Rooney- South Boston native, former player at Catholic Memorial- probably a Bruins fan growing up since those were the Bourque-Neely-Oates Bruins but certainly grew up in the shadow of the old Boston Garden- not sure if he is related to Steve Rooney or the clan from Canton but the Boston ties are out there. If I know Pittsburgh, Vancouver, and Montreal have blogs and message boards on this guy being a Boston guy every time he refs a big game then he does- and that's the problem
he and his cohort last night were horrible- both ways- they botched an early first period take down on a Chicago player; somehow only gave McQuaid 2 minutes for obvious 4 minute high sticking on Shaw; missed the high stick on Lucic, and the most egregious of them all the trip on Krug.
Rooney must score highly to get these gigs but for the love of hockey, don't let him do the Boston games- he doesn't ref and that goes both ways, and always turns into a tug of war with no flow. He seems to only want to call matching penalties, very obvious, and for teams trailing by a couple of goals or more. Every game he does I spend more time watching how he botches. And since he is from this area it seems he gets a lot of assignments which suck.
I'll say this though- I hope to see him at least one more time and that is because I hear he has game 7. Maybe he will finally do what everyone thinks and give the Bruins there due- at least call it fair because he more times than not is so concerned on not looking like he has a Cam Neely jersey in the closet he is screwing Boston