Tuesdays With Hildy: The Great Ref Conspiracy

Brad Lee hates all 30 teams equally.

and two for throwing Leprebombs. “Shoore an’ I’m gonna punch ya so hard in the face yer Lucky Charms’ll feel it, boyo!” He was channeling Leprechaun rage there, regardless of whether or not he’s actually Irish. That rage is what caused him to lose his footing and have Dowell land on him.

Leprechaun rage. It cuts both ways.

And even then sometimes you forget them, but you remember every little call that goes against you. Whether its inconsistent safe/out on tag calls in baseball, inconsistent boarding calls in hockey, inconsistent holding/pass iterference calls in football. Yes, the refs in hockey arethe most inconsistent so you here about them the most, but calls never “favor” a team. The fact of the matter is they always even out. Only did the bad ref in the NBA throw games as a red a few years back and he was badly exiled for it. The only one you’ve ever heard about being badly exiled for something means that it happens rarely. The refs aren’t “against” the Blues or any other team. If you want to complain about officiating just being flat out bad that’s fine, likely true. If you want to complain about the refs being against the Blues then you are being incorrect and annoying while making yourself look paranoid an our fanbase look dumb.

Usually, in seasons past their have been bad calls against and for the Blues in a given game or a given stretch.

This season, he has seemed that the calls are mostly for or mostly against the Blues. Because of this, it looks like we are getting screwed over a given stretch or over a given game.

Usually it is… “Oh, that was a ‘make-up’ call for the earlier shitty one”.

Now it is… “These refs hate the Blues.”

It is what it is and in the end the good and bad will even itself out somewhat.

Even though I will continue to bitch when a horrible call is made.

If you watch basketball, you’ll appreciate NHL refs.

otherwize their rage against the blues as obvious as it must be would result in some sort of standings effect

I rest my case

I think that certain teams do get the benefit of the doubt on occasion. Look at that malkin call from the playoffs a couple years ago. He CLEARLY instigates the fight after the point where he should have gotten suspended and nothing happens. They got tossed for fighting and end of story.

I’m not saying the NHL is trying to beat the Blues down, but I definitely think you can make a pretty convincing argument for preferential treatment in some situations.

Should kill themselves, as they’re clearly too stupid to live.

Secrets are hard to keep, and if word of the NHL fixing games- or even providing an edge to specific teams via officiating- got out, the fallout would cost the league tens of millions of dollars, and could result in criminal charges.

If it weren’t for the existence of the National Basketball Association and their playoff tournament, I’d say NHL officials were the worst in sports. But that’s not the case, and is neither here nor there.

Of course we’re going to believe there’s a conspiracy against our team when a call doesn’t go our boys’ way. Want to know why? BECAUSE YOU’RE ROOTING FOR YOUR TEAM . . . you’re EXPECTED to act that way against a call in which you feel your team was slighted.

That said, does the consortium of NHL officials show a favorable eye toward certain players? Of Goddamn course they do. And while I would never accuse David Perron of diving (I honestly don’t think he is a diver), he is a prime example of this favoritism. The dude plays hard and can do incredible things when the puck is on his stick, and that draws calls more often than not.

Anyway, in general, the NHL needs to either hire more competent officials, do away with the second on-ice referee or do a fuckload more training in the offseason on these guys, lest the problem get worse.

while Pavel Datsyuk got nothing for an elbow to the face of Barret Jackman.

Probably because it wasn’t an elbow, and to continue to categorize it as such despite the evidence which shows clearly that Datsyuk’s elbow does not start two inches below his shoulder is not only irresponsible, but also damaging to one’s credibility.

On top of that, you have what appear to be great discrepancies in the number of penalties called between the Blues and their opponents.

Blues penalties taken (raw count): 223
Blues’ opponents’ penalties taken: 217

GREAT DISCREPANCY: 6

Ottawa’s discrepancy: 36
Tampa Bay’s: 24
Dallas’: 26

Oh, and just because I know you’re all Curious… Detroit’s GREAT PENALTY DISCREPANCY: -4

That is only for home games.

and in my senile opinion they are getting worse. In the olden daze you had maybe 1 major blown call in a game or every other game for either side. Now there’s 2 or 3 per game where you just facepalm and wonder WTF game are the refs watching. And those calls are not always against the Blues, some of them BOHICA the other team and you still wonder if Andy “3 Blind Mice” Van Hellemond was their instructor at ref school. That blind SOB, no one knew what the hell he would call.

To digress a bit regarding that Backes hit, it points out our Capt has one little chink in his armor that he needs to fix, he can still be goaded. He pulled the punch into Burrish’s bread basket and I thought for sure he was going to get an extra two for that but not that time. For drama queens like Burr you just gotta smile and skate away, you can’t get sucked in. Blow them a kiss or something but you simply CANNOT retaliate, it will cost you a game and maybe a series. It’s mind over doucherockets that don’t matter. Take a number and next tome going into the corner give them an extra stride and lift. Oh wait, you can’t do that anymore in the NHL. fuck.

… because there seems to be some confusion here thanks to my open ended questions meant to facilitate discussion, I don’t think there’s a conspiracy, and I do think that people who believe that teams are favored over others need to go tie that tinfoil hat on a bit more tightly.

When I was at the game in Nashville on December, I saw the Blues get away with about four or five obvious penalties right in front of my face. The Preds fans wondered where the call was, and I agreed with them. Not that I wanted the call, but that I expected the call on them.

I got tired last year of them “sending messages” when they were losing games, and this year I’m starting to get tired of them putting themselves in positions where borderline calls are possible. They have to wisen up a bit. Bad calls are going to happen, but they happen less if you don’t do things to create the opportunity for them to.

We don’t think there is a CONSPIRACY against us. But we do think that for whatever reason we do get more bad calls/non calls against us than teams we play. There are definitely examples where we get the advantage in isolated incidents throughout the year, and even in entire games (I would point to the last Avs game). However, it seems on the whole, we get Bret Hart-esque screw jobs. Maybe it just seems like that because our bad calls usually seem to come at some important point in the game.

My opinion is that from the position the ref calling the penalty was in, it looked like boarding. The way Burrows fell probably looked like he hit the boards first then awkwardly bent to the ice. If the ref had been positioned along the same boards the hit took place, he would have seen the hit was further from the boards than he thought and wouldn’t have called a penalty.

Look at the game against Minnesota. Backes gets thrown out of half the game for coming in after Perron gets lit up in the first period. OK fine. That sets the bar. (Unsportsman + INstigator + Fighting + Misconduct, Wild get 4 minute powerplay)

Flash forward to the second period when Reaves lights up someone (I forget who) and Staubitz jumps in to go after Reaves. What does Staubitz get? Only unsportsman and fighting (Blues get 2 minute powerplay).

Its the exact same fucking situation yet it gets called remarkably different, and to a huge disadvantage for the Blues.

It’s been confirmed, in further testing this JJ from KC can indeed give a woodpecker a headache.

New to posting here and didn’t know. Just wondering in case I make a factual error like I did earlier when discussing Blues penalty minutes and I want to delete it.

I AM better than that. And I issue a full apology.

What you saw earlier (if anyone saw it) will not occur ever again. If it does, fucking shoot me.