Basketball player assaults referee during game!

One way to deal with calls not going your way... I doubt this guy is playing these days!



A Kuwaiti basketball player hits the referee in the Asian Cup game after losing to Saudi in a game that should have been easy for them and would've qualified them to 2nd round, unnecessary & stupid act.
More at http://bahrainbasket.blogspot.com

Why do NHL officials suck this bad?

by sean gordon Globe and Mail Update

Here’s a touchy one, hope we don’t get fined by the league.

But several incidents over the last few days have dredged up a persistent, vexing question: why are NHL officials so bad?

The most egregious blunder this week was the non-call on Corey Perry’s overtime winner for the Ducks on Wednesday night after he plainly tripped Carolina’s Jussi Jokinen behind the net to create a turnover.

There were a couple of phantom goalie interference calls against the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins that negated goals - in the Blueshirts’ case a late tying goal against a division rival, New Jersey.

On Thursday night, the zebras missed at least one high-stick goal (on Long Island) and probably another in Newark.

That both stood up after replay makes it all the more puzzling.

And do we even need to bring up Clock-gate in L.A.?

In any case, some people in hockey are doing their best Peter Finch impression: they’re mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it any more.

But they’re also going to speak elliptically so as not to get socked in the wallet by the humourless suits at head office. To wit, one John Tortorella.

It’s always easy to blame incompetence, but what if the issue is the game itself?

Everyone always talks about how much faster the NHL has become since the lockout, and maybe it’s now moving too quickly to be adequately officiated by two refs.

What is already a fiendishly hard job is rendered nearly impossible to do well despite the best efforts of men who, by and large, are top professionals.

One offshoot of trying to keep up with the chaos is that refs develop an unusually close proximity to some players, usually veterans.

None of the foregoing in any way excuses blowing easy calls like the Perry situation.

But that incident does show how people will modify their behaviour - Perry had been slashed on the hand a few moments earlier but there had been no call.

Former NHL ref Kerry Fraser, he of the Alain Cote disallowed goal (1986) and Wayne Gretzky high-stick-that-wasn’t (1993) incidents, pulled the cover back on that whole can of worms in his TSN column.

Money quote: “In an attempt to be ‘fair’ you ultimately become an accountant trying to balance the books instead of a referee. Usually the second infraction you feel you must allow is worse than the first one.”

Footage from HBO’s 24/7 is particularly revealing - refs have conversations with players, who are often referred to by nickname, that have the feel of negotiations.

The NHL is a reputation league, and refs also sometimes make flash judgments influenced by a player’s rep.

Best example: Dan O’Rourke calling Erik Karlsson a diver in a conversation with Ottawa coach Paul MacLean - nice work Rourkie.

At least MacLean has big brass ones and smashed the usual omerta by going public and ratting him out.

So in addition to having competence issues with certain refs - ie. Tim Peel, Stephane Auger and, most egregiously, Chris Lee - the NHL is dealing with complicated psychology.

There are no easy fixes to this, but there are a couple of things the NHL could do.

First, they could be more transparent about ref discipline - the English Premier League issues lists of which refs and assistants have been dropped and why.

Teams can send players to the minors if they don’t perform, why shouldn’t refs suffer the same treatment?

Why not give refs from a lower league a little hope that they might gain access to the exclusive NHL club?

That seems callous and antithetical to hockey tradition, but maybe it’s a way to create distance between ref and player (although soccer players disrespect officials at least as much as hockey players).

More refs could be hired from European leagues, more resources could be spent on training and professional development at all levels - the minor pro and major junior leagues are also dealing with a dearth of top officials.

Another option would be to mike the refs like they do in international rugby - a sport where players rarely, if ever, talk back at the officials any more.

Rugby refs also explain how certain subjective rules - like the breakdown - are going to be called so it’s clear to both sides and the viewing public.

Make the soundtrack available to the television networks to use in replays - it might even clean up some of the homophobic and bigoted language that is tolerated all to often on the ice.

None of this, of course, will ever happen.

But here’s something that might, or at least should: remove some of the discretion and judgment calls that make refs’ lives harder.

Do away with touching the puck with a high stick or kicking it or punching it into the net.

Enforce unsportsmanlike and misconduct offences, make all contact with the head an automatic minor penalty, give a game misconduct to players who fight, enforce the instigator rule.

This will be met by fierce resistance by the refs, who it should be pointed out, nearly went on strike a season or two back.

But something needs to happen.

Credibility is hard-won but easily frittered away, the reputation league should want to avoid gaining a reputation for poor officiating.

Being a hockey ref isn't always easy...

originally posted at thestar.com

They have been spat upon, cross-checked in the head and sucker-punched. They have suffered sexual and homophobic comments and been grabbed by the throat.

Players have fired pucks at them and parents have threatened them, sometimes making good on their violent promises.

Those are just some of the incidents of abuse listed by hockey referees — almost all from Ontario amateur leagues — who took part in a survey whose findings are published in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine.

Some 374 of 632 anonymous respondents, 92 per cent from Ontario, listed specific examples that ranged from a parent breaking a referee’s finger to a fan threatening to “carve out a linesman’s eye” and an ejected player head-butting an official.

The study — titled Violence in Canadian Amateur Hockey: The Experience of Referees in Ontario — was co-authored by Dr. Charles Tator, a Toronto neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital who is founder of the group ThinkFirst Canada, a charitable organization dedicated to the prevention of brain and spinal cord injuries.

The other co-authors were Dr. Alun D. Ackery and Dr. Carolyn Snider.

The study’s objective was “to determine the perception and roles of referees about violence and injury in hockey games.”

“We found that hockey referees in Canada perceived a lack of discipline and obeying of hockey rules leading to an increased aggression and injury,” the study concluded.

“Referees suggest that they are both physically and verbally abused. Referees feel that coaches are the most important individuals for determining player safety. This potential lack of respect and hostility for referees from coaches, parents, and fans creates an environment that may put all on-ice participants at higher risk for injury.

“These responses give new insight on the potential need to give referees more support, authority to discipline, and ability to educate participants with respect to on-ice safety.”

The authors used a web-based study, contacting 21 referees-in-chief from all provincial and territorial Hockey Canada organizations as well as several private adult hockey leagues from April 1 to May 18, 2010.

Nine agreed to distribute the survey link to their referees. The NHL did not allow its officials to participate, the authors said.

read entire article

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Boston Bruins rack up some serious penalty minutes and lose to the Canes

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By Mike Loftus
The Patriot Ledger

BOSTON —

If it’s remembered and discussed today solely for things like coach Claude Julien getting ejected, Zdeno Chara spending 17 consecutive minutes in the penalty box after instigating a fight, and goalie Tuukka Rask skating the length of the ice to challenge Carolina goalie Cam Ward, the point has been missed.

Last night’s 4-1 loss to the Hurricanes was really more a case of the Bruins turning from a team off to a poor start to one that made itself look bad.

“We have to take responsibility for our own actions here,” said Julien, who was at first mystified, then infuriated when he learned he’d been assessed a 10-minute misconduct with just 3:44 remaining.

“What I see is frustration setting in, and the minute we start getting frustrated we lose focus on our game, and then it gets worse and worse. And that’s been a bit of a pattern this year.”

True enough, but the 2-4-0 Bruins had never reacted as they did last night – and their worst behavior was saved for the worst possible time. Although outplayed well into the third period, they cut Carolina’s lead to 2-1 when Rich Peverley scored a power-play goal with 9:01 to play – and then went on to spend most of the time left trying, often unsuccessfully, to kill unnecessary or retaliatory penalties.

“We stuck up for each other; that’s important,” Peverley said. “But at the end of the day we lost the game, and we’re 2-4.”

The Hurricanes iced their second win over the B’s in less than a week with a pair of 5-on-3 goals at 13:26 and 14:58.

The key penalties went against winger Nathan Horton, just 31 seconds after Peverley scored. Angered, as linemate Milan Lucic had been earlier and would be again, by Hurricanes defenseman Jeff Gleason, Horton took four minutes worth of roughing penalties. Chara followed with a high-sticking penalty on Jeff Skinner, and Dennis Seidenberg then ensured that Boston would remain two men short by taking a boarding penalty.

On or around the same time, Brad Marchand (11:49), Lucic (16:16, after an unsuccessful attempt to get Gleason to fight) and then Julien were assessed misconducts.

“When they announced the misconduct on Lucic, I just shook my head,” Julien said. “I guess that was the merit for being kicked out.”

Read more here

UMP gets tagged by a pitch

People keep wondering why these guys are so inconsistent with their strike zones. Well, here is why:

yankees vs. tigers game 10/1/11

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