Umpire admitting to bad hockey call
 

After a recent thread discussing honesty and how to handle a blown call, I thought I would post a link about two blown calls that made an impact on a hockey game. I realize that this is not a hockey forum, but I enjoyed reading our discussion about the same subject earlier on this umpire forum. Perhaps someone can remember the link to that thread. Please comment on this story or a similar experience in a baseball game.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15554415/

And the next time you make a mistake, coach, that costs your team the game, you should also be suspended. Right, coach?

MacTavish was the last NHL player to not wear a helmet. Just chalk it up to too many pucks to the head.

not sure why they put helmets made of plastic on heads made of cement

While I do believe that game officials are not the cause of a team winning or losing, I also do believe that mistakes by officials do have varying degrees of impact on the game.

In a college football game, I once forgot to spot the ball when I was standing only 3 feet away. Just a brain fart. No damage though. (Not my worst error though. :D)

The error by this official does raise some "ifs". However, I think this error is one of the most impactful that I have ever seen in a hockey game.

He is a veteran official. Happens to the best of them.

Imagine this play happened with 5 minutes gone by in the 1st period. People would be a lot less likely to talk about the blown call.

In both football and basketball, we remind ourselves that people remember the last 2 minutes of the game more than the first 2 minutes.

"It was a blown call on my part,” he said after the game. “It was poor judgment on my part. I thought he had his hand on the puck on the faceoff but it was his stick. My judgment was poor on the play.”

After officiating in this sport and baseball for around twenty years, this is no different then the error's in judgements weve seen in many playoffs and regular season baseball games. Some nights, it just don't go as planned.

Comparing the two sports though, I believe that ice hockey is more difficult because of the constant movement of both the officials and players. Things happen much faster and the official has less time to anticipate positioning for those things when they do happen. You make a decision and go with it. Sometimes it's wrong.

As a canadian , I have to ask what an umpire was doing at a hockey game????:D

WHL incident...
 

A sidenote, this just happened in the Western Hockey League (Canadian Junior Hockey 16-21 year olds, for the Americans out there).

WHL Decision Reached
Nov 8, 2006
CALGARY, AB - The Western Hockey League announced today that a complete review of the game
between the Kootenay Ice and Regina Pats on Friday, November 3, 2006 in Regina has been completed.

The WHL Office has determined that the performance of the referee was below the expected standard of officiating in the League. As a result, the League will be disciplining the referee in an appropriate manner.

As well, the WHL Office has determined that the actions of Regina Pats management following the game was not acceptable. As a result, the Regina Pats Hockey Club has been fined $1,500.00.

There you have it, everytime an official makes any error whatsoever they shall be taken into the parking lot, hogtied and whipped, at the discretion of the League, with valuable imput from the losing team. That will fix their butt.

Totally two different incidents at totally two different levels of play.

Although, there was one common coincidence here, both of the whinners, were the losing teams.