Ok, I said I wasn't going to give my opinion until later, and
later has arrived, but this isn't going to be a long one (I think),
just my reaction to some of the things that have been posted.
 
1) I'm not going to go into a blow-by-blow rehash of each penalty
   called or not called. As previously mentioned, each of us saw it
   from a different seat, and my memory is fuzzy (fortunatly)...
 
2) When discussing how the referee called the game, please don't
   include the discussion of how some of the Badgers acted at the
   end. They were wrong, but that doesn't mean that the previous 60
   minutes of officating were right.
 
3) What the Badgers complaint is can be paraphrased by me as
   follows: The referee prevented them from a chance at winning the
   Championship. If the opposing team takes away your game,
   thats one thing. For the ref to do it is another.
 
4) I like a game called tighter than many of my friends, but he was like
   a vise on the Badgers.  As someone already said, if a ref had gone out
   in the basketball championship game  and called a foul for EVERY CONTACT
   there would be a federal investigation (contact is against the rules of
   basketball, right?).
 
5) People have said that the Badgers should have adjusted to the
   ref. Many times this year they have adjusted to the ref. But the
   adjustment from the tightest WCHA ref to this guy is like jumping
   the Grand Canyon. Really.
 
6) I've never really liked the phrase "let the boys play" before,
   and don't think refs should call it differently in one game
   than another because one is a championship game, (and I now
   will sounds like the newspaper and radio guys and not manage
   to convey anything but use cliche) but I think that the ref
   (whose name I can't spell) had *no feel* for the game. Many of
   the penalties he called (not counting the fantom penalties) were
   not things that (if let go) had any effect on the game, nor
   were they dangerous to anyone.
 
7) Often we see a ref call a lot of penalties to "keep control of
   the game" -- to avoid any confrontations getting worse later.
   This was not the case. Both coaches said it wasn't a chippy game.
 
8) About the after-the-game incident: What we've heard out here
   so far is that the NCAA Ice Hockey Committee is investigating,
   and a report is expected in two weeks. One Badger was interviewed
   by the committee. Apparently some shouting and possibly shoving
   occurred in the hallway. Madison has two newspapers, and their
   versions of how the linesman got hurt conflict. One version is
   that the curtain rod fell. The Badgers' reaction at the end is
   understandable, but not defensible.
 
	--david
 
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david parter				university of wisconsin -- madison
[log in to unmask]			      computer sciences department