An Open Letter To NHL Officials

When NHL Refs didn't see an obvious penalty call, they confer with each other like this, as if we don't know they missed the play entirely

Having watched more NHL hockey games on TV in the last 5 years than a lot of people and several a year in person, I feel the need to write a letter like this to both the league and it's officials as the way the game is being officiated over the last few months has been appalling and something needs to be done about it during this Olympic break. To put it bluntly; NHL Refs need a wake up call.

Coming out of the lockout in 2005-2006, the NHL adopted rules changes that immediately brought back the speed and skill of the league and made slow, plodding players a thing of the past. No longer were these "Pluggers" allowed to grab on, hook, hold, use the "can-opener" move (where a defenders put his stick between the offensive players legs and either slowed him down entirely or tripped him up without a penalty a la Bryan McCabe throughout most of his time with the Leafs). The new emphasis on having the officials calling the rules more stringently led to an increase in scoring and players with skill being able to use their skill more then any time since the 1980's.

The fact that every fan base in the league has issues with the officials speaks volumes about the current crop of Refs

The removal of the red line and the inclusion of the shoot out after overtime were great and really brought back the fans in droves as well but the biggest changes was having the refs calling things much more by the book. Over the last 8 or 9 years, we have seen 2 things occur that have started to drag the sport back down to where they were before 2005 directly as a result of the officiating; The refs themselves slacking off on calls during the game and players purposefully turning their backs to the ice near the boards trying to draw boarding penalties. It's time to change things and you have 17 days to do it.

In the last week alone, we have seen Brendan Gallagher get mugged by 2 Jets defenders in the last minute of a game and get no call (should have been at least coincidental minors on that play), Nazem Kadri hit Codi Ceci from behind (mostly because he put himself into a prone position, but still) without a penalty leading to a key Lupol goal, and then last night when it appeared as though the officials in the Blues - Sens showed a severe amount of favoritism and were unprofessional in the way they officiated the game (Blues had 7 power plays to 1 for Ottawa). Even in the Leafs game, there were numerous plays that went uncalled against the Panthers and, if you go back over the last few weeks, there have been more and more missed calls (or plays where the refs "let the boys play") that call into question the integrity of officiating in the league as a whole.

....And the jokes keep on coming....

With that said, there is one kind of penalty which has been increasingly called over the last few years that needs to have an added wrinkle added to it since more and more players continue to put themselves into the same vulnerable position over and over again. I am talking about the increasing amount of players who turn their back to the ice when they are within 3-5 feet of the boards hoping to be hit by a player hard enough to then embellish their dive into the boards to draw a penalty. Look back on games played all the way up until US college hockey started becoming a bigger source of NHL players in the mid 1990's and you will see that players knew better then to EVER turn their back on the ice when they were anywhere near the boards.

Hitting someone who has his back to the ice, resulting in this unnatural physical reaction has become an all too common occurance that will end up with someone getting seriously hurt one day

It might have been the combination of no fighting in US College hockey along with the full cage every player is mandated to wear but the back to the ice tactic to protect the puck along the boards is used so much so now that the best way to stop players from embellishing when they are hit (as it appeared Codi Ceci was when he unnaturally seemed to dive into the boards when he was hit on the hip by Kadri Saturday night), 2 penalties need to be called on the play. The hit is in the books already as boarding, so to is the 2nd penalty: Unsportsmanslike Diving. If this starts getting called enough times, players will stop using this puck protection tactic near the boards and we will all be better off for it.

Of course, there will be times when players are not diving when hit from behind and only one call is justified. While nothing is perfect, unless the players start to realize that they should not be putting themselves in such a dangerous position, this issue won't go away.

...Because getting hit hip to hip should NOT result in someone diving head first into the boards

The tougher problem is getting the officiating back up to snuff. The challenge systems needs to be instituted similar to how it works in the NFL, but that wouldn't take effect until next year at the earliest. For right now, Mr. Bettman and Mr. Daly, you need to place a call to the head of the officials union and give them some new marching orders to revert back to calling games like the way they were called right after the 2005-2006 lockout. You need to weed out these refs who seem to allow personal feelings to cloud their decisions (as it appears was the case yesterday when the officials in that Ottawa - St. Louis game seemed to not appreciate the Senators anger due to their lack of consistency with their calls).

The only reason there isn't more of a fuss being made about that game was the fact that Ottawa found a way to somehow win the game in a shootout. Had that not happened, you might have the entire city of Ottawa itself up in arms over the way their last 2 games had gone with penalties (both called and not called). Its gotten to the point where you start to wonder if the NHL is on the verge of possibly having an officiating crisis on their hands like the one the NBA went through (and still seems to be going through given the way the Raptors game ended last night in Sacramento).

In the NFL and MLB, both Leagues have taken sufficient steps to help out their officials while the NBA and NHL are (surprisingly) lagging way, WAY behind

It is time to get the officials to all adhere to one version of the rules, not allowing them to pick and choose what rules they can and can't over look. A small hook on the hands that doesn't cause a turnover isn't a penalty but a hook on the shoulder of a player (Lupol a couple of games ago) that happens right in front of an official, makes him turn entirely around and lose the puck IS a penalty and SHOULD ALWAYS be called.

Its time to call NHL refs on the carpet and make them accountable for their errors, in fact ALL refs should be forced to answer media questions about why they called things the way they did. When they screw up in a game, they are essentially allowed to "skate" by without anyone being allowed to confront them about their game performance. Multi-million dollar athletes are forced to face the media after each and every game and the officials who earn less then 10% of what the players earn, can walk away Scott free.

When soccer refs are starting to look more competent then NHL refs, then you have issues.....

So to conclude, the NHL needs to tighten the way games are being called so that the true skill of the game is once again at the forefront. At the same time, their needs to be a better distinction made with regards to true "boarding" calls by trying to eliminate the "fake" hits from behind and the officials need to have to face the music after each and every game as well by having their own post-game press conferences.