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 -------- david parter university of wisconsin -- madison [log in to unmask] computer sciences department