Faceoff Factor

The WC: When the officials are incompetent

Ashley Gallant | International Competitions

May 11, 05:46 PM | Hype this story!

We often talk about officials lacking competence. Sometimes we call them names and say they are stupid – or worse. We see them stare at player A while he’s tripping player B, and yet do nothing. We watch them practice reactive refereeing, where they decide that one team deserves a power play because the other team got a power play. But I do not believe that I have seen incompetence quite like that displayed at the USA-Finland game at the World Championships in Halifax this afternoon.

Let me set the stage: the Americans were up 2-0 after being outshot (badly) by the Finns. Robert Esche stood on his head and made what Scotty Bowman described as the save of the year to preserve the 2-goal lead late in the second.

Then, at the beginning of the third period, while on a 5-on-3 power play, the Finns scored their first goal. It was video reviewed and allowed to stand. And here’s the most amazing part of it – that goal didn’t even beat Esche.

That’s because the puck went in from the side of the net.

How that goal was allowed to stand is beyond me. I have absolutely no idea what the video-review judge saw, or how he interprets the basic rules of the game, but this one is for sure – he should be fired. That mistake is absolutely, entirely embarrassing for the IIHF.

“That’s just a job against the Americans,” said Pierre McGuire, who was completely disgusted by the incompetence of the officials.

The fall-out from this goal is heartbreaking. The young American team fell apart at the seams, turning over the puck at the blueline time and time again, allowing the Finns to tie the game. Wisniewski took a horrible penalty when he hit Ruutu after the whistle was blown, and the Finns scored the go-ahead goal on the resulting power play.

As the final buzzer sounded, with the Finns winning in regulation, the gloves came off and players came off the bench. Selanne was the target of Brown, but in another display of incompetence by the officials, Selanne was allowed to stand in front of the American bench instead of being escorted to the Finnish side of the ice.

At the end of the day, there were 202 penalty minutes handed out, including 5 misconducts, game misconducts and match penalties.

The director’s meeting tonight should be long and interesting.

The effects of this game could very well be felt throughout the entire group of teams playing in Halifax. Six teams are playing in the qualifying round, with the top four teams advancing to the quarter-finals. The first seed will play the fourth seed, and the second and third seeds will play each other.

Prior to today’s games, the top four teams were Canada, Finland, USA, and Norway, in that order. With Finland’s regulation win, they are now within one point of Canada for the top spot, which makes tomorrow’s Canada-Finland game very important – if the Finns had lost in regulation, Canada would have clinched the number one seed. If the US had won in regulation, they would have passed the Finns for the number 2 seed. As it stands now, it is entirely possible that the US could fall to the number 4 seed by the end of the qualifying round and perhaps play the Finns in the quarter-finals.

It is not known whether Finland’s first goal directly led to the demise of the US, but it certainly appears like it did as the Americans completely fell apart after Koistinen’s goal. Who knows how things would have played out, and who knows how the standings would have changed if that goal had been disallowed.

It’s just not fair.

Update: Post game reaction.

- The IIHF has announced that the first goal by Finland should not have counted and the goal judge was promptly fired from the tournament.

- The ever-colourful John Tortorella had this to say after the game:

“What goal? What goal? They go upstairs. They look at a replay. What the hell were they looking at? But we deserved our fate. We didn’t deserve to win that hockey game.”

“I’ve heard about these horror shows as far as international refereeing I have finally lived through one. But not even that play there, the whole game. It’s just ridiculous as far as how they’re calling the game when you have two pretty competitive teams willing to go toe-to-toe. Let the teams and players decide.”