The officiating I have seen as of late in the WHL playoffs has been more than horrible. I witnessed the sellout crowd in Kelowna, BC; voted the best fans in the WHL; boo the referees everytime they stepped on the ice after an intermission, one fan even threw his pop at them. The whole arena was disgusted. And this did not only happen last game, Saturday March 29, when the Kelowna Rockets faced the Seattle Thunderbirds in WHL Playoff action. The previous two games in Kelowna, March 24/25, Seattle won the game because of lousy officiating.
This was part of the game summary for the March 25 game on the Kelowna Rockets webstie.(www.kelownarockets.com)
"All told on Tuesday night, 18 minor penalties were called, many of the less-than-obvious variety. As a result neither team was pleased with the officiating. The Rockets might grumble about successive penalties to Tysen Dowzak and Milan Kytnar 38 seconds apart midway through the first period with Kelowna owning the game’s momentum and leading 2-0. Seattle scored the first of four straight goals on the chance."
"Conversely, Rob Sumner and company could point to a penalty shot awarded to Kyle St. Denis in the third period as a serious point of contention. The fact that the crafty Rockets’ forward turned the shot into the game’s tying goal, didn't help alleviate the T-Birds’ displeasure."
Both coaches also complained about the officiating in The Daily Courier; newspaper of kelowna. Officiating has really become a problem, where not the better team moves on but the team that gets luck out of the horrible calls made by the referees. I hope for the sake of junior hockey, this problem will be properly dealt with.
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6 months ago
the first two games in Seattle was won by kelowna due to the worst officiating I've ever seen. so at least they are consistently AWFUL!
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