News Article: Media call out on dangerous hit on McDavid

[Tyrolean]

There is no integrity on the NHL. Never was and never will be .. as it's run by selfish clowns.

 

[McOylerz]

I didn't see it, but knowing him and Sid...it was the "It's all Connor's fault" show. "Dont turn your back the last second" "Lindholm commited to the hit when McDavid turned, not his fault".

If it was Marner, marble mouth or Nostrils, they'd have been screaming for the death penalty.

That's basically what that tool said. He played the "McDavid initiated the contact" card... not surprising.

 

[OilersfaninTO]

There’s no conspiracy mandated by Bettman or the collective group of officials. It’s just straight up incompetence by the refs. There’s maybe 2 or 3 guys that are quality officials, the rest are inconsistent, incompetent bums who make things up as they go along. O’Halloran, Sutherland, McCauley are all usually decent. Peel and Meier are 2 of the worst. If they could just disregard the score and who had the most recent penalty and just call infractions as they seek them, that would be great/fair. Instead they try to manage the game by letting the dynamics influence their calls. Not calling penalties incurred by the offending team on McDavid because it’s “not fair” is beyond ridiculous.

 

[frag2]

Watch the narrative turn to how the Oilers need to protect McDavid ... that can’t happen anymore ... how many games will someone get for attacking Lindholn... we already seen Lucic get 2 games for going after someone in FLA and pinning him down .... we know if some went crazy the oilers would of had a 5 minute PK and could of lost a game they really needed ... it’s not like the old days ... league needs to protect its players ... this team got laughed at when they tried that **** in the cgy and lost

It already has. TSN and SNET have been trying to spin the whole thing as if the original message was all about McDavid when the whole argument was simple call the f***ing calls.

Typical though. I suppose we just need to see Matthews get hit by the same hit and shoulder injured again before league pays attention

 

[Ritchie Valens]

That show is so annoying

Not to go OT, but I don't mind it. I like Tim more than Sid as I lost a lot of respect for Sixeiro when he went off on Chiarelli for firing Mclellan the way he did (let him fly to San Jose, fired him in the hotel, already had Hitchcock there, blah blah blah) and went on a wild-eyed crazy rant about it for several minutes. I gave him a chance to redeem himself when Philly fired their coach but he said absolutely SWEET f*** ALL about the way Philly mishandled that firing with it first being leaked, then with the Philly org publicly saying "He's still our coach", then kept him for another day before firing him before practice back in Philly.

 

[oil4life97]

Infuriating to watch the replays. To see that idiot ref looking right at it. My wife gasped when we watched it live. She couldn’t understand why there was no penalty.

 

[thadd]

Just complete incompetence from this ref. Staring at the play right in front of him can't get any more obvious to call it.

Hitch probably made it worse when he called out the refs.

While that's one of the worse uncalled penalties on McDavid, there isn't been any change. Whether Hitch speaks up or not the same BS happens.

 

[The Panther]

Here's my take on this:

Yes, it clearly should have been a penalty. Maybe a 5-minute penalty, as per League standards for dangerous-area hits. No suspension. I would guess that 90% of the time, after a moderate hit like that, Connor probably doesn't even fall down. But because he was moving fast at that moment and going off-balance, it looks worse than it actually was. (NOTE: I said it should have been a penalty. Re-read the above before flaming.)

Some of you need to remember that the game, which is played at a ridiculously high speed, is officiated by two very human beings who WILL INEVITABLY AND WITHOUT FAIL miss some stuff. This is a fact of life, which, as a hockey fan, you have to accept. The ref might at that exact moment have been thinking about another play that had just occurred, or perhaps even focusing on another spot near him on the ice.

As Gord Miller wrote, the refs ARE held accountable. I would guess that, due to the negative PR this incident is generating, that particular referee (depending on his seniority and track record to date) will not be getting assignments deep into the playoffs. So something like this does come back on the refs, and does hit them in the pocket-book. I don't know what else we can ask for. The human-error element will always be a factor, so you may as well quit hockey if you can't accept that.

Those of us who remember the state of refereeing in the mid-to-late 1980s (or, presumably, earlier) will also remember how unbelievable horrible it was then (with one ref, in the hack-and-wack goonery era). I watched games around 1988 when the referee literally cost Edmonton a victory due to his incompetence, and there was no accountability back then (there was in word, but not in deed). I have never seen anything approaching that level of incompetence in the past 10 years of the NHL, and in fact I would say the refereeing today is about 500% better than it has been at any time in League history.

 

[Tyrolean]

Most of the comments here are Oiler biased. The mains have a more neutral tone though still in favor of a penalty at least. Not saying I agree but often it is good to hear both sides of the story and the ref (impossible I know).

 

[Hopelesslucicfan]

Here's my take on this:

Yes, it clearly should have been a penalty. Maybe a 5-minute penalty, as per League standards for dangerous-area hits. No suspension. I would guess that 90% of the time, after a moderate hit like that, Connor probably doesn't even fall down. But because he was moving fast at that moment and going off-balance, it looks worse than it actually was. (NOTE: I said it should have been a penalty. Re-read the above before flaming.)

Some of you need to remember that the game, which is played at a ridiculously high speed, is officiated by two very human beings who WILL INEVITABLY AND WITHOUT FAIL miss some stuff. This is a fact of life, which, as a hockey fan, you have to accept. The ref might at that exact moment have been thinking about another play that had just occurred, or perhaps even focusing on another spot near him on the ice.

As Gord Miller wrote, the refs ARE held accountable. I would guess that, due to the negative PR this incident is generating, that particular referee (depending on his seniority and track record to date) will not be getting assignments deep into the playoffs. So something like this does come back on the refs, and does hit them in the pocket-book. I don't know what else we can ask for. The human-error element will always be a factor, so you may as well quit hockey if you can't accept that.

Those of us who remember the state of refereeing in the mid-to-late 1980s (or, presumably, earlier) will also remember how unbelievable horrible it was then (with one ref, in the hack-and-wack goonery era). I watched games around 1988 when the referee literally cost Edmonton a victory due to his incompetence, and there was no accountability back then (there was in word, but not in deed). I have never seen anything approaching that level of incompetence in the past 10 years of the NHL, and in fact I would say the refereeing today is about 500% better than it has been at any time in League history.

There's absolutely no excuse for the NHL to still be so bad. Just because it's 500% better than it was 30 years ago, doesn't mean it's good enough.

If that ref isn't able to see the play immediately in front of him, that's a major error that should warrant real consequences, not a chunk of your bonus potentially getting cut.

Plays like this are never going to leave the game as long as the refs let even the odd one go.

I won't comment on whether it should be a suspension, as that's seemingly come down to a dart board decision, but that is at least 5 and the game.

There needs to be another referee in the pressbox who can make calls that these guys looking directly at the play clearly can't. For a league where the highest paid refs don't make 1/3 as much as the lowest paid players, there's no excuse to not have another ref stationed with a view of the ice surface.

 

[Austerlitz]

There’s no conspiracy mandated by Bettman or the collective group of officials. It’s just straight up incompetence by the refs. There’s maybe 2 or 3 guys that are quality officials, the rest are inconsistent, incompetent bums who make things up as they go along. O’Halloran, Sutherland, McCauley are all usually decent. Peel and Meier are 2 of the worst. If they could just disregard the score and who had the most recent penalty and just call infractions as they seek them, that would be great/fair. Instead they try to manage the game by letting the dynamics influence their calls. Not calling penalties incurred by the offending team on McDavid because it’s “not fair” is beyond ridiculous.

What you're saying is reasonable and makes sense. Logically, emotion aside, this SHOULD be true.

But when you see, game after game, year after year, the 'incompetence' always fall in favour of the California teams, it becomes pretty tough not to put the tinfoil hat on.

The last straw for me was the Anaheim series. After that, I dont know how anyone can still claim, 'oh, it goes both ways'.

 

[North]

TSN with a why didn’t anybody stand up for McDavid article.

TSN and Sportsnet are never going to call out the league unless Matthews gets this treatment from the refs.

 

[BoldNewLettuce]

TSN with a why didn’t anybody stand up for McDavid article.

TSN and Sportsnet are never going to call out the league unless Matthews gets this treatment from the refs.

Gambardella did?

When was the last time hampus lindholm dropped his gloves?

 

[North]

Gambardella did?

When was the last time hampus lindholm dropped his gloves?

Yeah, I know he did but just goes to show, both networks are basically just NHL shills unless their Leafs get screwed over.

 

[CornKicker]

I would just love hitch to go old school. Tell the boys that this hat right here is collector for suspension payments. get the whole team top to bottom contibute and get that pot to 50k then tell players like kass and kharia that they have free reign to do what they need to go to protect our players, you wont be out any cash. its oilers vs the league so fight back. Also could we sign dennis wideman for a game or 2?

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

There is no integrity on the NHL. Never was and never will be .. as it's run by selfish clowns.

I don't think the NHL is devoid of integrity, or McDavid would be a Leaf.

That said, the NHL has an issue where they put personal pride over any sense of sense, which is why they can't handle the officials.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Theres more than officiating involved here. Hockey is an inherently dangerous sport and more dangerous played at a high level. Players play this sport, and agree to, with that in mind. When people state they don't know wny McD doesn't play act for a call, act hurt, refuse to play its because he accepts the central tenet that hockey is a physical game with mayhem. When any game can be your last or worse.

That describes the nature of the most competitive players. The ones who will lay it on the line and put all at risk. Ultimately McD takes a hit because he is willing to sacrifice everytime. He won't peel back from that puck race and let the D get to it first. Its not in his DNA.

Moreso this is the highest speed game on the planet. Played at a tempo that often outstraps human thought process. Some of the things that occur as players tumble into the boards may be planned, some just occur like a sled careening down a hill at 40miles an hour. High speed is another aspect of the danger of the sport.

Hockey will never be safe. As long as boards are hard and not made of soft foam this will be an issue. As long s hockey is physical and allows hitting it will be an issue. Officiating, even optimal, doesn't change that.
Almost missing in this discussion is how and why players take it to the edge. That the players themselves are responsible for how dangerous hockey is, or isn't. We have a lot of modern day warriors out there. Highly paid gladiators essentially willing to do anything to stay on a club. Literally every club has them. Where the difference for them is stopping a McD vs letting him through is about continuing to be an adequate player.

In any game, no matter what, a natural inertia occurs where greatness is countered by trickery, chicanery, anything to stop it. But theres hundreds of players willing to do almost anything and largely because of the inordinate pay. I'm not sure how many can adequately understand how such pay corrupts the psyche. Alters not only self preservation, but that of others. To that end the pro hockey rink is an octagon. We're throwing millions at virile red blooded men and wondering why such things occur. But looking at it another way when we get steamed about all this violence on ice, the otherside is that its players living on the edge, not being tentative, and bringing it. As terrifying as it can be to witness that I wouldn't want to be seeing a neutered version of hockey. One without players putting it on the edge.

 

[slaman]

Drivesaitl, your post is well-written... but all of what you said is already understood as part of hockey since we've all been born. What has changed, however, is the officiating - that's why this story is about the refs.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Because I'm hopelessly verbose and could write a novel on this I'm separating this out. NHL officiating has always involved application distortion, threshold bias, interpretation in calling and "keeping it a fair fight" Indeed this seems to occur in anything. Try to explain why one drunk or speeding driver gets by with a warning and others get nailed everytime. Regardless of rules application is human. Its always subject to bias. Its subject to interpretation and even the human brain filling in the blanks distortion. Look up police records on victim or observer reports and human inter observer reliability is poor. Any cop will tell you this. We're terrible witnesses, observers. The human mind does not process incident objectively. People miss out all kinds of details. 5 different people will report 5 different events. Humans are just terrible at this. Its why more and more sports are going with automation. Tennis, Soccer, etc. Even when replay is involved and stop and go the event 25 times through 10 different angles and we're still terrible at assessing what went on. What should occur.

The funniest thing to me is that as humans we blame other humans (paid officials) for "not getting the call right" when we, amongst ourselves have demonstrated we can spend days and weeks disagreeing about a hockey event. a goal, an infraction, fault finding etc. Fact of the matter is we're probably all garbage at this. We're walking talking bias factories with myriad human filtering processes we don't even understand. We actually possess human brains that fill in content, unconsciously, when not all is seen. That our vision is not only what is seen through the lens but its edited before and at brain processing point. (People can read up much more on how human vision is process distorted)

All that said there has always been a notion that hockey should be in flow, that there should be thresholds on amount of calls and individual calls. This is not a new notion and its been oftstated. As much as we want calls at every turn we get similarly upset when a Colorado team gets 9pps in less than half a game. Simply ridiculous imo. There should be blood on the ice to warrant that number of calls. Its insane. It destroys the flow of the game, the outcome. How could Colorado possibly lose that game against the rangers having a PP for almost all the first half of the game? I can't watch a game with that many penalties for any one team. I change the channel. My first thought is its not even a game, it feels rigged.

Myself and others have discussed here that most hockey leagues have some unwritten level of how many calls in a game are acceptable. Its inescapable that thresholds in calls exist. That it is rarely black and white, but interpretation, and was that bad enough?
An alternative is Basketball type fouls Reach a certain amount of infractions in a game or period and some sanction occurs. Whether that be a penalty, a misconduct etc. Infractions would be team and player specific. Say 3 fouls by a team and you get a penalty. 3 fouls by a player and they get thrown out for 10mins or the game depending on severity. This would limit some serial committed infraction.

Hockey I think needs to look at more ways to enforce the game, without often interrupting the flow of the game which makes it such a compelling sport. Think about it. For me the best moments of hockey is where you have uninterrupted play, line changes and the play continuing with no whistles. The most frustrating thing is when hockey approaches basketball level stealth and everything is called and theres a stoppage every 5-10secs. Different infractions that don't involve stoppage in play but that are later incurred is the right answer to insure the flow of play in hockey. This would make for more infractions getting consequence and discouraged. It alters the conception that there should only be an acceptable amount of infractions in a game.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Drivesaitl, your post is well-written... but all of what you said is already understood as part of hockey since we've all been born. What has changed, however, is the officiating - that's why this story is about the refs.

Thus my 2nd post as what I wanted to say is lengthy and wanted to divide it up. Changes need to occur. What do they look like?

In life we always have an option to complain, or advocate for change and describe what that change could look like as suggestion. I think this whole discussion needs to be a grassroots central tenet. Hockey won't change in and of itself. It changes when it has to. When medical tribunals are demanding change, when lawsuits demand change, or when the public demands change. But we are implicitly accepting the product as is as long as we watch it and complain about it without indicating wanting there to be solutions.

In anycase "understandings" often require repeating, reframing, to re-emphasize what we understand. I was just adding to explain some of the why, for lack of better words.

 

[bone]

Because I'm hopelessly verbose and could write a novel on this I'm separating this out. NHL officiating has always involved application distortion, threshold bias, interpretation in calling and "keeping it a fair fight" Indeed this seems to occur in anything. Try to explain why one drunk or speeding driver gets by with a warning and others get nailed everytime. Regardless of rules application is human. Its always subject to bias. Its subject to interpretation and even the human brain filling in the blanks distortion. Look up police records on victim or observer reports and human inter observer reliability is poor. Any cop will tell you this. We're terrible witnesses, observers. The human mind does not process incident objectively. People miss out all kinds of details. 5 different people will report 5 different events. Humans are just terrible at this. Its why more and more sports are going with automation. Tennis, Soccer, etc. Even when replay is involved and stop and go the event 25 times through 10 different angles and we're still terrible at assessing what went on. What should occur.

The funniest thing to me is that as humans we blame other humans (paid officials) for "not getting the call right" when we, amongst ourselves have demonstrated we can spend days and weeks disagreeing about a hockey event. a goal, an infraction, fault finding etc. Fact of the matter is we're probably all garbage at this. We're walking talking bias factories with myriad human filtering processes we don't even understand. We actually possess human brains that fill in content, unconsciously, when not all is seen. That our vision is not only what is seen through the lens but its edited before and at brain processing point. (People can read up much more on how human vision is process distorted)

All that said there has always been a notion that hockey should be in flow, that there should be thresholds on amount of calls and individual calls. This is not a new notion and its been oftstated. As much as we want calls at every turn we get similarly upset when a Colorado team gets 9pps in less than half a game. Simply ridiculous imo. There should be blood on the ice to warrant that number of calls. Its insane. It destroys the flow of the game, the outcome. How could Colorado possibly lose that game against the rangers having a PP for almost all the first half of the game? I can't watch a game with that many penalties for any one team. I change the channel. My first thought is its not even a game, it feels rigged.

Myself and others have discussed here that most hockey leagues have some unwritten level of how many calls in a game are acceptable. Its inescapable that thresholds in calls exist. That it is rarely black and white, but interpretation, and was that bad enough?
An alternative is Basketball type fouls Reach a certain amount of infractions in a game or period and some sanction occurs. Whether that be a penalty, a misconduct etc. Infractions would be team and player specific. Say 3 fouls by a team and you get a penalty. 3 fouls by a player and they get thrown out for 10mins or the game depending on severity. This would limit some serial committed infraction.

Hockey I think needs to look at more ways to enforce the game, without often interrupting the flow of the game which makes it such a compelling sport. Think about it. For me the best moments of hockey is where you have uninterrupted play, line changes and the play continuing with no whistles. The most frustrating thing is when hockey approaches basketball level stealth and everything is called and theres a stoppage every 5-10secs. Different infractions that don't involve stoppage in play but that are later incurred is the right answer to insure the flow of play in hockey. This would make for more infractions getting consequence and discouraged. It alters the conception that there should only be an acceptable amount of infractions in a game.

I like where this thought process goes. A big part of the problem today is that we've got so many automatic calls for things that aren't dangerous plays and as such to keep the game flowing and manage the number of calls in any game players are more likely to get away with these types of calls. I don't personally know the answer, but the NHL needs to find new creative ways of forcing quick momentary advantages for these marginal items so that penalties can be used how they were intended for which is violent play or plays where some thing illegal directly impacts a teams ability to score a goal.

Personally, I'd like to see things such as a free possession in offensive zone without line changes as an option on things like icings or goalie puck freezes (would save the lineup time required for faceoffs and the cheating that can sometimes delay puck drop) and discourages teams that have traditionally relied on strong faceoff skills to delay the game without much risk of consequence.

Perhaps instead of faceoffs on offsides you give automatic possession to the defensive team in their zone with the offending team forced to start play outside of the zone without line changes for either team.

Perhaps you can do shorter penalties for most instances with automatic possessions in the opposition zone instead of faceoffs including if the penalized team ices the puck. 1 minute of pretty much guaranteed possession in their own zone is still quite a deterrent particularly as you'd usually be facing the number 1 unit in this case where they get possession automatically rather than a 50/50 chance at possession. The second minute of a powerplay is typically against the second unit which is often less strong anyways.

 

[Drivesaitl]

From a warrior that lived his sport on the edge, fearless, and had it stopped in an instant one day in Hamilton "There are no regrets"

Tucker getting past emotion associated with Eskimos

This part has always been interesting to me.

“Actually, I took one harder earlier in that game, but it was the simpler hit that ended up being the one that was more damaging.”


Because I watched that game and remember the previous hit, in the same game, where I didn't think Tucker would get up. A much worse hit. You never know in violent sport.
Ultimately this thread started due to the incident involving Connor. We all care about it, want the players to be safe, to continue, to not have careers end in tragedy. But its often the more innocuous play, the one you didn't see coming, or expect to be so severe, with results in a player lying motionless on ice and stretchered to the hospital. There could be a 100 other incidents regarding McD that were potentially more injurious. That were closer calls. (Manning) This is more of a last straw type thread. We're really frustrated seeing the player continuously infracted and not much being done about it.


Heres something that needs to be remembered. Some here have said Connor should stay down. Feign serious injury, not get up, see what happens then with calls. To that I respond that Connors mom and dad and family and loved ones are watching every game. Connor is literally jumping up to reinforce he's OK, to them as well. His parents have talked at length (as any parent has) about how hard it is to watch incidents. Its partly a good son letting everybody know he's fine. I'm back up. Its also a Connor Mcdavid that doesn't want to give any opponent the satisfaction that "you hurt me, you stopped me".

 

[nabob]

That hit is 5 and a game 99.9% of the time.

The 0.1% of the time it isn’t happens when a California team is losing at home to the Oilers.