Paul Stewart: NHL's Sound and Fury Signifies Nothing

You know what would be the best think that could happen, Colin Campbell should be escorted out of the NHL offices. He has been a total joke to the league. Start there, remove him, and then maybe things will improve.

Maybe they should have representatives from all 30 NHL teams in attendance since they're the ones who have to actually play the game according to the rules. They may be able to offer some valuable insight.

What's the point of faceoff circle hash marks if players are continually allowed to disregard them anyway? Those at the faceoff dot are never enforced, and the ones at the outer edge are completely ignored - there is contact between wingers on almost every faceoff. Hell, the circle itself is merely a suggestion at this point. And the trapezoid? Just a joke that never should have made it off of the drawing board.

But, to the crux of the blog...the embellishment/diving in the NHL now rivals that of international soccer (ironically, I'm watching the Brazil/Croatia game right now, and two guys just banged toes and both of them went down like they were Kerrigan'd, grabbing their shins). I agree that something has to change to make it stop, but much like the disciplinary system's inconsistencies with suspensions, the League has shown that they - as a whole - just don't give a damn.

My biggest problem with embellishment, is that is occurs because refs dont make obvious calls, then players feel they need to embellish in order to be recognized. This only gets worse during the playoffs when the whistles get put away... then when the refs want to balance out the calls during the game, call the lamest penalties just to look fair by the end of the game.

My prime example of this involves, you guessed it PK Subban. In game 5, PK took a high stick in the first frame; it was obvious, it was 10 ft away from a ref watching the play and no call was made. Later in the game PK took another and this time leaped in the air like dancer and came crashing down and got the call. Lame, but apparently it was what was needed to get the call. Then in the final few minutes, with NYR already having 1 more PP than MTL - PK got a high stick in on St Louis, about 10 ft from the ref, it was obvious and made me cringe... and no call was made.

So basically what I am saying; call the damn penalties when you see them and embellishment is less likely to occur and finally, dont try to even out penalties, just set a threshold early in the game and follow it to the end, even if one team gets 15 calls and the other only gets 3.

Reffing is a hard job, but they only make it worse on themselves with the way they call it now.

If I was Gary Bettman, I would be firing Colin Campbell and hiring Paul Stewart.

Great read as always, Stewie.

You are right.

Much like the uniform rule where a player's sweater has to be tucked in before he gets a warning, then a penalty, this will go by the wayside before too long.

If I was Gary Bettman, I would be firing Colin Campbell and hiring Paul Stewart.
- SolGoode

You don't really want to be Gary Bettman, do you? Gary should fire himself, he has turned this game into a joke.

Fantastic insight. Cosign for the most part.

You don't really want to be Gary Bettman, do you? Gary should fire himself, he has turned this game into a joke.
- powerenforcer

He doesn't have much say in the rules, how they are applied by officials, and the suspensions. He has actually made the players and owners a ton of money since the 2004 lockout. People want to give him crap but he has actually stabilized the league and is making the league a ton of money.

As a season ticket holder, I HATE the idea of switching sides between period 3 and OT, and potentially for the shoot out. I PAY A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT EXTRA because my preferred team attacks my end of the ice twice. Suddenly giving the other side the over time and potentially shoot out does not jive with the additional cost I pay to sit where my team attacks twice. As a fan, I want to see my team attack rather than play defense. So why penalize those of us who do pay extra to sit in a double attack end? BAD IDEA