More Weak Officiating

After watching Tampa Bay disassemble the Habs last night, I watched the Blackhawks beat the Wild in Chicago.

There were a few botched calls during the game which surprised me. I’m not sure which was worse but the first one involved Johnny Oduya tripping Chris Stewart with an arm around his skate. Taking Stewart down this way didn’t just prevent a shot on net, it also caused Stewart to slam dangerously hard into the boards.

I was wondering if they would be giving a penalty shot for the play. The ref was in position, you can see his skate at the left edge of the image.

Johnny Oduya had his right arm wrapped around Chris Stewart’s leg on the play.

But they didn’t even stop the play until the puck went down the ice. For what it’s worth, Oduya didn’t celebrate the hit. I think he was worried first that he’d get a penalty and second, that he’d have killed Stewart.

More oddness, the HNIC crew, including both Bob Cole and Greg Millen, didn’t even notice the trip.

This got me wondering… am I a complete idiot? Am I imagining things? Did the rules change without me being informed?

Well, I did do a quick search for ‘oduya trip’ on google. Of the first four hits (one was for a trade rumour since those often come up while teams are on a ‘trip’), we get the following headlines…

• Blackhawks’ Oduya saves goal with nasty trip on…
• Blackhawks Oduya saves goal with rough trip that knocked…
• Johnny Oduya trips Chris Stewart, doesn’t get penalized…

Early in the third period, Patrick Sharp came up behind Mikko Koivu near the boards and hit the back of Koivu’s skate with his own, knocking Koivu down within a foot of the boards. Koivu flailed to try and keep his balance and as he spun around his stick hit Sharp’s legs and Sharp went down. This naturally resulted in a penalty for Koivu. That he had been tripped by Sharp… who cares? It’s sort of like how a player can get up a head of steam and rush the goalie. If a defenceman touches him, he can take out the goalie for free.

While Chicago didn’t score on the power play, Sharp did score shortly after the penalty ended, making it 3-1. Again, the announcers weren’t paying attention.

Anyways, after the ruination of the Senators, I’m finding the failures of the officiating to be discouraging. Mistakes are inevitable but there seems to be a certain cluelessness that wears me down and makes me enjoy the game less.