Oh, I agree with that. People have been on message boards whining about NHL officiating, particularly in the playoffs, as long as there have been NHL playoffs, officials, and internet message boards.
People also do not realize that professional officials (all sports) get all sorts of "interpretations" and "rules clarifications" from their respective leagues, many of which we never hear about. In a lot of cases, the end result is the officials get criticized for things their leagues told them to call exactly the way they did.
As for MLB, they are notorious for taking rules that are pretty plainly written and interpreting them to say something else. Years ago it was the upper limits of the strike zone. At one point the strike zone was written as from the tops of the knees to the armpits, and MLB basically "clarified" that the armpits were at the belt. 50+ umpires didn't get together and decide that, but they all called it that way. What some of the umpires did do was widen the plate by several inches to make up for it!
I used to be an NCAA umpire, and at least the two conferences I worked with notified the teams when they gave us any sort of interpretation, clarification, or point of emphasis. And I don't ever remember them altering the clear meaning or the words in any rule. But MLB was sort of like the WWE. I think the NFL has gotten the same way, and while I don't watch the NBA, one of the reasons is the rules had little impact on how the game was called.