Officiating in the Third Period Was “Disgusting”

Nobody and I mean nobody can convince me that the referees were not purposely trying to get yesterday’s Winter Classic into overtime to boost ratings. From the ridiculous delay of game on Ryan McDonagh to the holding the stick on Callahan and finally the hand over the puck in the crease also on McDonagh the refs almost ruined what was a magical weekend.

It seems like many of the Rangers felt the same way starting with John Tortorella (via Andrew Gross)…

“I’m not sure if NBC got together with the refs or what to turn this into an overtime game. It started with the non-call on Gaby’s, and he gets pitchforked in the stomach and everything starts going against us. So for two good refs, I thought the game was reffed horribly. So I’m not sure what happened there. Maybe they wanted to get into overtime. I’m not sure if they had meetings about that or what. But we stood in there. We stood in there. And again, I don’t want to—because they are good guys. I just thought tonight, it was—in that third period, it was disgusting.”

…the sad thing is Torts will probably be fined for those comments. Which would be even more disgusting.

Here’s the rest of Torts’ post game press conference…

For Henrik Lundqvist & Glen Sather’s reaction as well as video of McDonagh not covering his hand on the puck in the crease click the “Read More” tab below.

Henrik Lundqvist agreed…

“You know, it would have been tough to swallow that one if they scored (on penalty shot). But luckily he didn’t, and I think there was a couple of calls in the end there where I was really surprised, I must say. But, again, we came up big in the end with the penalty kill and just the way we worked.”

And you know it was a big deal when Glen Sather chimes in…

“I didn’t think the game would come down to that situation. You see three or four calls that are enough to blow your mind…Look at all of it.”

…talking to a couple of friends after the game about this and they felt the blatant attempt by the refs to effect this game left a really bad taste in their mouth about the Winter Classic. The game is obviously about promoting the sport of hockey, but when the NHL is purposely trying to fix the outcome of the game I think it’s going too far.

Here’s video of McDonagh not putting his hand on the puck in the crease and the resulting penalty shot by Danny Briere on Lundqvist…

Ryan Callahan discusses insane holding the stick penalty on him (at 8 second mark)…

…yeah, he was holding the stick, with his neck. Unreal.

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