Refereeing [Discussion]

[tomm292]

With all the skill the teams have, it can be an entertaining game to watch. Depending on what is being called one year influences how teams model themselves in years to come. It never works because the refs are so inconsistent. I still don't know why a penalty that is called all year long becomes acceptable in the playoffs, and even more goes uncalled.

It would be nice to see someone with the talent to post an internet site get one started for the referees. As long as it stayed unbiased, have missed calls, discrepancy in calls and suspensions all posted with who made them..

It seems hockey is turning into almost a scripted show . The talent on the ice should be what we remember, not was or wasn't called by the officials.

A web site like this would maybe start holding the referees and nhl accountable for some consistency.

This is all just my opinion, but maybe , something like this could work.

[SabreFan1]

Refereeing has always been and always will be different for the playoffs than it is in the regular season. That's not always a bad thing.

Suspensions are another story. You had to practically kill somebody in the old days in order to get suspended in the playoffs. Fortunately they protect players, for the most part, now in the playoffs. Playoff head hunting skilled players up until even the early 2000's was very common. Now you get multi-game suspensions, even in the middle of a series, for going after another player's head.

[RUPERTKBD]

With all the skill the teams have, it can be an entertaining game to watch. Depending on what is being called one year influences how teams model themselves in years to come. It never works because the refs are so inconsistent. I still don't know why a penalty that is called all year long becomes acceptable in the playoffs, and even more goes uncalled.

It would be nice to see someone with the talent to post an internet site get one started for the referees. As long as it stayed unbiased, have missed calls, discrepancy in calls and suspensions all posted with who made them..

It seems hockey is turning into almost a scripted show . The talent on the ice should be what we remember, not was or wasn't called by the officials.

A web site like this would maybe start holding the referees and nhl accountable for some consistency.

This is all just my opinion, but maybe , something like this could work.

I don't really agree that refs are biased or that games are scripted, but I believe that game management is rampant in the NHL and only gets worse in the playoffs.

Yesterday's game between Detroit and Tampa Bay was a good example. In the second period Danny Dekeyser was called for interference on a play where a Bolts forward dumped the puck past him a tried to chase after it. Dekeyser forced him into the boards, despite the player having taken a few strides after releasing the puck.

For some reason, Cheech decided that the call was weak. Personally, I thought it was absolutely the correct call and was quite frustrated as the Wings got away with doing exactly the same thing a half dozen times throughout the rest of the game. They also were guilty of an obvious too many men penalty, but in a one-goal, elimination game, the officials (predictably) pretended not to notice.

It's things like this that have the other big four sports leagues shaking their collective heads at the NHL.

[poetica]

Seems like that would take a lot of time, so it would definitely have to be a labor of love. And, unfortunately, unless it was manned by a former NHL referee(s) it wouldn't be effective as people would just say the person(s) behind it don't know how the NHL refs make calls. But, it would be interesting. They could even start by just pointing out some objective stats that seem to point to ref bias, either for a team, against a team, or perhaps more heavily favoring certain teams at home than others.

For example, remember how CBC kept talking about how great Calgary is at scoring in the 3rd period in the regular season? That probably had a lot to do with the fact that Calgary had the second most 3rd period PPOs in the league. Only Detroit had more. (Vancouver was 21st.) In fact, Calgary had more PPOs in the 3rd period (88) than any other period (80 and 85 respectively.) They were the only team in the league that was true for. Interestingly, they didn't seem to fair as well in OT. In their 20 games that went beyond regulation, they received only 2 PPOs. The most any team received was 5, so that's not unusual in and of itself. (Though, it is twice as many OT PPOs as Vancouver had in our 17 games.) It is, however, suspicious that a team apparently was drawing penalties left and right in the 3rd period suddenly stopped playing in a way that drew them in OT.

It's also interesting to note that Calgary did significantly better when it came to getting PPOs at home than on the road, with 139 PPOs at home but just 116 on the road. That means Calgary had the 6th most home PPOs in the league but on the road dropped to 19th in the league. And there are other teams with even larger home/away PPOs discrepancies. Dallas, for example, had 32 more home PPOs than they did away. Of course many teams play somewhat differently on the road than at home, but did they really play differently enough to justify such a difference in calls or are certain teams getting unfair advantages at home, perhaps because the refs are swayed by loud fans?

In the playoffs thus far, Calgary is tied with 2 other teams for the second most 3rd period PPOs. Interestingly, they have had the fewest overall PPOs of all of the teams with the most 3rd period PPOs, again calling into question the "they just played that way and deserved it" theory. Vancouver, on the other hand, tied with 2 other teams for the fewest 3rd period PPOs. Not all of that discrepancy can be explained just by the play.

And if you looked at other teams you'd probably find other odd stats that the game itself don't fully explain. I'm not saying there's a conspiracy against Vancouver or for Calgary, but I do believe that the stats point to certain teams getting advantages over other teams and those small advantages can make all of the difference. Refs may be human but they should also be held to a standard of professionalism that requires them to at least attempt to fairly and consistently applying the rules rather than allowing themselves to be influenced by outside forces, such as the scoreboard, the noise of the crowd, etc.

[Fox Mulder]

I don't think this would work because there are too many variables to consider when tracking penalties.

For instance, say Tampa had 175 powerplays this year and Boston had 80. On paper you'd think there was bias against Boston. Then you look and see that of the 175 PPs Tampa had, 100 were tripping or hooking calls. Boston only had 20. Then you look at the roster and see that Tampa is full of fast players and Boston full of dinosaurs. You can draw from that that teams that move their feet more get more PPs.

That's just one example. I'm sure you could exhaust yourself going through all of the scenarios and trying to figure out why one team gets this call and one team another. I would be super impressed if anyone put in the time to work that all out.