PASabreFan

The person Taro needs to debate is Bryan Lewis. As of 2019, when he was interviewed by Vogl, he was still working in officiating. You'd think the monstrous thing he did in 1999 would have led to his being blackballed. Anyway, he doesn't agree with Taro that he got the call wrong, let alone all the conspiratorial nonsense. --- https://theathletic.com/1017120/2019/06/07/this-is-a-tripping-penalty-missed-ex-official-bryan-lewis-on-another-call-that-puts-the-refs-under-scrutiny/ The Athletic called on Lewis to explain what might have happened during Game 5 in Boston and to see if anything had changed since Game 6 of the 1999 final, when Hull scored with his foot in the crease to lift Dallas to the Cup and sink Buffalo into a “No Goal” dismay that lingers to this day. Here’s the conversation: Now, I know you weren’t on the ice for the Brett Hull goal back in Buffalo, but it’s been 20 years and it still pops up whenever something like this happens. Is there … No, you made it pop up. I didn’t. You did. (Laughs.) True. And you know what? At the end of the day here, we’re talking about something here where one is a mechanic and one is a judgment call. The mechanic of that one — and I don’t know what I did two days ago, never mind 20 years ago — but we’ve had situations that happened, even during that season, that were identical in nature and ruled in the same manner. I appreciate the fact that people don’t like it, or they feel they were cheated, whatever the language would be. There has to be some comfort in the fact that as you walk through the rulebook — and in that particular case then, I walked through the rulebook that night. I never left the arena until Gary Meagher, our PR guy, said, “OK, it’s good to go.” A rebound off the goalpost, a rebound off the goalie doesn’t change possession, and there you look at it, all right, it’s a tough mechanic. And I read from the rulebook that night — I remember doing that, reading from the rulebook. You don’t know it, you don’t like it, everybody feels you’ve been wronged or whatever have you, you have to work out and say, “Well, it was right. If that happened again, I would do it the same way again.” Where you look at a situation here, we’re talking about judgment, and as a result of looking at something, you might say, “You know what? Maybe I wouldn’t do it that way the next time.” So for me, it’s not really fair to draw a comparison. One is a mechanic based on the rulebook that’s clearly described, and the other one is judgment aspect. That makes sense. So, as you mentioned, looking at the mechanic issue of it for the Hull one, there is nothing really to change from 20 years ago? Or nothing you would alter? No. And you know what? First of all, it was a very tough rule to deal with anyway with your foot in the crease. And I’m going through that in another league. I’m a referee chief of university hockey in Ontario, and we’re going through that because that’s a common rule that shows up in the playoffs. Everybody is trying to get the goalie off his game, all right? And when I’m at a game now, I actually chart how many guys are active in and around the crease. I’ve learned over the years that’s a style of play by some teams. That’s one of the rules that we are looking at this year at the university level is should we tighten this up? To use international hockey as an example, if you go and you stand in the crease for any reason, they stop the play and take the faceoff outside. That’s a significant rule option, but it’s there, with the message being to the attacking players: “Stay the heck out of the crease and let the goalie do his job.” Which was always the intent. I don’t want to say it was a good rule or a bad rule because my job was to make sure they got written in the rulebook and we told the officials what to do with it. … If I had a chance to take the tape and walk you through the rebound, the bounce off the goalpost or the bounce off the goalie and then show you the rulebook, I would like to think you would understand it better. I actually said to a guy today — we were talking about a conservation situation for a guy who wants to add an addition onto his house. I’m a politician up here in town, as well, and I said, “Here’s the rules, and here’s the regulations. These are what they are, but you don’t have to like them.” And that would be the same thing in Buffalo. Here’s what it is. It’s tough to explain. You don’t have to like it.

Two minutes for ramming, jamming or slamming I'm guessing.

Where in the world is Taro T?

So a poorly worded joke. I await the apologies.

Tip that hat back and enjoy. I feel bad for Dodo.

And I never said Lewis reviewed the goal in under 10 seconds. You're making stuff up. I said he made the call quickly. You're all hung up on the doors opening. People also entered the ice through the Stars' bench by the way. Lewis reffed 1,000 games in the NHL including eight finals. In an era without review. He watched Hull's goal live, he wrote the memo. In his mind it wasn't a tough call. There was plenty of time to watch a replay. Not every review had to take five minutes.

I hope people see your true colors if they haven't already. Encyclopedias are fact-checked and objective, by the way. I'm not the one talking about opening the Zamboni doors quickly to prevent a review, CBC and ESPN calling the shots, coverups after the season or Bettman "deeming" that the Stars should win. It's thinking like that that just cost hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives.

Don't you even want to know if it's true before spewing this out?

SS is a hockey man, so there's that. (If SS is the tweeter and it's no someone pretending to be SS, which seems unlikely.)

- $500 Cash, buyer will need to meet at Erie, Pennsylvania Millcreek Police Station

Hot damn. Some cool features there, including the angled slots and curved "boards." I don't understand why one of the corners is blocked off. And you couldn't go behind the net?

That is, most likely: under extreme duress, Lewis blew the call. Less likely: he nobly went rogue. Least likely: Bettman pulled all the strings to save the broadcast networks some money and/or ensure a southern franchise had a Cup, starting within 10 seconds of the goal when a flunky was instructed to open the gates of hell.

“The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque.” ― Philip K. Dick, VALIS

Did you think it was sexist to not introduce Kim as the owner alongside her husband in 2011? And to give her the assignment of renovating the lockerroom? Owners assign.

It had to be said.

OK, it's a pizza as soon as you put your hands in the oven!

I'm not trying to convince anyone. I have no agenda. Do you? You're one who keeps bringing it up, using the loaded word "awarded." It is entertaining, I'll give you that. Halfway through another of your epic cold and clinical breakdowns of why the call was wrong, it hit me: this can't be what sports is about. I'm now considering the human side of it. How Bryan Lewis handled the situation is pretty fascinating. Unfortunately, neither one of us can be in his head to know the truth, and as far as I know, he ain't talking. Maybe there'll be a deathbed statement. Rosegoal. What did he say? No goal? Rosegoal? He belongs to the angels? The ages? The aged?

You have to understand, it's Taro's way or the highway. He knows the intricacies of the rule book in 1999, the definition of control (both the legalistic definition and how it was practically applied by the refs), review procedures in place at the time (including the procedures for considering the clarifications in the memo), what league staff was in the building and who did what and why, who ordered the Zamboni doors to open, the mindset of the league staff and how they lied and then covered it up, and so on. The width and breadth and depth of His understanding is remarkable, almost God-like.

I'd go with just. Let's imagine the Sabres score the same goal at the other end, leading the series 3-2, to seemingly win the Cup. The goal is taken off the board, and Dallas prevails in 7. Sabres fans study the memo, which comes precariously close to allowing Holzinger's goal, then watch as the league gets rid of the rule, learning that meetings IN BUFFALO during the final sealed the deal for the crease rule. Can you imagine?

The only fair thing will be for Dahlin and Owen to alternate Norris wins.

Don't play coy. I WANT THE TRUTH!

I don't really get the reference, but I suppose so. It's fascinating to think of the situation Lewis found himself in after a lifetime in the sport. Focus on the humanity of it and not bureaucratic protocols, the idea that the director of officiating, THE BIG BOSS, was supposed to sit by and watch Charlie Banfield provide information to the ref with zero context ("his skate was in the crease before the puck") and watch a Cup winning-goal get erased. You can't tell me when it came to the memo clarifications that's how the call was supposed to be made. Someone had to interpret that wording. And that should be the guy who wrote it. Turns out he got it wrong, but only because a clarification that should have been in the memo was understandably not imagined. Lewis' legacy was on the line, and he knew it. How did that turn out for him?

How many reviews akin to the Hull situation do you remember that season? I remember Varada or whoever on one side of the crease with a toe possibly on the line and the puck, shot by someone else, entering the crease on the other side. Those took a long time to figure out, given 1999 technology. The league wanted goals like Hull's to count. They weren't smart enough to figure out how to put it in writing. Lewis knew that. He also knew the rule was going away after the season. He also knew the crease rule was a travesty. On that fateful morn, he got to be judge, jury, executioner and keeper of the integrity of the Stanley Cup. He did his job well.

I am not often in sync with my fellow fans, but I am heartened that, this time around, there isn't fervor and excitement for a night like this. (Unless it's being discussed fervently and excitedly in a thread I haven't seen.)