The Blown-Call-O-Meter

Remember Mick McGeough?  He was that referee that everyone wanted to throw their shoes at.  Why?  Because he had a tendency to make terrible calls.  Fans would joke that McGeough had a "Penalty of the Night" because he would whistle every infraction as "interference" or "hooking", even if it was a high stick.  At least in those cases he was calling a penalty, despite it being the wrong one.  

I hate bad calls as much as the next guy or gal.  They sour the experience for both sides.  Yet it's hard to say what makes some calls easier to swallow than others.  So to aid in this process, I've made a simple rating system to score blown calls.  In the spirit of the Carolina Hurricanes, I've adopted the hurricane rating system.

Category 1 Blown Call: Assorted Negligence

Now that might sound like a vague description but these are calls that even we armchair referees don't catch (and we see everything, right?).  A player barely offsides goes unnoticed.  A center unjustly thrown from a faceoff.  A razor close icing call.  These are calls that could be very serious if they led to a goal.  However, these calls are of a less severe nature.

Category 2 Blown Call: Missed Penalties

I'm a firm believer in the two referee system.  There is so much going on at all times that it is impossible for one referee to catch everything.  Granted, if a penalty happens it should be seen and called, but realistically penalties will go unnoticed.  Players are always holding, hooking, roughing, and jockeying for position.  An unnoticed penalty costs a team a power-play that could sway the game, but since both teams are usually guilty it all comes out in the wash.

Category 3 Blown Call: Incorrect Penalties

There's little worse than a ref with his eyes firmly planted on an infraction, then making the wrong call.  A golden example of this happened in a recent game between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Ian White happened to be standing next to Tom Kostopoulos as Tom's teammate Stephane Yelle clipped him with a high stick.  White was called for high sticking and to make matters worse, Kostopoulos was bleeding, making it a double minor.

You can see the phantom-infraction at around 1:25 of this clip:



That call led to a Hurricanes goal which was no doubt maddening for the Leafs and their fans.

Category 4 Blown Call: Goals/No Goals

To get the call on a goal wrong is unacceptable.  If you've ever have the displeasure of witnessing a goal counted that shouldn't have been, or a goal disallowed that should have counted then you know what I mean.  It goes without saying, the tilt such an egregious error puts on the game.  I'll save my words and show some examples.

From earlier this season:



One of the worst calls ever:



Category 5 Blown Call: Incorrect Playoff Calls

The NHL season is long and one can argue that every second of every game is as important as the next.  Yet, when it comes to the playoffs making the right call holds a whole new importance.  The unofficial standard is "the players should decide the game, not the officials."  This is probably why the refs are so hesitant to pick up the whistle in playoff overtimes.  If you blow a call in the regular season you might make a player or maybe his team mad at you.  You blow a call in the playoffs and you'll have tens of thousands of irate fans.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with this call, but imagine how Buffalo must feel:



So you feel like your team just got screwed?  Decide how angry you should be with the Blown-Call-O-Meter!