Not only was the call on Girardi horrible (a close call? Did you even watch the game, or know anyting about hockey?), but what about the phantom call on Dubinsky for interference? The Tampa player skates into him, the two bearly touch skates, throw in a blatent dive, and the Ragners were short handed yet again on a total BS call. Tortorella had every reason to be up in arms about the way the game was refed, and its not just this game… its an aweful lot of games these days.

Personally the NHL of old was far more entertaining. Perhaps thats because I actually play hockey, and I’m not like the rest of lame ass America that needs sporting events to be pansified skill contests filled with goals so I can sit there going “ooo” and “ahh”. Its far more entertaining and thrilling to have 1-0, 2-1 games that are hard fought battles, then 7-5 goal fests that are filled with laughable penelties.

But even in the new pansified, sissy filled NHL (Cindy Crysby I’m looking in your direction) the league needs to get a handle on the horrible calls. A hook is a hook, fine… but a tap on the gloves with your stick is not a hook and shouldn’t be called as such. A clean hit in which a guy throws himself into the boards is not boarding and should not be called as such. When the NHL tells the refs to call everything that might even possibly be a penelty you get horrible calls that change games (and oddly enough often change games in the favor of teams the league happens to want in the Cup finals). Instead of calling everything that MIGHT be a penelty, refs should be told to only call what they know for sure is a penelty…

Of course the league won’t do that becuase more penelties means more goals… and the lame ass people in this country seem to want that. Not to mention it would make the leagues favoring of certain teams even more obvious.