[article] C'Mon, Ref: Prust violated a "code"

[Salmonberries]

Great article by Fraser, I thought.

[Where's Wellwood]

"Once those allegations from Prust became public, the NHL was not only forced to conduct a formal investigation but to make their findings public to some degree as well."

Good. That's how it should be.

[TOMapleLaughs]

1. I'm sick and tired of being entertained by the refs when we should be entertained by the players. Quick stealing the show when nobody cares.

2. Prust is a whiner here and it will do no good. Shut up. Stop being an idiot. Score some goals instead. I mean if Dale Weise can do it for your team, anyone can.

3. I have to laugh at this silly incident being to blame for the loss. TB absolutely destroyed them, and would have done so with or without this incident.

[aGENT]

"Once those allegations from Prust became public, the NHL was not only forced to conduct a formal investigation but to make their findings public to some degree as well."

Good. That's how it should be.

The sooner the NHL instates NFL-style officiating review the better. It will only stand to make the officials and the game better in the long term (even if a few ref's end up with some egg on their faces short term).

[khay]

have you ever reffed an actual hockey game? It's incredible fast and incredibly difficult at any level. Being at ice level and trying to see everything is impossible. Do you honestly believe the refs are not doing the absolute best they can?

It is a difficult game to referee for sure. The problem I have is regarding the number of rules that are open to interpretations.

In any given game, when the referee witnesses an infraction, he needs to come to a decision after considering such things like,

1) Think back to whether he called the similar infraction a penalty beforehand (for example, did I call an interference penalty on a not so obvious pick play?)

2) If so, was the infraction at the same or greater impact as the previous one (for example, did the player gain a significant scoring chance as a result of the pick? or if it's a slash, was it as hard of a slash as the previous one that was called a penalty?),

3) Is the player about to draw the penalty known for diving (for example, if is it Dusty Brown?)

and etc.

The game is already hard to referee because of its speed and the refs actually being in the game and not getting something like bird's eye view of the plays. I think the only way to get better refereeing is to simplify the rules.

For example, although the delay of the game penalty due to a defending player shooting the puck over the glass is sort of a stupid rule but that is a rule where the referee doesn't really have to make any interpretation. All he has to do is to see that the puck didn't deflect off of anything, which is relatively easy and that's why we don't see many mistakes on delay of the game penalties (we sometimes do but you can't blame the refs on those).

Another example, a cross check or slash should be a penalty regardless of the viciousness of the slash/cross check. The stick should never be used to cross check or slash the opposing player so something like that should get called every time, it's an easy call to make.

Would it take physical play out of the game? No. It will only take the illegal physical plays out of the game.

[oldnews]

Fraser sounds like a pure apologist there. Not his best work by any stretch.

And he's riding an obvious contradiction, clearly criticizing Prust throughout, defending Watson, and relating a bunch of irrelevent stories about being abused by players as an official.

The part I found most pathetic was:

"It is inconceivable for me to believe that Brad Watson would unload on any player, regardless of the circumstance, in the profane and unprofessional manner that Brandon Prust has alleged. The jury is out until all evidence is gathered."

M.K. Fraser. Btw, you were a horrible official yourself. You generally make a better 'ombudsman', playing the kind of pseudo third party role you sometimes do, but here you're back to a premature and acontextual defense of your fraternity, ironically, without all the evidence.

I have no problem with players calling out officials under the circumstances.

The biggest joke here imo is this:

"We have to reserve final judgment, however, until the results of a formal investigation into the matter have been concluded by Colin Campbell, Sr. V.P. Of Hockey Operations."

LOL. What better way to inspire the confidence of fans than continue to put these kinds of matters in the hands of Colin Campbell.

Spare us the moronic Vegas references. The NHL OWES it's fanbase far more professionalism, transparency, and accountability - from precisely the officials, and ironically, the 'investigator' here as well.

They have nowhere near earned our trust to handle these kinds of matters in a hush-hush "internal" manner.

[D-Money]

If the Watson really said what Prust said he did, then he broke the 'ref code' - to be a neutral observer and call the game fairly. He should not be emotional, and he should not have overly negative or positive opinions about players that affect his judgement. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

And seeing how Prust had to deal with the emotion of losing a big game that is important to him and his teammates, and Watson didn't have to deal with jack-squat, then Prust breaking this code is more forgivable than Watson breaking the other one.

[oldnews]

[peaches5]

As I watched Brandon Prust have his dark moment with the media, I was immediately reminded of Alexandre Burrows standing on a soapbox and bring allegations against former NHL referee Stephane Auger of deliberately targeting the Canuck forward. Following an investigation into that matter, Auger was cleared of any and all inappropriate comments alleged by Burrows. It is inconceivable for me to believe that Brad Watson would unload on any player, regardless of the circumstance, in the profane and unprofessional manner that Brandon Prust has alleged. The jury is out until all evidence is gathered.

Auger was forced to retire so although the NHL may not have publicly agree with Burrows behind closed doors Auger was forced to retire and that's on record. It was something like if Auger didn't choose to retire himself that decision would have been made for him.

The Tampa player exercised the kind of "self-discipline" by not responding, which is often required from players to win a playoff series!

This just pissed me off. Like oh don't retaliate and you would get calls coming your way. Really like the Stanley Cup finals in 2011? When Vancouver didn't retaliate to anything and neither official would pull their whistle out of their ass to call a penalty.

frack there officials and their little code. 90% of them are terrible at their jobs.

The game ended shortly thereafter and Crawford knocked on the dressing room door to apologize for his poor conduct. I invited the coach into the officials dressing and to share a beer with the linesman and myself. I accepted the coach's sincere apology in the privacy of the officials' room and issued a 'career warning' to 'Crow' that any subsequent cursing from the bench would result in an immediate bench penalty. We shook hands to cement the agreement.

Yea nice to know what the officials do in their locker room. I like how he emphasizes private like you know I could have given you many more penalties so if I make a mistake or say something I shouldn't keep it hush hush and lets have a beer over it. This is such total bull with zero accountability. This is like the definition of bush league.

[oldnews]

Watson does ruin a lot of hockey games.

Prust's comment the he likes to play God is hard to argue with.

I'll never forget the time he gave San Jose 10 powerplays - 10 powerplays - in a playoff game! against the Canucks - the one game SJ won in the 2011 series.

"Well, we gave that team 10 power-plays," the Canucks coach [AV] said. "I thought we were pretty disciplined. So if I were to comment on what I think of the penalties, I'd get a pretty big fine so I'm going to save my money."

We certainly saw that trend continue in later playoff series against them. Disgusting. I'm not surprised Prust called him out. Imo, the NHL has far too many of these guys who mistake themselves for bigger-than-the-game, who seem to feel entitled to peddle whatever influence over the game they feel. They're not a gd bureaucracy - they should be held to far higher standards of accountability - something they certainly are not - so can't dispute the fact Prust stated this publicly.

[oldnews]

As I watched Brandon Prust have his dark moment with the media, I was immediately reminded of Alexandre Burrows standing on a soapbox and bring allegations against former NHL referee Stephane Auger of deliberately targeting the Canuck forward. Following an investigation into that matter, Auger was cleared of any and all inappropriate comments alleged by Burrows. It is inconceivable for me to believe that Brad Watson would unload on any player, regardless of the circumstance, in the profane and unprofessional manner that Brandon Prust has alleged. The jury is out until all evidence is gathered.

Auger was forced to retire so although the NHL may not have publicly agree with Burrows behind closed doors Auger was forced to retire and that's on record. It was something like if Auger didn't choose to retire himself that decision would have been made for him.

The Tampa player exercised the kind of "self-discipline" by not responding, which is often required from players to win a playoff series!

This just pissed me off. Like oh don't retaliate and you would get calls coming your way. Really like the Stanley Cup finals in 2011? When Vancouver didn't retaliate to anything and neither official would pull their whistle out of their ass to call a penalty.

frack there officials and their little code. 90% of them are terrible at their jobs.

The game ended shortly thereafter and Crawford knocked on the dressing room door to apologize for his poor conduct. I invited the coach into the officials dressing and to share a beer with the linesman and myself. I accepted the coach's sincere apology in the privacy of the officials' room and issued a 'career warning' to 'Crow' that any subsequent cursing from the bench would result in an immediate bench penalty. We shook hands to cement the agreement.

Yea nice to know what the officials do in their locker room. I like how he emphasizes private like you know I could have given you many more penalties so if I make a mistake or say something I shouldn't keep it hush hush and lets have a beer over it. This is such total bull with zero accountability. This is like the definition of bush league.

And ironically, here he is publishing his account of this "private" / 'in-camera' matter. Rides the contradiction like a pro.

Look forward to the other side - coaches, players.... opening the books on their accounts of all kinds of unflattering incidents involving officials.

But officials are special, right? They're exempt from public scrutiny.

[poetica]

"Once those allegations from Prust became public, the NHL was not only forced to conduct a formal investigation but to make their findings public to some degree as well."

Good. That's how it should be.

Right?!

The fact that Fraser seems to think that's a bad thing only indicates the depth of the problem.

When players do something wrong, including saying things to refs or other players, the NHL and refs have no problem calling them out for it publicly, punishing them, and then bringing it up every time the player gets in trouble again, does something that someone doesn't like, or is just written about in a Fraser column. And yet they think the idea that refs should have their unprofessional behavior addressed similarly is outrageous? Nothing proves that they feel "above the game" more than that.

[stawns]

It is a difficult game to referee for sure. The problem I have is regarding the number of rules that are open to interpretations.

In any given game, when the referee witnesses an infraction, he needs to come to a decision after considering such things like,

1) Think back to whether he called the similar infraction a penalty beforehand (for example, did I call an interference penalty on a not so obvious pick play?)

2) If so, was the infraction at the same or greater impact as the previous one (for example, did the player gain a significant scoring chance as a result of the pick? or if it's a slash, was it as hard of a slash as the previous one that was called a penalty?),

3) Is the player about to draw the penalty known for diving (for example, if is it Dusty Brown?)

and etc.

The game is already hard to referee because of its speed and the refs actually being in the game and not getting something like bird's eye view of the plays. I think the only way to get better refereeing is to simplify the rules.

For example, although the delay of the game penalty due to a defending player shooting the puck over the glass is sort of a stupid rule but that is a rule where the referee doesn't really have to make any interpretation. All he has to do is to see that the puck didn't deflect off of anything, which is relatively easy and that's why we don't see many mistakes on delay of the game penalties (we sometimes do but you can't blame the refs on those).

Another example, a cross check or slash should be a penalty regardless of the viciousness of the slash/cross check. The stick should never be used to cross check or slash the opposing player so something like that should get called every time, it's an easy call to make.

Would it take physical play out of the game? No. It will only take the illegal physical plays out of the game.

if they called every stick infraction it would 50 mins of special teams.......no thanks. I like that referees are individuals and call games differently. Prust knows exactly what Watson is like......in those cases, you suck it up and keep your mouth shut. That's why teams with good discipline are usually the most successful

[poetica]

As I watched Brandon Prust have his dark moment with the media, I was immediately reminded of Alexandre Burrows standing on a soapbox and bring allegations against former NHL referee Stephane Auger of deliberately targeting the Canuck forward. Following an investigation into that matter, Auger was cleared of any and all inappropriate comments alleged by Burrows. It is inconceivable for me to believe that Brad Watson would unload on any player, regardless of the circumstance, in the profane and unprofessional manner that Brandon Prust has alleged. The jury is out until all evidence is gathered.

Auger was forced to retire so although the NHL may not have publicly agree with Burrows behind closed doors Auger was forced to retire and that's on record. It was something like if Auger didn't choose to retire himself that decision would have been made for him.

The Tampa player exercised the kind of "self-discipline" by not responding, which is often required from players to win a playoff series!

This just pissed me off. Like oh don't retaliate and you would get calls coming your way. Really like the Stanley Cup finals in 2011? When Vancouver didn't retaliate to anything and neither official would pull their whistle out of their ass to call a penalty.

frack there officials and their little code. 90% of them are terrible at their jobs.

The game ended shortly thereafter and Crawford knocked on the dressing room door to apologize for his poor conduct. I invited the coach into the officials dressing and to share a beer with the linesman and myself. I accepted the coach's sincere apology in the privacy of the officials' room and issued a 'career warning' to 'Crow' that any subsequent cursing from the bench would result in an immediate bench penalty. We shook hands to cement the agreement.

Yea nice to know what the officials do in their locker room. I like how he emphasizes private like you know I could have given you many more penalties so if I make a mistake or say something I shouldn't keep it hush hush and lets have a beer over it. This is such total bull with zero accountability. This is like the definition of bush league.

Not exactly. First, the NHL publicly said they believed Auger, saying he was "above reproach" and while he faced no punishment Burrows was fined $2500 and called out by the NHL for making comments of a "personal nature" towards Auger. (If you're interested, you can read the NHL's statement about it here.)

While the "Burrows incident" happened in January, 2010, Auger didn't retire until June, 2012, and it was only speculation in the media that he had been forced to retire after multiple allegations against him, including the NYI accusing him of basically game fixing. Either way, his retiring had nothing to do with Burrows.

[peaches5]

Not exactly. First, the NHL publicly said they believed Auger, saying he was "above reproach" and while he faced no punishment Burrows was fined $2500 and called out by the NHL for making comments of a "personal nature" towards Auger. (If you're interested, you can read the NHL's statement about it here.)

While the "Burrows incident" happened in January, 2010, Auger didn't retire until June, 2012, and it was only speculation in the media that he had been forced to retire after multiple allegations against him, including the NYI accusing him of basically game fixing. Either way, his retiring had nothing to do with Burrows.

I wasn't meaning that he was forced to retire because of that one incident but it being proof against what Kelly Fraser was implying. That Burrows calling out Auger and then Auger subsequently getting fired you know the old saying where there's smoke there's fire.

[poetica]

I wasn't meaning that he was forced to retire because of that one incident but it being proof against what Kelly Fraser was implying. That Burrows calling out Auger and then Auger subsequently getting fired you know the old saying where there's smoke there's fire.

Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I was just pointing out that it's not official that he was forced to retire, only speculated in the media. (For the record, I think he was a bad ref who was ushered out the door before the NHL had to answer any more questions about his lack of ethics or their track record of sweeping it under the rug.)

[khay]

if they called every stick infraction it would 50 mins of special teams.......no thanks. I like that referees are individuals and call games differently. Prust knows exactly what Watson is like......in those cases, you suck it up and keep your mouth shut. That's why teams with good discipline are usually the most successful

Yep so the players will keep the stick infraction, at least the illegals ones, out for good. There will still be stick infraction but way less and that would mean that the ref wouldn't have to spend time interpreting, which usually means he will make at least one error per game.

[King Heffy]

The code Watson violated (assuming the allegations are true) is far more serious than any unwritten code Prust may be subject to. Watson is being accused of conduct that directly violates his job description; this is blatant unprofessionalism and needs to be addressed promptly. As an official, it is part of Watson's job duties to act like an adult at all times; failure to even meet this minimal standard should be considered completely unacceptable.

As for those who think this shouldn't have been made public, there is very little evidence that the NHL holds its officials accountable voluntarily. Anyone notice that the ref cam has disappeared? This could have been a great evaluation tool. Consistent troublemakers such as Sutherland, Devorski, and O'Halloran are consistently given playoff assignments despite numerous incidents. The league even saw fit to allow Auger to ref a Canucks game after Burrows exposed his BS. Public accountability is the only way the NHL will begin to clean up its act. I fully sympathize with players who realize they have no recourse when officials refuse to cut out their garbage.

[RUPERTKBD]

I can't imagine that throwing his elbow pad is going to go over well with Bergevin

I mentioned this in the series thread, but I got a chuckle out of Stammer catching it, then giving it to some guy in the stands.

Probably the only Hab fan that went home happy...

[Warhippy]

have you ever reffed an actual hockey game? It's incredible fast and incredibly difficult at any level. Being at ice level and trying to see everything is impossible. Do you honestly believe the refs are not doing the absolute best they can?

Stawns,

Actually i have not. But I've also echoed exactly what you've just stated up to and including leading into multiple warning points because i wouldn't back off of just that statement.

I agree with you, but there is a noticeable management of the game as even former ref Fraser stated himself not long ago.

Prust has a case simply because of Watson's finger wagging and body language plus his past record in some games.

There is a type of management going on. And while the refs are human that humanity gives them the same fallacies afforded everybody up to snd including favoritism and short fuses

In the professional world of sports....those fallacies can create or end champions