I never cared much for hockey, but have gotten swept up in Stanley Cup fever and been rooting for the Habs just because. One observation was common among viewers of last night's game vs. the Vegas Golden Knights: the refs must be doing the bigwig's bidding. Just like the political refs, aka the media. So in Canada one can only draw this conclusion: Gary Bettman sucks as much as Conrad Black.
. . .
So first off, a crash-course primer for those uninitiated: Bettman is the slimy NHL commissioner who makes Roger Goodell look like Mr. Rogers, and Chris Lee is an exceptionally shitty hockey ref who blows dozens of calls and looks to have an in-built bias against the Habs. In fact, a Reddit follower did the math on Chris Lee's officiating career during Habs games, and the results speak for themselves:
PIMs stands for penalties infraction minutes. So the Habs not only get penalized more often when Lee is reffing, but as a result, they lose more games due to lost momentum. Stats nerds may argue about the numerical significance of this chart and whether or not it's a coincidence, but...
I mean, when your opponent literally punches a player right in front of the ref and the ref just stands there to watch, um... looks to me like someone's whistling past the graveyard — by not blowing the whistle at all.
From left to right: Habs' Nick Suzuki gets sucker punched by Golden Knights' Brayden McNabb while incompetent ref Chris Lee just stands there like a dope. (Lee hugging McNabb after he scored the tie goal just adds insult to injury.)
Over at Simon's blog, one of the regulars, Steve, made a casual quip in the comments that "JT needs to fix the NHL officiating." The refs sucking seems to be the almost universal consensus, considering how well the Habs played otherwise against the Vegas team. From The Athletic:
Before the end of the second period, Brayden McNabb straight up punched Nick Suzuki in the face in full view of referee Chris Lee. Not an obstructed view. Not from an eye in the sky. Lee had a front-row seat to it all and didn’t call anything.
This officiating crew is not fit to be on the ice for the remainder of this series. They were absolutely awful in full view of the hockey world, and it’s raising serious questions on how the game should be officiated in the postseason.
And this Reddit thread from r/hockey with every single poster completely shitting all over Lee. Several tweets from viewers, like columnist Jack Todd. I couldn't have said it better myself:
If you lose, you lose. It happens.
But to fight as hard as the Habs are fighting and lose because two refs refuse to do their jobs - that's another matter.
Fans always bitch. But this feels deliberate, nasty and personal and it's an ugly thing to watch.
The going theory among Habs Nation (Quebec is a nation, after all) seems to be that Bettman wants the Cup to remain Stateside, and for the finals to gin up TV ratings, by pitting an East Coast/West Coast clash between Vegas and the New York Islanders, in two of America's biggest (and most profitable) big cities. So there's not just greed afoot, but an unhealthy bit of nationalism as well. Again, that's just the going theory. I can't get into Bettman's head to know if that's what he's really thinking. But I wouldn't want to go into that ugly, dark crawlspace either. Or Chris Lee's, for that matter. Which is probably empty.
So now you know what happened at the hockey fight before a House of Commons bench-clearing brawl broke out. Now, put this into perspective with the picture above: Nick Suzuki is the Liberals; Brayden McNabb is the Conservatives; Chris Lee is the media, and Gary Bettman is the faceless corporate ownership of CTV, Global, Postmedia, etc. etc. etc. Here, I'll put it into meme form:
See where I'm going here? The refs will call a penalty on (make a "scandal" or bad press for) Trudeau for not lacing up his skates properly, but will turn a blind eye when he gets socked in the face, ganged up on, by the Tories (and their sidekicks, the NDP). Or when they're just generally doing something wrong in their own sandbox. Why? Because the commissioner of the league (of Canadian fishwrap outlets) wants to gin up ratings and has an implicit bias against the Montrealer.
I do hope the Habs can overcome the two-front war they're having to fight. Right now, it's a whole new ballgame (or puck game, I guess): as of this writing, the semifinal series is tied 2-2, with the next game in Vegas and then after that, back to Montreal. Even if they can't, this game and the atrocious officiating has provided a good lesson, I think, for Canada's political realm and especially the upcoming election. The government of the day in Ottawa impacts a lot more people than who claims the Stanley Cup.
Justin Trudeau still leads the polls. But he's perpetually the underdog simply because of the unlevel playing field (or rink) he has to compete in: not only against multiple opposition parties working hand-in-glove against him, but biased and crooked refs helping them out — at the behest of their corporate owners, upstairs in the luxury box. Godfrey, Thomson, Black, Bitove, Irving, Shaw, they're all a bunch of Bettmans. Chris Lee, meanwhile, is a useful idiot. He's Evan Solomon with a brand new pair of CCMs.
And that's why I'm going to get a-moving on my project addressing the utter rot in Canadian political hockey refereeing. Not here at Miss F-D but a whole new website, tentatively titled Canadian Fishwrap. Because as far as I'm concerned, the jock journalists of the Great North all deserve to be fined and shoved in the penalty box. Go Habs, Go.... Go Libs, Go!
