone. I've seen Joe Thorton complain after every love tap he receives. I can name off tons of other examples and can do so on a nightly basis from every game across the league. Yet Canucks get the reputation?

Before the playoffs last year, no one mentioned the Canucks as divers or whiners. We've had the same core for years and Burrows was probably the only one painted as a diver prior to this. Kess to an extent as well. Suddenly this year after the big media campaign, suddenly the whole team is disrespecful and dirty? Does no one else see the correlation? Is it a mere coincedence that suddenly everyone has the same viewpoint after the media told them what to believe?

[CowtownCanuck]

NHL reffing is biased against hockey.

"Well, I'm not sure if NBC got together with the refs to determine if it was an overtime game. It started with when Gabby gets pitch-forked in the stomach, and then everything starts going against us. They're two good referees. I thought the game was refereed horribly. So I'm not sure what happened there. Maybe they wanted to get it to an overtime. I'm not sure if they have meetings about that or what. But we stood in there. We stood in there. And again, I don’t want... because they're good guys. But in that third period, it was disgusting."

John Tortorella

"You see three or four calls that are enough to blow your mind."

Glen Sather

[CanuckCup1316]

Explain to me how this stat proves how many penalties are not called against a certain team? These stats just show what is being called not what is being let go. But it sure is interesting to see how many crap teams are in the top of that list.

[Mostly Harmless]

they need to change the system. It's pretty ridiculous that once the arm goes up, that's it, penalty is called no matter what. Is there any other sport that works like that? In football, if a ref throws a penalty flag, he can talk to the other refs who may have had a better view, and then decide to pick up the flag if he's convinced that he made the wrong call. In baseball, if an ump makes a call, he can ask the other umps for help, and then decide to overturn his call

So why is hockey different? where if one ref thinks he sees something, and puts the arm up, the other ref has no say in the decision? why can't he go to the ref and tell him what he saw, then let that ref decide to either change his mind and have no call, or stick to his guns and call the penalty if he's convinced if what he saw? is it too much to ask, to allow a ref to ask for a 2nd opinion?

The other thing that has to change if it exists, is the idea of "evening up" the calls. If one team commits 3 times as many infractions as the other, then they should be short handed 3 times as much. This whole mindset that you let something go just because they've had x amount of penalties already, or call a soft penalty beacuse they havn't had enough penalties, is bull. Call the game as you see, and dont even think about how many PP's each side has had.

[King_Canuckian]

Um... hello, good PP means less minutes on the PP because you are scoring. Good PK means more minutes on the PK because they aren't scoring. The stats here mean jack squat.

If you want a real comparison, take two different teams, select the exact same number of games against the exact same teams, and then compare the number of PP opportunities to their season stats (as a percentage). If there is a significantly different percentage, you may have a point.

[iamspuzzum]

And for those of you who will argue that Colorado is just a bad team and therefore are not able to draw penalties to get PP's, there is no way they are THAT much worse (as these stats show) and still able to be in playoff contention. It just would not happen.

[coyotecanuck]

All of those players will fight their own battles. The refs will not fght the Sedin battles for them until they stand-up for themselves.

[Buddhas Hand]

I don't think they are biased against the Canucks.

I just know, from watching a lot of hockey, that they are incompetent, inconsistent and sometimes blatantly ignorant to what happens on the ice.

[Hockey Fever]

This means nothing, it's the key times in the game that penalties are called or not called.

[Industrious1]

Every year we have gone since the lockout has seen the officiating in the NHL slip a bit more into apathy\confusion.

The league is always all tough and stringent at the start of the season but by the end it degrades more and more into "playoff" style reffing and has gotten continually worse. I mean c'mon, some games are even blatantly managed, look at the Winter Classic..that was brutal.

Would love to see an NHL where a penalty that is called in October is still called in April and beyond.

[surtur]

it is not how many calls it is what is and what is not being called the nucks seem to get called for minor minor stuff but the other team can damn near take our guys heads off...without a call. how many time have the sedins been cross checked head first into the boards without a call...

[WL Canuck Fan]

That was a good call. They need to do more of that. That nonsense after the whistle isn't hockey; it is garbage and needs to be cleaned up.

[WL Canuck Fan]

I don't think these numbers indicate much at all. In Vancouver's case, having one of the top powerplays AND one of the top penalty kills in the league, it's a given they'll be closer to the bottom. The opposite is true for Columbus and Carolina.

Vancouver kills off more penalties than the opposition and therefore they're on the penalty kill for the full 2 minutes. If they score 20 seconds into their next powerplay, that puts them on the penalty kill for 1:40 longer than on the powerplay.

That said, I agree that the reffing, league wide, has been absolute crap. I've been saying for a while now that the NHL needs to adopt the NFL's reffing system giving out one year contracts to each ref and taking away their union.