What I'm Thankful For...

So I started writing this on Thanksgiving but life kinda got in the way and I'm just now finishing it. Pretend Thanksgiving hasn't happened yet. Or pretend that you're just late reading this and that I actually put it up days ago. There, that works.

So what I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving is... consistently inconsistent reffing. Yep, I love that NHL refs sometimes blow calls so ridiculously that you can't help but wonder what the hell they were thinking.

I don't love it because it makes the league look like a joke sometimes. I don't love it because I've spent thousands of dollars supporting the league through tickets and jerseys and playoff tickets and tshirts and my late night shop.nhl.com addiction only to have it thrown back in my face at important moments. I love it because it's something unifying for all hockey fans. I love it because it's not perfect. I love it because it actually is exactly what disproves the tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists because it happens to EVERY SINGLE TEAM. (And I'm a Wings fan and I can say that. There's no conspiracy. We've just been spoiled for years and years and years.) (Actually, that gives me an idea... something for later... hold that thought until next week...)

There are few words that make my hairs stand on end like the words 'intent to blow'. Wow, that sounded dirtier than I meant it. But seriously, every time I hear that phrase, I know that something is about to go horribly wrong. While I think some aspects of it are ridiculous (like the fact that it's become more of a ref CYA than anything), I also don't agree that a bunch of calls need to become reviewable. There are certain things that, yeah, it doesn't seem like it would be that much trouble to have it be reviewable in the war room. At the same time, the more things become reviewable, the more the on-ice officials become obsolete and since robots are my greatest fear, we certainly do not want to make on-ice officials obsolete. And by we, I mean me.

Holy shit, tell me that's not terrifying.

Do I realistically think that could happen? Well, no. My point is that there is always going to be some human error in the game and I'm okay with that. I used to get very frustrated and angry but it's pretty pointless. I'm a big believer that it's good for the soul for people to emotionally invest themselves in something where they have absolutely no control over the outcome. That is being a sports fan. That is being a hockey fan. If you knew that every penalty would be called and every single moment in every game would be run exactly to the letter of the NHL rulebook, would you watch? Would it be interesting? Would there be goons and enforcers? Would there be role players at all or would everything become very homogenized? I guess I'm just trying to defend the referees just a little bit before these videos make them look completely stupid.

So I thought about bad reffing and, obviously, there are tons of examples but these are just the first ones that came to mind and that I could easily find on the youtube.

Ahhhh, the old 'intent to blow' nonsense. Goalie has on black pants. The puck is black. The ref can't possibly be expected to tell the difference between them, right?

I don't know why I remember this as clearly as I do because I really don't care about the Oilers or the Stars. Regardless, it just reminds me how much I hate Fatty McGeough.

Okay, this one is a two parter and it just happened so it was obviously fresh in my memory. This first video shows Ian White scoring with 29 seconds left in the game and the reason that's great is because he had been unjustly penalized with a double minor a few minutes beforehand on a call that shouldn't have been anything. After White's goal, the vid explains.

So everything is great, right? No. The Canes score with like 2 seconds to go in the game and it's really lame so it goes to OT. The Leafs have already been screwed so what are the chances of it happening again? Ugh, intent to blow...

PS- The fact that the Leafs ended up losing this game and that the Canes are the worst team in the NHL makes this all sting just a little bit more.

And just the night before that one, this happened. I don't even have an explanation for this and it's one of the rare times that the NHL has later come forward and said it's maybe kinda sorta just a little bit possible that the call they made wasn't the correct one. Maybe. Possibly.

You can't make a list of badly missed calls without including this one.

So I purposely didn't include anything that was a hooking/holding/slashing type call because those are more debatable and there is a lot more room for judgment calls in that case. I wouldn't necessary call it a ref blunder to just pick out a random instance or video and play it out of context and say, "See there! He missed that!" Within the context of any given game, there are different rules. Sometimes you watch a game and it looks like it's from 1996 with all the clutching and grabbing. I mean, there's basically a different rulebook used during the playoffs versus what gets called in November. But this? Anytime of year. Any year. The weakest call ever. And I was there. I saw it in person. I'm still sore about this. WEAKEST. CALL. FOR. A. PENALTY. SHOT. EVER.

Really? Nick Lidstrom? REALLY? Dude, it's Nick. It's 30 seconds to go in the last regular season game. How shitty. Just... gross. Terrible. Any time Ken Daniels or Mickey Redmond says, "Well, you decide," it means it was a shitty call. Always. I think this call is the reason why I hate Dustin Byfuglien so much actually.

Clearly there are tons more you can think of so post 'em in the comments because I want to watch them too. And am I crazy for being so zen about terrible reffing? Should I be more upset?