REFFING IS NOT A FAIR PROCESS

Last Night...


I wrote a while back an article about reffing biases. Last night was quite evident that there is a definite bias happening with referees. 


I want to say first off, that had we got quality officiating last night, Edmonton still got beat by the Hawks. There were other contributing factor to the loss. A combination of rookie head coaching from Ralph Krueger, who is standing in for Tom Renney while he's away dealing with the death of his Dad. I mean let's face it, Reddox, Fraser, & Jones should not have been out against the Toews line.


That aside, Edmonton did not play well enough to win. They were flat, and were unable to put together a 60 minute performance.

But...when the officials gave the Hawks 6 consecutive power-plays without a make-up call of any kind, it is a little one sided in my estimation. The six calls were legit penalties (maybe), but there were some blatant missed calls that should've garnered us some PP time as well. Case-in-point: the slash that Keith made on Penner right in front of the official. Keith was upset with Penner as Pen's had  hit him cleanly, but hard a couple of times. Keith decided to slash Penner and there was no call what-so-ever! It was a blatant call too, as the slash was a one handed chop to the back of Penner's leg.


After 5 consecutive PK's, Teddy Peckman & Cogliano were a little frustrated and Peckman told the ref off and both Peckman and Cogs got 10 min mis-conducts. UNREAL!! I have never seen two of those called at the same time for the same team. Peckman after the game said that he only said 4 words to the official. I would've loved to hear what those words were to garner a 10 minute mis-conduct! I'm not quite sure why Cog's got the penalty, I didn't see him saying or doing anything untoward.


When the officials finally called Toews on a hook at 9:50 of the third...you would've thought we just scored based on the cheering from the crowd. The Fans (myself included) were giving it to the refs quite hard as well, and I think that the whole arena cheering when a Hawk got called, sent a pretty clear message if you ask me.


The caricature above of Mick McGeough is fitting here based on the fact that he blundered that call a few years ago on Horcoff for the hand pass off the face-off that cost us a game. It turns out that one McGeough retired from officiating, he landed a gig training refs. I wonder if there's a correlation there....


GO Oilers GO!