Devil's Advocate re: referee
Gravallese gave the game away and that sucks, but this has always kept my referee-hating in check:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1006129/inde…
Not trying to take away anyone's God-given right to be furious with that call, but I do recommend the article; puts things in perspective.
Angry Michigan Hating Satan! Let's get the blame properly placed!
I understand why the ref had to blow his whistle last night, but shouldn't this still be reversable? I don't understand why they can't reverse that call. It was clearly not a frozen puck, so why does it matter that he blew the whistle .3 seconds before our player hit the puck in the net. It's not like the whistle changed the outcome of that play. Maybe this is a slippery slope, but I think they should be able to give any team in that situation a goal. Tough situation for the ref in that article. I never understood threatening refs lives, family, etc. Not sure how a sane person could do that, heat of the moment or not.
I guess it is the same rationale as a football fumble - anything after a whistle can't count - even though it is a millisecond. In this case the whistle clearly had no bearing on the play and the goal logically should have counted, but we got screwed.
Really sucked big time.
I guess I understand that rationale, but ,at the same time, why can't there be some wiggle room on these reviews?
My guess would be that the reason there's no wiggle room is for the safety of the goalie. If you can conceivably score even after the whistle has blown, there is incentive to continue playing, including hacking at the goalie/crashing the net. Even if the rule is a common-sense rule--the goal counts only if the errant whistle had no effect on the play--you might keep playing well past the whistle, hoping that the ref might rule in your favor.
March 30th, 2010 at 11:45 AM ^
Sorry to burst your bubble, but they do that all the time in the NFL. After a fumble that the refs have declared the runner down, the players have never in the history of the game just stopped and patted each other on the asses, there is a scrum to try to get the ball. They can still challenge the play and give possession to the defense. The only difference is that if the defense returns it for a touchdown, they would bring the ball back to where it was fumbled.
When a play is whistled dead, someone could conceivably stop playing. Not every play will be that close, and the whistle might had "distracted" or "stopped" the goalie from continuing pursuit. Rather than make an extremely precise rule that won't fit all situations involving poor whistle use, everything is dead when a whistle blows. Point being, it doesn't matter if it's .1 second or 1 minute. Once it's dead, you can't fix it.
Same thing in baseball with a foul ball. As soon as it's called foul, it's dead. It doesn't matter if it lands in center field. That ball is dead and it's never coming back.
Yeah I guess I get that, but it seems like they can make a judgement call and make the game better by allowing a reversed call in a situation like this. I guess it can't be perfect, and we just have to deal with the few times this situation occurs.
Be realistic. The goalie will not have a reaction time that could stop him from trying to make a save in 0.2 seconds.
If there is a fumble and then the whistle blows and the guy immediately falls on it then they still get the ball. Should be the same thing here, when it is immediate like that there is no one that stopped playing because they havent even had time to react to the whistle when the puck was in the net.
Football is the one sport that has changed this rule. I can't speak in absolutes on it, because I'm not a huge fan of the rule either. If there's a whistle and a player picked up the fumble and carried it for a touchdown, that gets called back. The recovering team gets the ball, but nothing coming off the play. I guess that's better than totally botching a call, but IMHE, that touchdown should stand. It can't though, as that whistle can bring players to a halt. Same thing here. If the puck had crossed the line, sure, it could be reversed. That was the only hope Michigan had. It didn't turn out that way.
As for the "common sense" question above, where does common sense dictate you reverse the call? 0.1s? 0.2? 1s? Like I said, there is no "perfect" time to let things go after the whistle. If you let some time be added for mistakes like this, you're always going to have people say more or less time.
It was a bad call. I'm sure the guy feels bad about it regardless of what other refs say. If I made a bad call, my public persona would be 100% I'm sure what I saw, and I had to make that call. Yeah, I'll feel bad about it later when I'm not in front of fans/coaches/etc. I'll remember it for a good long while. But like everything else, it's over, time passes, get past it and on to something else.
If it's my partner making the call, or even an umpire I don't even know, I'll defend him because I know what it's like to be in that situation. I'll rib him about it in private later. It happens. It sucks that it happens, but it happened. We're not paid to feel subjective about our calls. We're paid to do the best we can every time. We've got to put those bad calls past us and call a better one next time.
...something tells me that Kenny would have loved to have a replay system to get the calls right. He didn't and he paid a heavy emotional price for it.
On Sunday night, Gravallese had a chance to use the replay to make the right decision. He didn't do it.
I have a great deal of respect for referees who must make difficult judgment calls in imperfect circumstances. I have no respect for Gravallese - who elevated the sound of a improperly-blown whistle 0.1 second too soon over the right answer - recognizing a goal that was on its way across the goal line and that no one, anywhere, could possibly stop.
Truth and Justice, if they exist, should require Gravallese to alternately watch the replay of that goal, then the look of disappointment and pain on Hunwick's face, for eternity.
And, to be clear, that's not because he blew the whistle early (we all make well-intentioned mistakes, Gravallese is certainly entitled to his share), but it's because he had the opportunity that Kenny never had - the opportunity to make the right call and arrive at the right outcome - and he consciously refused to make the right decision.
I was hoping the whole time he would go with the 'two wrongs make a right' mantra--particularly since it was such a close call and it was slightly plausible to say it went in before the whistle. In the end, it would have been the most fair outcome--a mistake by the ref shouldn't have cost Michigan the game, an equal mistake can undo that.
Because of the fair outcome, you're acting as if that would have been the right call. It wouldn't have. At the point when the ref makes a mistake and blows the whistle, the play is dead; by the rules, that was not a goal. No ref, particularly not one who held refereeing in such esteem like Kenny, would have made a different call once he went to watch the replay even if he really wishes he could have undone his mistake.
With the review, I believe they can look and see if the puck crosses the goal line (all the way over) before the whistle blows, however, once it blows, play is dead, even if the puck is on the line and its a completely open net.
The problem was that he lost sight of the puck, and he assumed that the goalie had it pinned under him.
Touching story.
Gravallese really should call up every player on the Michigan team and personally apologize to them for wrongfully ending their season early. Or if not that, at least call up all of the seniors and apologize to them for wrongfully ending their careers at Michigan early and stealing the chance for them to potentially win an NCAA championship. And of course he should call up Hunwick.
Frankly, he's a bad person if he doesn't do anything at all.
Don't be that guy. Time to grow up. It was a bad call. A horrible call. Does it mean he is a bad person? Not at all.
The internet is a scary place. I wonder if people truly believe what they are saying hiding behind the curtain of anonymity? Or if they just say it because they have nothing better to say.
A better way might be to always try and err on the other side, especially with all the replay angles they have in these big games. Whenever possible try and delay the whistle then use replay to overturn any obvious errors. That would help prevent the kind of huge blunder we witnessed last night. The NFL has been moving to this approach which is of course logical - let the play go and if replay shows an error go back and correct it.
It will never be perfect but this approach can result in fewer disasters.
It's logical to do in the NFL when you can go back and undo the play--you can see definitely that there wasn't a fumble, for example.
When it comes to freezing the puck, it's a judgement call. I think everyone here believes that the puck should have been declared frozen on Miami's second goal but nobody expected the refs to review the play and change their minds--if you let people play and they score, almost no ref in their right mind is going to go back and declare that a puck was frozen before the goal. So you can decide to let people play more and try to knock pucks free, which is fine (although probably more dangerous for goalies), but you can't institute something where you let people play and then 'undo' goals because they will never be undone.
...Satan needs an advocate. He represents himself well enough, occasionally in the form of hockey referees.
The great thing about being a Devil's Advocate is Satan's really good about paying his legal bills.
good to see he's doing better now. according to this site he's up to 3 sports state finals
http://www.ihsa.org/official/records/multspt.htm
I had to ref a couple of times. It was just IM basketball but let me tell you it wasn't easy. There's so much going on you have to look for and things happen really fast -- and that was with a bunch of law students.
IMHO every sports fan should have to officiate something once in his or her life. You get a whole different perspective on officiating. I won't tell you I never complain about bad calls, but I do a lot less of it than I used to.
K-Smooth
March 30th, 2010 at 11:49 AM ^
Why didn't it say something to the ref that the goalie was still playing on the puck being loose?
March 30th, 2010 at 12:01 PM ^
Knapp, still playing the loose puck.
March 31st, 2010 at 12:02 PM ^
That was a pretty intense article. Thanks for reposting it in its own thresad.