I'd like to add my congratulations to the Lake Superior State Lakers for
winning the 1992 NCAA championship against a very tough Wisconsin squad.
 
Having said that, let's move on to the world's most popular sport:  referee-
bashing.  I've seen MacConaghy officiate a number of ECAC games, and he'll
often call things a little tight and be a little inconsistent -- so what you
saw Saturday night was a typical game for him.  And, as has been stated by
Kenny Z. and others, a team needs to adjust their style of play to how the
ref is calling the game.  It was obvious early on that MacConaghy was not
going to let a lot of things go, and the Badgers should have been able to
compensate, perhaps playing a little less of a physical game.  Yes, it's
annoying to have to change your style to fit the officials, but championship
caliber teams can do it without suffering.
 
This brings up a related point.  It seems to be generally agreed that the
referees in the East, especially the ones in the ECAC, tend to call games
tighter than the ones out West.  Having seen very few Western refs, I can't
really comment, but if that's the case, and if it's financially possible, it
might make sense to rotate the officials between leagues a little more.  The
same idea was put forth for baseball by ESPN's Peter Gammons (National
league and American league umps are currently about as similar as night and
day), and I think it's a good one.  Such a rotation might make the refs a
little more consistent, helping to avoid a situation like Saturday night,
where the officials' style was quite a bit different from what either team
was used to during the regular season.
 
Back to the bashing.  Paul Marchant writes:
>But having watched the game on ESPN last night, I can certainly understand
>all the complaints. To put it bluntly, the officiating sucked. I'm sure
>Mike or somebody will post a box score or has tallied all the penalties called
>but it was crazy. Probably the worst call was on MacDonald(sp?) for slashing.
>Please. And to top it off with a misconduct for arguing an obvious boner call.
 
Well, I count 25 penalties in this game, well off the NCAA tournament record
of 43 (says ESPN -- now THERE'S a game I'd like to have seen!).  And yes,
the slashing call on MacDonald was ridiculous.  However, the fact that it
was such a terrible call DOES NOT excuse MacDonald's arguing with the ref --
that'll almost always get you a ten-minute rest.  Besides that, MacDonald
*went after* MacConaghy and continued to berate him as MacConaghy was
skating away and trying to get the game restarted.  That's when MacConaghy
hit him with the misconduct.  Sorry, MacDonald, but that was a monumentally
dumb move.
 
Wisconsin fans can heap the blame on MacConaghy if they want, but I agree
with Dave Smith -- TV replays backed up the ref on almost every call (I
counted only two misses, MacDonald's "slash" and a hook on Plante a few
minutes earlier).  And in the second half of the game, Wisconsin took some
stupid penalties that MacConaghy had no choice but to call.  Case in point:
late in the second period, near the end of a Lake Superior power play,
LSSU's Smith was hit with a boarding call.  Great for the Badgers, right?
Now the teams are at even strength, and in a few seconds, Wisconsin will
have a power play, and maybe they'll take control of the game (the score was
2-1 at this point).  But NO!  During the stoppage of play, Wisconsin's Brett
Kurtz chose to trip a Laker player behind the Lake Superior net, and in full
view of MacConaghy.  Bang -- end of potential power play opportunity for the
Badgers.  Yes, the flow of the game was disrupted by the officials, and
there were certainly more borderline calls than were necessary -- but the
Wisconsin players lost their cool and allowed themselves to become
flustered, rather than concentrating on their REAL opponents, the Lakers.
And that hurt the Badgers far more than the officiating did.
 
One more thing:  No officiating, no matter how flagrantly awful (and we've
all seen a LOT worse than this game), can possibly justify Wisconsin's
actions at the end of the game.  OK, the players were frustrated and they
felt wronged, but going after the officials and sucker-punching a few guys
on the opposing team -- that's a sad ending to what should have been
remembered as a fine season for the Badgers.
--
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86 and probably '94
LET'S GO RED!!
"So, are they rooting for Wisconsin or making fun of them?"
-- my wife Lisa, upon seeing a group of Cheeseheads for the first time during
   the telecast of the NCAA championship game