Not a goal?

[nyc94]

My complaint is why it took so long to blow the whistle.  The ref's pointing at the netting implies he saw it hit the netting so why didn't he blow the whistle immediately?

[Jordan 04]

Hockey should have a rule more like the new rule on fumbles in the NFL. If the whistle blows, incorrectly ruling a fumble "down by contact," if it is clear that the defense jumped on the ball first in the natural flow of the game, they will call it a fumble, change of possession. There is no way that the BU goalie "reacted" to the whistle so the freak bounce should (by rule, not yesterday) count as a goal.

Except here the whistle doesn't incorrectly denote anything. It correctly denotes that the referee has lost sight of the puck.

Well, sure, but "I lost sight of the puck" is supposed to be a proxy for something other than "WHOOPS! MY BAD!!!"

I can see getting upset in a scramble situation, where there's 6 guys in the crease, and the puck may be loose but the ref blows a whistle because he's in a poor position or is a little too quick. In this situation, EVERYONE on the ice lost sight of the puck. (I'm also not convinced that it didn't hit the net -- there was never a replay good enough to see what happened after it went up in the air. But that's an unrelated, and irrelevant, matter).

After seeing the replays back at home, like many of the above posters, I find it a lot more understandable to be riled up over calls like the 5x3, or the handful of non-calls, than it is over a crazy fluke play that damn nearly worked in our favor, but not quite.

[Dafatone]

Hockey should have a rule more like the new rule on fumbles in the NFL. If the whistle blows, incorrectly ruling a fumble "down by contact," if it is clear that the defense jumped on the ball first in the natural flow of the game, they will call it a fumble, change of possession. There is no way that the BU goalie "reacted" to the whistle so the freak bounce should (by rule, not yesterday) count as a goal.

My dad thought the rule worked somewhat differently (he's not exactly a hockey expert) and his belief would make a pretty decent rule change.

He thought that the puck being blown dead meant that no further playing of the puck could happen, and if another player made a play on the puck, it wouldn't count.  He thought that further puck bouncing should still count.  Not how the rule works, but not a bad idea for reviewing things like this.

I'm mostly amazed that the puck got in at all.  Wow.  And the first review was on the same sort of play, where the puck almost/may have gone in (I was sitting right on the goal line.  The puck at least got to the goal line and partially over.  I couldn't tell if it was all the way over or not, but it could have been.)

[dag14]

I was watching MSG.  During the replay I would swear I heard the puck "plink" against the glass.  The next thing I knew, it was dropping from above.  I would guess that the puck came in high enough to hit the top of the glass, a clip holding the netting, etc. and ricoche back at a weird angle.  The ref probably heard the same sound and was expecting the puck to drop into play along the boards and blew the whistle when he couldn't locate it by looking in the more logical locations.

Referees are not perfect.  However, unless and until you have actually done it, it may be very hard to understand how difficult it is to make these calls.  There were 10 skaters swinging sticks, yelling and crashing into each other.  Besides watching the puck, the referee has to watch those 10 skaters, or at least those in the area of the ice where s/he is responsible for calling the penaties.  S/he also has to be in a position to avoid interfering with the play but at the same time be in position to see the play.  I actually think that official deserves some credit for waiting a second or two before blowing his whistle in case the puck was clearly still properly in play but out of his line of vision.

[Trotsky]

I was watching MSG.  During the replay I would swear I heard the puck "plink" against the glass.  The next thing I knew, it was dropping from above.  I would guess that the puck came in high enough to hit the top of the glass, a clip holding the netting, etc. and ricoche back at a weird angle.  The ref probably heard the same sound and was expecting the puck to drop into play along the boards and blew the whistle when he couldn't locate it by looking in the more logical locations.

Referees are not perfect.  However, unless and until you have actually done it, it may be very hard to understand how difficult it is to make these calls.  There were 10 skaters swinging sticks, yelling and crashing into each other.  Besides watching the puck, the referee has to watch those 10 skaters, or at least those in the area of the ice where s/he is responsible for calling the penaties.  S/he also has to be in a position to avoid interfering with the play but at the same time be in position to see the play.  I actually think that official deserves some credit for waiting a second or two before blowing his whistle in case the puck was clearly still properly in play but out of his line of vision.

Great post.

[MattShaf]

The old MSG is notorious for odd bounces off the boards and not infrequently would a team score from some ricochet off the stantions, which is what would appear to be the case here. Too bad it didn't work in our favor this time.

[adamw]

Geez Louise, if the ref blows his whistle 0.2 seconds later, it's a goal ... Anyway

apologies to everyone that in our CHN story on the game, Schafer's name was spelled without the 'C' throughout ... Can't believe we all missed that.  In case anyone read the story and was ridiculing us outside of eLynah - then consider this to be me beating you all to the punch in justly ridiculing

http://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2011/11/27_red_hot_mad.php

In any event - what I really wanted to say here was that, in the post-game, Jack Parker indicated that there would be more MSG games between these teams. I know there was a rumor going around that this was it - but basically he said, it sells out and makes a lot of money, why the heck wouldn't we do it again.

[Swampy]

Yea we lost (was it expected? Honestly, yes). I took a lot of positives from this game. We dominated at times, as in most of the game. We are a very young team. I was there tonite with a party of 8 and I told all of them we will be playing in the frozen four within 2 years. We are that good. I have no doubt about it. I await the hecklng

Still, if we miss the NCAAs because some incompetent HEA refs handed BU this games, I'm gonna be pretty pissed.

As will we all. But if we take care of business for the rest of the season, we won't miss the NCAAs. If we don't take care, we won't deserve to go.

In the long run, this loss may help us. We now know how good we already are. And, as several have mentioned, we're going to get only better, lots better.

[ajh258]

Yea we lost (was it expected? Honestly, yes). I took a lot of positives from this game. We dominated at times, as in most of the game. We are a very young team. I was there tonite with a party of 8 and I told all of them we will be playing in the frozen four within 2 years. We are that good. I have no doubt about it. I await the hecklng

Still, if we miss the NCAAs because some incompetent HEA refs handed BU this games, I'm gonna be pretty pissed.

As will we all. But if we take care of business for the rest of the season, we won't miss the NCAAs. If we don't take care, we won't deserve to go.

In the long run, this loss may help us. We now know how good we already are. And, as several have mentioned, we're going to get only better, lots better.

Well said. Kick ass rest of the season and we'll get another chance to beat the crap out of B.U.

[scoop85]

::cuss::

In any event - what I really wanted to say here was that, in the post-game, Jack Parker indicated that there would be more MSG games between these teams. I know there was a rumor going around that this was it - but basically he said, it sells out and makes a lot of money, why the heck wouldn't we do it again.

Why wouldn't Parker wants to do it again -- he's 2-0-1 in RHH, the last two games getting a boost from his friends in pinstripes ::cuss::

[Trotsky]

In any event - what I really wanted to say here was that, in the post-game, Jack Parker indicated that there would be more MSG games between these teams. I know there was a rumor going around that this was it - but basically he said, it sells out and makes a lot of money, why the heck wouldn't we do it again.

That's good news, Adam.  Thank you.

[ugarte]

For those who aren't clear about the "intent" thing, this is from the NCAA rulebook:

"As there is a human factor involved in blowing the whistle to stop play, the referee may intend for the play to be stopped slightly before the whistle actually being blown. For example, the fact that the puck may come loose or cross the goal line before the sound of the whistle has no bearing if the referee determined that the play had stopped."

If a ref ever watches a replay in which the puck goes in before the whistle but rules "well, i meant to call it before the puck crossed the line and I have to stick with my CLEARLY ERRONEOUS BELIEF THAT HAD NO IMPACT ON THE WAY THE PLAY TURNED OUT," he should be fired.

[css228]

For those who aren't clear about the "intent" thing, this is from the NCAA rulebook:

"As there is a human factor involved in blowing the whistle to stop play, the referee may intend for the play to be stopped slightly before the whistle actually being blown. For example, the fact that the puck may come loose or cross the goal line before the sound of the whistle has no bearing if the referee determined that the play had stopped."

If a ref ever watches a replay in which the puck goes in before the whistle but rules "well, i meant to call it before the puck crossed the line and I have to stick with my CLEARLY ERRONEOUS BELIEF THAT HAD NO IMPACT ON THE WAY THE PLAY TURNED OUT," he should be fired.

Like this Brad May goal?

[BearLover]

Yea we lost (was it expected? Honestly, yes). I took a lot of positives from this game. We dominated at times, as in most of the game. We are a very young team. I was there tonite with a party of 8 and I told all of them we will be playing in the frozen four within 2 years. We are that good. I have no doubt about it. I await the hecklng

Still, if we miss the NCAAs because some incompetent HEA refs handed BU this games, I'm gonna be pretty pissed.

As will we all. But if we take care of business for the rest of the season, we won't miss the NCAAs. If we don't take care, we won't deserve to go.

In the long run, this loss may help us. We now know how good we already are. And, as several have mentioned, we're going to get only better, lots better.

But if we miss because of this loss, then we do deserve to go...

Aside from that, I agree--despite the excruciating outcome, the Red showed they can skate with one of the most talented teams in the country.

[ugarte]

For those who aren't clear about the "intent" thing, this is from the NCAA rulebook:

"As there is a human factor involved in blowing the whistle to stop play, the referee may intend for the play to be stopped slightly before the whistle actually being blown. For example, the fact that the puck may come loose or cross the goal line before the sound of the whistle has no bearing if the referee determined that the play had stopped."

If a ref ever watches a replay in which the puck goes in before the whistle but rules "well, i meant to call it before the puck crossed the line and I have to stick with my CLEARLY ERRONEOUS BELIEF THAT HAD NO IMPACT ON THE WAY THE PLAY TURNED OUT," he should be fired.

Like this Brad May goal?

Exactly like that. And since it was against the Red Wings the ref should be fired AND thrown in the stocks. What is particularly egregious there is that at the time the ref formed the intent to blow the whistle - in the most generous-to-the-ref assumption - the puck was already in the net. The ref lost sight of the puck because it was in the net. Horrible.