Polemic Hockey

If you ever are looking for the test case to prove that sports journalism is a contradiction in terms, hockey fans need to look no further than Al Strachan. Look, it's not even that these guys are wrong—it's that they don't operate according to any rules.

Take today's piece.

The mandatory controversy in that game had to do with a goal that was scored after the period ended but because the in-house clock had started 0.7 seconds after the puck was dropped for the faceoff, the goal was allowed.

That was no real surprise. It is one of the givens in the NHL that the New Jersey Devils always get favorable treatment. Witness the fact that according to The Ottawa Sun, the NHL wanted the series to begin on Tuesday — which would have made Saturday's figure-skating show irrelevant — but Devils GM Lou Lamoriello refused because he wanted his team to have the maximum recuperation time from its first-round series with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

This is thinly-veiled Ottawa homerism. Strachan doesn't mention whether it is irregular for the clock to be a few tenths of a second late at the beginning, whether there is a review process for that, whether the rules say that it's waived if not followed up at the beginning--just assumes it was an evil Devils plot at the faceoff beginning of the period because they knew they were going to score a last second goal. In other words, there's no reporting, no facts, no evidence, just a hit piece.

What if Ottawa had scored in that extra 0.7? There was no way of knowing in advance. No irregular procedure was followed there. Strachan just likes to slam the Devils. And then he blames Lamoriello for doing what he's supposed to--advocate for his team.

The idea that the league gives the Devils special treatment--and Strachan doesn't even back that up with even any allegations, let alone facts--is flatly contradicted by Bobby Clarke's imposition of the trapezoid rule to punish Marty Brodeur.

The column, of course starts with an attack against Madison Square Garden, and an attack on the league for getting the Rangers' disallowed goal wrong:

But in the middle of it all was a disallowed goal that was perfectly good and the whole thing was played on an ice surface that was an absolute disgrace.

The goal should have been allowed, but, as Devils' fans know, these mistakes seem to happen to everyone. As for the ice surface, just what are they supposed to do? Make MSG for the Rangers only? Then it wouldn't have the same cachet. It would be the Rangers' arena. So what?

Ice is horrible in about 20-25 of the league's arenas. Why attack New Jersey and New York about it? Why? Because they were the teams playing in games that Strachan wanted to use to highlight his hit piece on NHL officials.

The people who run the NHL should get up every morning and thank whatever supreme being they believe in — apparently the almighty dollar — for the players. Despite all the encumbrances from above, the players are carrying this league and if it is ever to find its salvation, it will be the players who lead it there.

Oy vey. This is left over sour grapes from the lockout, pure and simple. The bias is revealed right there. The players could have formed their own league during the lockout, but they didn't. If the league didn't need the management and the owners, that could have happened. But, the reality is, someone has to run the league. Yes, they screw things up, and, yes, the ice should be better, but the reality someone else would be whining for the exact opposite reasons. The person who makes the call is always going to be criticized. So after a while, after reading piece after piece like this, it's no wonder they stop listening.

It's not that I'm not critical of the league for a lot of the same things (fix the ice=yay!), and I don't do it with crack reporting. The difference is, I have a low-traffic blog, I don't write for a newspaper or a news website.

UPDATE: The AP does a better job, at least asking for a he said/she said on it.

"It probably happens quite often, you just don't have goals scored on them," Murray said when asked if the delay was unusual. "That doesn't mean I have to accept it but that's the way it is."

Lou Lamoriello, New Jersey's president, general manager and head coach, was unaware of the controversy when the Devils arrived here for a meeting later in the day.

"I didn't notice that, nor did I look for that, nor would I think that that was done," said Lamoriello, who didn't know that local officials had worked the game. "If you can come up with any suggestions I'd like to hear it because it's a human hand that's dropping the puck and it's a human hand that's putting the clock on. If there's a better way of doing it I don't have the answer right now."

No one checked up on whether this has been a noted problem, or just one that cost a Canadian team a goal.

POST-SEASON UPDATE: Retrospectively, you can see at this point that the Canadian media is firing on all cylinders. This might have been what The Beard was talking about with the "Cry Baby" Canadian media in his slam on the Sens after the Finals. This conspiracy theorizing about the Devils and the clock and the Rangers and the ice, and also the Devils and the scheduling, is the same kind of undermining they did in the Finals, when the scribes wrote about almost everything except the play on the ice.