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To be fair, Campbell was not involved in this decision, and Thornton and the Sharks are looking to appeal on those grounds. He was traveling somewhere and was not involved in the call. Hopefully his plane crashed, or he was stoned to death by the locals immediately after landing.

Again, its an all-shoulder hit, no charging or leaving his feet, and its not late. This is another reaction call, which, like the Meszaros hit, is fucking hilarious because Perron not only gets up right after Thornton goes to the box, but he comes out and scores the game winning goal. He should be thanking Big Joe for knocking some talent into him.

Hopefully this some how gets overturned on appeal. Our only other hope is, like most fad rules, the refs get lazy and stop calling it after a year or so.

On a side note, what the fuck is up with all these shutouts? I remember when a shutout was so rare, you didn't dare speak of it lest you jinx your chance of seeing it for that year. Now they are so common its almost a forgone conclusion in some games. My guess is that with the way the game is being called nowadays, the talent level is so watered down in the NHL, all you have to do is be able to skate well and you have a roster spot. There are very few go to players who you know can just wreck a goalie's night. Hell, even Ovechkin is struggling to score early in the season.

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I'm glad you jumped on the Kovalchuk/Parise land mine before I did, because I was going to grab one or the other right after you. Unfortunately, I still stepped in a pile of Marc-Andre Fluery.

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This is exactly why a challenge flag won't work in the NHL. The league is going to do whatever it damn well pleases, with no regards to the integrity of the game.

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I've been watching some KHL games now that Xbox has the ESPN360 on demand. They have mostly been agonizingly slow and low impact. I hope North American leagues aren't trying to emulate that. Not sure what rules are being used for the series (NA or European) but I would bet that if its international refs you are going to get alot of bullshit calls like that.

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Yeah, I was watching that game about a week ago or so, that was a brutal hit. Definitely a charging which I think is the penalty he got for that, but man did Martin leave himself in a bad position. Thats the play where players usually get their shoulder seperated, when they are hit reaching for the puck. Hope he can make a full recovery, thats probably going reqiure fusing some vertebrae, which usually doesn't go too well with playing sports.

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Clean hit, and I really don't have any problem with how the fight went down. It never looked to me like Avery backed down, he was waiting to see what was happening with the play, and Smid never let his guard down, and barely took his eyes off of him, so no sucker punch. Smid just wasn't fast enough on the draw.

Not that I give 2 shits about Avery, would have been just as well if he got his ass handed to him.

Anywho, no suspensions issued on this one, and only Dubinsky was fined for grabbing a guy while on the bench. Campbell was too busy dealing with his own steaming pile to worry about actually doing his job.

That Campbell is a classy guy.

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Its a good ol' boy network pure and simple. No qualifications, no good ideas, just have to be one of the guys. Same way the US government is run, and look how well thats working out.

I was at my boy's game last night (they lost their first game of the season 4-2 with an empty netter) where he got a goal called back because the ref didn't see it under the goalies glove. I checked my blackberry for the score in the Leafs - Preds game, which the Leafs were losing in typically spectacular fashion 3-0 in the first period. I didn't bother checking again as the live Bantam tilt going on in front of me was more engaging.

Imagine my surprise when got home to find out that the good old boys in Blue&white had tied up the Preds 4 - 4. they went on to win 5-4.

4 power play goals. Clarke MacArthur assisting on 3 goals in 1 period. I gotta say that picking up this guy was a steal. And Versteeg with two goals in 59 seconds. this was a weird game with a decent outcome.


This is the winning entry of the Leafs Haiku contest:

The cut runs so deep
Since Nineteen Sixty Seven
We’ll parade in hell

That was a ridiculous game with 6 straight penalties called on Nashville, and 8 of 10, including two 5 on 3's. Someone upstairs got sick of the Leafs embarrasing themselves.

I have a love for my original home team the Detroit Red Wings, but since moving to the DC area I have appreciated the Caps. I say this is legal because they are in 2 different conferences and rarely play each other (let's face it, besides the one game in the season it would only happen in the playoffs and the Caps are too young of a team to make it that far, yet).

word

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RIP Pat, thanks for the great memories. Still can't believe they never put Burnsy in the Hall before he passed, one of the great mistakes of hockey.
Former NHL coach Pat Burns dies

Agreed. Glad they went with the publicity stunt of adding women this year instead. Stay classy NHL.

great thread guys.gonna have to stop in more often.


oh and...........Canucks?

we got a chance this year or what?

love to hear what you guys think.

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They just got dismantled last night by Chicago with the back up tender in. They definitely have a confidence problem when it comes to the Hawks.

WTF kinda hockey was that?????...........Blowongo chased after 2 periods and 4 goals.........then Schneider gives up a bunch..........what a fucking sad game that was.

maybe they will pull their heads outta their asses and redeem themselves tonight.

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11/19 Pens vs Canes, pens 4th goal. Skip ahead to 1:08


Anybody catch this? The ref very clearly shook his head no goal and was then overruled on the review, here is the overhead with sound:


Seems to me the whistle blows before the puck crosses the line, do they not get sound in Toronto or did I miss something or is it too close to call? - If the last is the case, how does it overrule the on Ice call?

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I call that the Crosby effect. I've seen that same play kill a goal in dozens of games just because the ref intended to blow the whistle, much less when he actually did. But the league (read: Bettman) loves Crosby, and by proxy the Penguins, and will do anything to get them winning.

And as far the Staal/Stajan hit, I can't go with you on this one. The slowmo clearly shows Staal bending down and then exploding into Stajan's head with the shoulder and upper arm. If he had simply skated through Stajan body to body, or even hip checked him, thats a great hit. But in my opinion, he was going for Stajan's head all the way. But Stajan certainly didn't help matters by ogglin his own pass.

Either way, Staal's not getting anything from the league on this one.

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That's definitely pretty low, considering whoever it was knew for sure who they were stealing from. Nothing like kicking someone while they are down.

Ravens need to get that offense going or they will do squat in the playoffs... that is iif they even get to the playoffs

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the Baltimore Colts? No wait that was the CFL.....

---------- Post added at 02:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:29 PM ----------

Can you say spinorama?

Jason Blake - 2008:



M. Grabovsky - 2010:
@ 1:46

Not the NHL ... but nothing like a hockey fight to start off the day: This was in the news last night - a fight on a non-call in a British league - note the accents. Very quaint:

Nottingham Panthers v Coventry Blaze bench clearance 04/12/2010

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From one of the oldest to the youngest... there's no balance. Fans were booing again last night. Meanwhile fricken Habs fans are strutting around the office today in MTL hockey sweaters.... grrrr.