Let's Go Blues

So everyone who watches the NHL knows how the game is called - refs do "make up" calls and try to keep games even, for the most part, unless a team is doing something particularly egregious.

So... Tim Peel gets caught saying this and essentially loses his job. NHL Radio hosts and guests, for the most part, are siding on the "call the game by the rules" side (which I'm actually in favor of), but that's not going to work. Why? Might you ask.

A few years ago, there was a Sunday Night Football game between the Falcons and Packers. The game was decided on pass interference calls and non-calls in the final two minutes of the game with the same official not calling the PI on the Packers while calling if vs the Falcons and the PI act was essentially identical. The resulting hue and cry the next day among the NFL media was "call the game by the rules". Officials shouldn't be deciding games by not calling the game by the rules. That Monday Night the referees had clearly been given instructions to "call the game by the rules" and they did. The result - there were penalties on almost 2/3rd of the downs called. Jon Gruden and the play-by-play guy - I think it was Tirico - before the 1st quarter is over, without mentioning the Sunday Night fiasco, complain about the officials ruining the game and needing to "let them play". The NFL has been trying to fix that PI thing ever since with varying degrees of results to the point they are now supposedly going to add an "eye in the sky" referee.

So how does all that apply to the NHL? Fortunately, the NHL rulebook doesn't have as many grey areas (don't even bring up the joke of Rule 48, please) so calling the game by the rules isn't that hard. The issue - power plays will be lopsided almost every night until teams adjust to having to play by the rules - or - announcers and fans (I would say players, coaches, and GMs, but they aren't officially allowed) will complain about referees picking on their team, instead of citing the players for not playing within the rules, which will lead back to the current state of not calling everything and "keeping things even" like it's been pretty much forever in the NHL. If the NHL does go go to actually enforcing the rules and calling everything, certain players are going to have to change the way they play (Perron and Mark Stone come to mind, because they both play on the edge of the rules quite often).

I already heard Scott Laughlin complaining that players would have to adjust mid-season to a different style of officiating. IMO, that's a BS complaint, since players adjust every year when the officiating changes in the playoffs. What happens in the playoffs if they go to the enforcing everything route? Playoff hockey is notorious for letting things go.

It'll be interesting to see what happens. IMO, there is going to be a week or 2 of "stricter" officiating and it will go back to the way it's always been after that week or 2.

When I first saw the article about Peel, my initial reaction was good, serves him right for being a douche. But the more I thought about it, everyone knows this shit goes on. It's not really a big secret that there's make up calls and an imbalance in officiating on a regular basis. I guess the big issue is that he was caught on a hot mic saying it out loud and there's an expectation that you don't make public what the league doesn't want to have made public. No one's guilty until they're caught admitting it and that's what happened here.

Yea when I first saw it I kind of rolled my eyes. It was a combination feeling to me of "Everyone does it, but what an idiot saying it out loud."

That's the difference, and he got caught. It's a shame, because yea you're right, it happens all the time in hockey but the refs never say it out loud. But when they do... you have to punish him, I mean, what else could the league have done? I suppose "indefinitely suspend" him, let it sit for the rest of the year and try to "quietly" bring him back next season? Make him take some classes or something, haha?

Bit harsh to me the guy immediately loses his job but I also understand it. You just can't say that stuff out loud as an official.

Well... he didn't officially "lose his job". He's retiring at the end of year anyway, so the league just said he can't officiate any more NHL games. He's still getting his pension since they didn't "fire" him. The league just made their statement about "integrity of the game" without taking away his retirement. And the hot mic thing - it wasn't even Peel's mic. It was some random mic in the arena somewhere, so it's not like anyone made him aware he was being recorded. Yes, it shouldn't have been said, but you have to know refs talk about that stuff between periods or there is no "game management."