Columbus GM calls clock malfunction an “amazing coincidence”

Columbus Blue Jackets GM/blogger Scott Howson has taken to the interweb again, this time in the wake of his team’s controversial 3-2 loss to Los Angeles when a clock malfunction allowed the Kings to score the game-winning goal with 0.4 seconds left in regulation.

“It is an amazing coincidence that with the Kings on a power play at Staples Center and with a mad scramble around our net in the dying seconds of the third period of a 2-2 hockey game that the clock stopped for at least one full second,” Howson writes. “I can only think of two ways in which this would have happened. Either there was a deliberate stopping of the clock or the clock malfunctioned.”

Oooh, snap!

This isn’t the first Howson has used his weblog — or “blog,” as it’s known to nerds — to publicly address a controversial issue. Back in October he penned Stand and Fight, a blog entry asking Columbus fans to stick with the team after its awful start to the season.

Howson’s latest entry has a slightly different feel:

It’s easy to say that this doesn’t matter. We, the Blue Jackets, are in last place and it is likely not going to affect our place in the standings. However, in my opinion, this matters in many respects. It matters to our players, to our coaches, every person in our organization and our fans. In talking with our coaches and Craig Patrick, our players played with passion, tenacity, grit, determination and competitiveness after a rather embarrassing loss in San Jose the night before.

We will never know if we should have had one point or two points in the standings. What we do know is that we should not have had zero.

Anyone who has competed at a high level of sports knows that when you put everything into a game, the result matters. And to have the result altered unfairly stings.

Hey, give Howson credit for (mostly) keeping his composure. Columbus has lost in almost every conceivable fashion this year — blowouts, collapses, etc. — and finding a new, unprecedented way to lose could’ve (heck, should’ve) pushed him over the edge.

That said, I do kinda wish Howson had a LiveJournal account where he expressed his raw, unfiltered emotions. The thought of him setting his mood to “melancholy” while listening to Dashboard Confessional is quite compelling.