ESPN Boycott Day 1

Note: As a result of traveling and slow, intermittent Internet access this is a day late.
On the drive into work I kept the radio off, I missed the Bob Picozzi college basketball scores, but that's about it. I realized if I had had the radio on and listening to 1000 from Chicago, an ESPN affiliate, I probably would have been mad not hearing the hockey scores. Even though locally I might have heard that the Blackhawks lost to the Red Wings the night before.
Anyway I turned on the radio at about Columbus, Indiana and picked up CKLW from Windsor, Ontario. Now it's not a sports specific radio station, but about every 20 minutes they give sports updates. I heard all the hockey scores - including NHL and OHL scores, heard the Pistons and Raptors scores, and also the Tigers split-squad scores.
As I got closer to Indy I turned the station to 1260 WNDE, a Fox Sports affiliate. To be honest it's not really good at providing the NHL scores. At least Fox, as an organization, doesn't seem as anti-hockey from the top down as ESPN is. Most if not all the regional Fox Sports networks showcase NHL teams too.
Oddly enough almost right after I posted my blog entry yesterday, I found an ESPN related topic on a Red Wings message board. A poster there posted that Tim Comlishaw mentioned the NHL on Around the Horn yesterday.
This was my response:
I don't care what ESPN says anymore. I'm officially boycotting everything ESPN except the website. ESPN is obviously run by hockey haters, from the top down. This mindset is ingrained in all of its employees. It's obvious to me that Comlishaw is just throwing hockey fans a bone, but in my opinion it's not enough. I hope the NHL never goes back to ESPN. I've decided I'd rather hunt to try to find it on the web, NBC, Versus, Fox Sports regional networks or any other network besides the world-wide entertainment leader.
I should edit that to read "ingrained in most of its employees" instead of all. I doubt John Buccigross or Barry Melrose hate hockey, but that's probably just two out of thousands.

Still seething

It's been a few days now, and just now I'm starting to calm down. Sunday the Anaheim Ducks visited the Detroit Red Wings for NBC's game of the week. If you didn't watch it, you've probably seen, heard or read about the low lights of the game Particularly Niklas Lidstrom's goal with about 40 seconds to go in the game that was waived off by one of the referees.
The game started OK for the Wings, but they played tentatively until the first goal. After that they played OK, but a couple of miscues led to two more goals for Ducks. The second goal was classic Chris Osgood ineffectiveness, giving up a goal from a shot near the blue line. The third Ducks goal was a total defensive breakdown. The Wings defensemen simply watched Kent Huskins skate by them and score the goal. No checking at all.
So the Wings should have made better plays at those times
Still it's hard to deny just how horrible referee Dan O'Halloran's call, waiving off Lidstrom's goal, was. It's inexcusable!
This season, Red Wings fans are familiar with seeing goals waived off because Tomas Holmstrom is doing his job around the crease, causing havoc for the opposing goalie. The one Sunday was probably about the seventh one I've seen this year. Some were called correctly, some weren't. Clearly, Sunday's waive off was wrong. It's not just Wings fans who upset about this. Prominent national hockey writers Michael Farber and Damian Cox feel the same.

In his article Monday Farber said Sundays refs weren't ready for prime time.

The question, forgetting any motives for NBC's munificence, is: if the network can have the best game, can the NHL have "flex" referees.

Chris Rooney and Dan O'Halloran were entrusted with the Ducks - Red Wings game in Detroit on Sunday, a match that the network homed in on after immediately bailing on Penguins - Flyers as soon as Sidney Crosby sprained his ankle. Good call.

NBC got everything it wanted: a stirring 3-2 Ducks win in a game redolent of the playoffs in front of a full house, finally, at Joe Louis Arena.

Unfortunately, Rooney and O'Halloran didn't seem up to the challenge. O'Halloran waved off Nick Lidstrom's apparent tying goal with 41 seconds left because teammate Tomas Holmstrom supposedly interfered with Ducks goalie J-S Giguère. Now, Holmstrom was born with a GPS in his cerebellum. He almost never puts his skates in the blue paint of the crease. Nor did he do it this time. According to replays, he didn't jostle the goalie, either.

O'Halloran blew the whistle and made one of those "incidental contact" decisions, the single most vexing option in the rulebook. (Note to NHL: If there is truly goalie interference, call the two-minute minor and disallow the goal. If it isn't, then let them play. The "incidental contact" rule is absurd.)

In a league that is contemplating all kinds of out-of-the-box changes to increase goal scoring, a ref took away what appeared to be a perfectly legitimate goal -- two, in fact, counting the one that would have been scored in overtime or awarded for the penalty shootout.

There were less egregious examples of misjudgment -- Anaheim's Chris Kunitz escaped punishment for punching Mikael Samuelsson -- but NBC analysts Ed Olczyk and Pierre McGuire, neither of whom are known as ref bashers, were tough on the striped shirts. In a post-game email to On the Fly, Stephen Walkom, director of officiating, wrote that both O'Halloran and Rooney "have worked well" this season and that the call on Lidstrom's disallowed goal "made in real time demonstrated real focus and was truly an exceptional call."

Everyone should have a boss as loyal as Walkom.

Anyway, while Rooney and O'Halloran might be top tier officials this season, the NHL should settle for nothing less than its top two referees for the game of the week. That, of course, doesn't preclude an officiating misstep -- or "an exceptional call" if you believe the NHL gospel -- but it gives NBC and the league their best chance of the refs not becoming part of the national story.

Cox said O'Halloran was dead wrong.

The NHL is very good at disciplining and suspending its players.

Someday, it would be nice to see them apply some performance standards to their on-ice officials outside of firing the ones they don't like at the end of the season.

Yesterday afternoon, the Red Wings and Ducks went at it in an humdinger of a hockey game, won 3-2 by Anaheim. The crime, however, was that the Wings clearly scored in the final minute of play on a Nicklas Lidstrom shot from the point that beat J.S. Giguere but had it incorrectly waved off by veteran official Dan O'Halloran.

O'Halloran thought he saw Tomas Holmstrom interfering with Giguere, and whistled incidental contact, with no penalty. Holmstrom, however, was clearly outside the blue paint with his back to the Anaheim goalie, setting up a perfect screen, and Giguere moved out and bumped the Detroit player as the puck went by him.

It was particularly strange given that Anaheim, not Detroit, is one of the most notorious crease-crashing teams in the NHL, and that there was an extraordinary amount of obvious interference by defencemen on forecheckers let go in the game, the same kind of interfererence that the league is permitting to increase in virtually every game these days.

If O'Halloran had wanted to call interference, he had a dozen incidents during the contest for which he could have raised his arm rather than on a play on which interference actually didn't occur.

Detroit made a great play to set up the game-tying shot, and Holmstrom did a great job NOT to interfere with Giguere.

But O'Halloran took it away. Totally blew the call.

The NBA has allowed several games to be replayed, including one this year.

Wouldn't you love to see the NHL, in this case, rule the goal should have stood and force the two teams to finish the game at a later date? Or to suspend O'Halloran for making such a grievous error?

Don't bet on either scenario unfolding, and no one's going to lose sleep because the mighty Red Wings didn't get a point yesterday.

But make no mistake about it - they got screwed.

If you don't believe them, see for yourself.

Not in the crease.


Not in the crease.


Not in the crease.


In the crease, but before the shot.


Not in the crease.


Not in the crease, puck in the net.


Not in the crease, puck in the net.


Definitely a horrible call. Worst I've seen in years.
Two more points J.S. Giguere ran into Holmstrom, and because he did he was out of position to make the save.