Some facts and some agreement

This post is a direct response to Dave Dawson's most recent post. I need to set the record straight on a couple things and agree with Dave on a couple things as well. You can read that one by going to my blog list by clicking on The Voice. -------------------->

First of all Dave is a great broadcaster and a very good blogger who always entertains me (he is not very good at Darts though) but I felt like I needed to set some things straight. In no way am I angry with Dave. There are just some facts that need to be put out there. Starting with Kyle Porter. Porter got more than 2 minutes for jumping Gerry Young in game 4 of the Navs series, I just checked that game sheet and he got 2 for cross-checking, 2 for being the aggressor, 2 for instigating, 5 for fighting and a game misconduct. Plus he did miss the next game as both teams came to the agreement that he should miss that game.

The reffing in the John can be bad, even laughable at times, but that statement applies to every building in the league as I am sure you know but for those people reading this who weren't in Whitecourt for game 2 I will try to explain the reffing. OK well let's start by saying the reffing was appalling. With the score tied at 3 the ref starting giving the Huskies penalties like Clowns give candy at a parade. I mean he did call Dylan Apsassin for holding. The reason that call is one of the more ludicrous I have ever seen? Apsassin HAD THE PUCK!!!!! WTF?????????? How does he hold someone while he has the puck and is trying to protect it from the Wolverines? Maybe I could see a holding the stick penalty if he had grabbed a D man's stick while protecting the puck but he didn't and that wasn't the call. Dylan got hit along the boards when he had the puck, both players fell and he got a holding penalty. So unbelievable you just have to laugh about it. Plus a clear high stick that every fan in the building saw was let go and led directly to a goal. It's something that happens everywhere. You just have to deal with it I guess but while in most games the ref doesn't affect the outcome he certainly had something to do with it in game 2. Not to mention the fact that the referee would not come over to talk to the Huskies bench. Not ONCE did he skate over to explain a decision or to let Coach Bob explain his point of view. Yet the ref was chumming it up with the Wolverines bench at every opportunity. This is the one thing that bothers me more than anything else about the reffing in this league. I might post a rant about it later.

As for Coach Kalb deserving a suspension for sending Porter out to take on Gerry Young this is where the agreeing start. Dave I think you are probably right about that but there is no way the ref would have known at the time what had happened. And I don't think the league is organized enough to sort that out after the fact. Coach Bob was doing what he had to do to protect his players and if it meant him missing a game I don't know that he would have done anything differently. Perhaps Porter didn't go about it the right way but on the other hand Gerry Young runs around cheap shotting anything that moves and then won't stand up and fight so eventually he is going to get what's coming to him. Gerry Young delivers more hits to the head than Justin Timberlake. I'm not sure if that joke worked but seriously Young leads with his hands or his elbow to the heads of players all the time. Of course they have to be pretty small for Young to reach them but that is another story. Eventually you have to take your punishment and if the refs don't take care of it then the players have to start policing themselves and that's when it can get ugly.

I agree with you about Coach Kalb in terms of his crusade against headshots. He has been saying for a while that players, even his own, need to punished heavily for head shots. That's why he sent Porter after Young. The game needs to be cleaned up in that respect but no one seems willing to do what has to be done to protect the players. For instance, how about when there is a clear head shot that the refs miss they get punished? Or give the linespeople the ability to penalize hits to the head as well as the ref. Something needs to be done to protect the players.

I'm looking forward to seeing Dave tomorrow at the NPA and joining him for what should be a great game and hopefully a very good broadcast. Maybe we will even have a good discussion at some point about what can be done about headshots. Safe to say the answer is something...anything. Nothing can be worse than what's being done right now. And that would be nothing.