Sunday, April 5, 2009

Upon Further Review

I watched almost every game yesterday, flipping channels at commercials to catch the simultaneous games, and I noticed two instances yesterday of the referees using replay to call a penalty.

One of those calls, which I'm sure we'll be talking about for weeks, was Sean Avery's return to douchebaggery as he "accidentally" smacked Tim Thomas in the back of the helmet during a TV timeout. If you didn't see it, or hear about it already, here's Puck Daddy's description with video because I don't feel like going into detail about it. But I must say Tommy's waffle to Freddy Shoes face was hilarious.

The second was much more tame, an accidental high stick in the Columbus vs. Nashville game, where the crowd let out the collective groan after watching the replay that persuaded the refs to make the call after missing it initially. The thing to note about this is that after they sent Raffi Torres to the box, they looked again at the screen and decided it was Fedor Tyutin who would receive a double-minor for the smack on Radek Bonk.

First off, these calls weren't made by taking a look at the tiny-ass monitor they have in the scorer's area, you know the Toronto "War Room" feed. These calls were made after the ref got a look at the replay on the jumbotron in the respective arenas.

And second, since when did we start using replay, no matter what the source, to review calls, or non-calls that aren't related to scoring or clock issues?

Is this another rule change that I missed?

Am I the fucking dipshit who doesn't know the rules, or what a natural hat trick is?

No comments: