Brad Watson & NHL: Intend THIS

I drank about three 2-liters of Mountain Dew, got all hopped up for this game, I can't sleep, I have no motivation to brush my teeth, I almost decided to unceremoniously burn my Mighty Ducks trilogy, and I'm expected to go to bed and live a normal life tomorrow after the crap that just transpired in Anaheim? Not L.A., Sue. Anaheim.   As they should say in Toronto, we was "hosed, eh." As a result of this "hose job" I will elaborate on, the Wings lost a pivotal game 2-1, and trail the series by the same score with Game 4 on Thursday night.

At the 1:04 mark of the 3rd period the Wings, battling their asses off to tie a game they probably didn't deserve to win anyway, were robbed by a brain-farting referee named Brad Watson who decided to blow his whistle when the puck was clearly loose around the net. So, despite Marian Hossa tapping the loose puck into the net at about the same time (if not before) the ref blew the whistle, it was tabbed a no-goal.

The explanation behind the already head-scratching decision by the ref is even more baffling. Apparently, it was unreviewable and the no-goal call would stand because the referee had an intent to blow the whistle.

Under Rule 78.5 per the Official NHL Rules, an instance of a disallowed goal is:

(xii) When the Referee deems the play has been stopped, even if he had not physically had the opportunity to stop play by blowing his whistle.

Therefore, everything after he "intended" to blow the whistle would not count. In other words, no-goal because it happened after he decided in his small brain that he would eventually blow the whistle.

Can you believe that? I agree. That's un-fugging-believable. Who comes up with that damn rule anyway?

If you want to play with a rule based on intent, take a Torts class in law school. It shouldn't exist in this situation. Isn't it the referee's intent to make the right call? You could argue that the ref intends before the game even starts, while he's putting on his size extra-small jockstrap in the locker room that he intends to make all the right calls. Thus, all wrong calls would be null and void, presumably after a simple review, right?

In this case, upon review, any half brained person would see the puck was loose, the whistle was arguably not even blown until after Hossa had already tapped the already deemed loose puck into the net. Tie game and at 2:15 in the morning we're probably all still up watching another triple OT game. I'd be much happier losing more sleep from a loss in OT(s) than by this.

I'm sorry, but that's the biggest cop out rule I've ever seen.

Why the Usher picture? Well, because the NHL has "got it bad", I'm all "caught up" in it, and it's the best picture that came up on page one of google images when searching "crotch grab."

Seriously, NHL "intend" yourselves on THIS. (insert Koy Detmer suck it signal here).

I'm going to bed, but not before I punch my sleeping fiance while I pretend she's Chris Pronger and Brad Watson and the Gary Bettman for allowing such a terrible rule. Just kidding... I'll punch these paid programming chicks on Versus instead. That's right; I haven't changed my channel since this game ended. I guess all along I was hoping that the game would miraculously come back on with the NHL having corrected the mistake. Like Wayne and Garth would say in Wayne's World, "play on!"

See you Thursday.

This post can also be seen on Detroit4lyfe