Stop blaming the goddamned refs

[westvandude]

bhawks21, it's not just one piece of evidence to try to discuss here. There are numerous:

- the PP disparity in the SJ series

- the specific penalties that were called. specially the ones that were hugely game changing (the 5-3, the 2 at the end of game 4, etc.) that were very marginal and were normally not called in most other instances/series (specially when it was in the Bruins favor not to call in the 2011 SCF)

- the constant nagging about canucks being divers/embellishers by the media... it's very clear that every team, and more specifically, most players embellish (or more importantly, APPEAR to embellish) from time to time. To treat players differently based on a few dives that they've done in the past, is unfair and unjust from a ref point of view. Specially in an important playoff game. It's even more ridiculous to label a whole team as embellishers. Who in their right mind would tell its players to dive and embellish so the refs can penalize you even more?

All these lead to a situation where as a Canuck, you don't know how to play:

- if you play hard, you'll get called because sometime in the past some people thought you were diving and so now you have to pay for it, again..

- if you don't play hard but the other team plays hard, then you're labelled "soft" and the other team labelled as "playing good old time hockey" with no similar penalties

- if you complain about the refs, you'll get penalized more later because you complained, and you're called a whiner, while the other team can complain to bring all the "embellishing" to the refs and NHL's attention

- if you don't complain and try to take the bullet and say "we just gotta play harder", then the refs will continue their act without any change

Over the last 4-5 playoff series, all of these behaviours have been tested back and forth, with the same results.

I'm not saying the Canucks are great and deserve to win every year. But they deserve a fair shot, just like any other team in the league. That's all we're asking for.

[poetica]

the point is solely that the refs didn't decide this series. Four games is a small sample size to be judging under or over penalizing. I did watch this series. I was just working during game three.

[bhawks21]

I never said the refs solely decided the series. I said they unduly influenced it. I still think the Canucks phoned it in for half the series and deserved to lose games 1 and 3. But games 2 and 4 were taken away from us with weak, or outright wrong, penalties. We may have gotten our crap together and made it out of that round, or we might have kept phoning it in and lost. Either way, had the reffing been fair at least the lose would have been solely ours and the win solely SJ's. As it stands now, that is not the case.

[Kamero89]

The Canucks/Sharks series had an NHL record in PP time difference. Blaming the refs seems just fine with me if it's an NHL RECORD!

[Bertuzzipunch]

I have no idea how a team can go through a whole playoff series without even calling 1 cross checking penalty on the sharks. Has this even happened before in NHL history????

If i lived in vancouver and saw that stupid idiot Kelly Sutherland it would take everything in me to not go up to him to tell him on how effin horrible he is at his job without decking him in the face. He has no right to be a NHL referee.

[-DLC-]

I worked as a minor league baseball official. I don't need to prove it to you. I gave up the life because of the travel and the toll

It was taking on my new family. I was a young kid. Only 19 at the time. I wasn't ready to handle that life. The fact that you believe the officials are out to get you says all I need to know. I don't have to prove to you how good I was. Look up how hard it is to get in to pro ball as an umpire. But I stand by that we are the only people in that building who doesn't care who wins. To this day I'm not a real big fan of baseball anymore. You give it up when you choose the life.

But you speak as though "I" is everyone...which is where you lose credibility. Everyone is different...there are good people and bad people. A "ref" doesn't automatically equate "a good honest individual of integrity"....it means you landed a gig officiating sports games. And nothing to prove, as it has no bearing as far as I'm concerned.

A minor league baseball official has no better understanding of bias against Canucks than a woman who's watched the team her entire life.

You were a baseball official (isn't that an umpire?) and that does not make you any more qualified to asses hockey than the rest of us. You're not even "really a fan" of the game (baseball) anymore, meaning you likely weren't as passionate about it as, perhaps, some of these NHL refs are about hockey. You likely did oversee games with no bias as a result, however, some of these guys likely breathe, sleep and eat their game. So you aren't them and can't speak to how they feel or respond to the game...they be more "invested" than you were and, with that, let their emotion and bias creep in.

[Blueberries]

Also love how LA getting away with so much unlike the Nucks. Looks like the league loves LA more than SJS and also love how SJS can't score if they don't get the PP.

[SamJamIam]

LA had 3 PPGs last night for the win. I laughed HARD when I saw that. I'd say it's justice but it's just the other side of the corruption that let SJS sweep us.

I'm sure some monkeys on here will say LA was just great at capitalizing. If that's the case, then are the Sharks legendarily poor at capitalizing because they set the record for penalty differential in a series?

[poetica]

Speaking of blaming the refs....

SJ is already saying a bad call cost them a game. [video of penalty] SJ got called for a delay of game penalty while already on the PK for a puck off the glass. They swear it went off a LA player. In the ensuing 5-on-3 LA scored to tie the game and then scored again 5-on-4 to win the game with less than 2 minutes left.

And while all of the blatant diving in our series didn't get any mention (other than to call Bieksa and the rest of the Canucks whiners), just like the SJ player clearly putting his hand into the net, covering the puck with his hand as it rolled over the goal line and pulling it out to illegally prevent a certain goal didn't raise anyone's blood pressure but Canucks fans, ESPN's Pierre LeBrun thinks SJ got the bum deal on that supposedly bad call.

@Real_ESPNLeBrun: Man, I don't know how the Sharks recover from that. Crushing

[poetica]

LA had 3 PPGs last night for the win. I laughed HARD when I saw that. I'd say it's justice but it's just the other side of the corruption that let SJS sweep us.

I'm sure some monkeys on here will say LA was just great at capitalizing. If that's the case, then are the Sharks legendarily poor at capitalizing because they set the record for penalty differential in a series?

[smurf47]

I worked as a minor league baseball official. I don't need to prove it to you. I gave up the life because of the travel and the toll

It was taking on my new family. I was a young kid. Only 19 at the time. I wasn't ready to handle that life. The fact that you believe the officials are out to get you says all I need to know. I don't have to prove to you how good I was. Look up how hard it is to get in to pro ball as an umpire. But I stand by that we are the only people in that building who doesn't care who wins. To this day I'm not a real big fan of baseball anymore. You give it up when you choose the life.

[poetica]

Unfortunately, I believe the quality of officiating has taken a nose dive. Sedin took a penalty, called by the official who was furthest away, while his partner 10 feet away did not make the call. That not only made the nearby ref looked bad...it made the calling ref look worse. The quality of the game has not improved much with 2 refs on the ice. Consistancy is the problem. I don't believe in a conspiracy theory but do believe certain players don't get the calls based on history.

[37yrsncounting]

The NHL has become an official joke, a product similar to WWF. The refs are no better than high school bullies. Best to support your local minor hockey instead or perhaps spend your entertainment dollars on the Giants

[canucksnihilist]

no ... the refs suck.

just look at the playoffs this year: again, boston can basically tackle opposition players and not get a penalty, and other teams are called and get 5 on 3 penalties against them for slight infractions.

it's a rigged league: the refs have their favourites. the sooner we all just accept reality, the sooner we can move on from denial.

it makes success even more of an accomplishment, if we can do it! think positive, but realize the negative mofos!

[Danvilleshark]

Lets see if you notice anything here:

After the game, Sharks coach Todd McLellan was asked if he thought Vlasic’s penalty was the right call.

“You go back and look at it, it looks like it changed direction,” McLellan said in a CSN Bay Area report. “The one thing that I’ve learned, certainly through this playoffs, is it’s not going to do me any good to whine and moan and ***** about the referees.

“It’s not going to get us anywhere. We took some penalties, we needed to kill them, and we move on.”

The Sharks are down 2-0 in the series, but now they get to go back home where they were 17-2-5 in the regular season. Winning Game 3 will obviously be critic for the Sharks, but they seem upbeat under the circumstances.

“The one thing I like about our team, is maybe in the past this would have probably bothered our team a little more,” McLellan said. “But, with the group of guys we have, I think we can recover from this.”

[Clinch16]

Lets see if you notice anything here:

After the game, Sharks coach Todd McLellan was asked if he thought Vlasic's penalty was the right call.

"You go back and look at it, it looks like it changed direction," McLellan said in a CSN Bay Area report. "The one thing that I've learned, certainly through this playoffs, is it's not going to do me any good to whine and moan and ***** about the referees.

"It's not going to get us anywhere. We took some penalties, we needed to kill them, and we move on."

The Sharks are down 2-0 in the series, but now they get to go back home where they were 17-2-5 in the regular season. Winning Game 3 will obviously be critic for the Sharks, but they seem upbeat under the circumstances.

"The one thing I like about our team, is maybe in the past this would have probably bothered our team a little more," McLellan said. "But, with the group of guys we have, I think we can recover from this."

[4thLineGrinder]

No I'm just not stupid and think officials are deciding games. We don't care who wins. Literally the only people in the building that don't you dolt.

[TheTruthHurts]

The reffing was fine imo.

[SamJamIam]

Lets see if you notice anything here:

After the game, Sharks coach Todd McLellan was asked if he thought Vlasic's penalty was the right call.

"You go back and look at it, it looks like it changed direction," McLellan said in a CSN Bay Area report. "The one thing that I've learned, certainly through this playoffs, is it's not going to do me any good to whine and moan and ***** about the referees.

"It's not going to get us anywhere. We took some penalties, we needed to kill them, and we move on."

The Sharks are down 2-0 in the series, but now they get to go back home where they were 17-2-5 in the regular season. Winning Game 3 will obviously be critic for the Sharks, but they seem upbeat under the circumstances.

"The one thing I like about our team, is maybe in the past this would have probably bothered our team a little more," McLellan said. "But, with the group of guys we have, I think we can recover from this."

[alt kilgore]

Isn't that its own brand of conspiracy though to punish players for past misdeeds rather than current actions and to allow other players to get away with more against certain players, basically creating a new set of rules unique to each player so that there is no consistency?

Plus, that's assuming that the refs remember and apply the history correctly, but the truth is memory is fallible and, for whatever reason, some players get punished more severely for past indiscretions than do other players who may have been even worse. Burrows may have been a sh*t disturber, but he is not and never has been the worst in the league and yet he got more minor penalties than any other player this season.

As you said, consistency is the problem. Allowing refs to alter the application of rules for any reason opens the entire process up to corruption and unfairness. Every player and every game should be called exactly the same. No more, "It's playoffs, so we'll put the whistles away....unless we don't like your team." or "Penalty! You can't do that to a superstar....that we like." or "Penalty! Oh, wait. It's Burrows? Never mind. Carry on." Let players and teams win or lose based on what they did in that game under the exact same set of rules applied to everyone.