Dissecting last night's game is a difficult task. In trying to piece through it bit by bit with a scalpel, I almost become enraged and tempted to carve the memories of last night's game into a million unrecognizable pieces, never to be spoken of or thought of ever again. Alas, if it were only that easy.
I am once again going to offer full disclosure, something I wish many of the "unbiased" talking heads in the media would do from time to time. I'm a Canucks fan through and through, and I definitely see the world through Canuck coloured glasses. I like to think I can be a fairly objective hockey fan, but first and foremost, I am a Canucks fan.
To say I was baffled by the combination of the officials, the league and the media's approach to last night's game would be putting it delicately. I was left shaking my head after the game last night, completely frustrated with the way this game was called.
It started in the first twenty seconds of the game and it didn't let up. But let's isolate what happened to poor Mason Raymond, who has a compression fracture in a vertebrae in his spine as a result of a dangerous and awkward hit by Bruins' defensemen Johnny Boychuk. Boychuk got his stick between Raymond's legs, Raymond's head between Boychuk's legs, and then drove him forcefully backwards into the boards, ending Raymond's 2010/2011 season with his play.
I can't necessarilly blame the officials for not calling a penalty on this play (although I will blame them for a littany of other atrocious non-calls and calls in just a moment). It took quite a while before a replay even surfaced of exactly what occurred. Everyone was confused, because the hit happened away from the play as Raymond and Boychuk got tangled up going to the corner. The puck came back in and Raymond was already lying prone, unmoving on the ice, to which the Boston faithful started to chant "flopper". (I'll come back to that in a moment, too)
I do not believe Boychuk had any malicious intent. He was finishing a check. But it's a funny thing; I said the exact same thing when Aaron Rome flattened Nathan Horton, too. So how exactly is it that Aaron Rome, he who had never had a disciplinary hearing in his short NHL career nevermind a suspension, had the proverbial book thrown at him with the longest suspension in the history of the Stanley Cup Final, while Johnny Boychuk is getting off scott-free for breaking vertebrae in Mason Raymond's back?
Bias and conspiracy be damned, there is most certainly a double standard at play here. Rome was a journeyman player who hit a star, and he was punished accordingly. Boychuk and Raymond are two middling players so there was no massive outcry for justice, at least not outside of Canuck nation. Noted moron Glen Healy, of CBC, even went so far as to state--ludicrously--that Mason Raymond "had his head down" and got hit cleanly.
I beg your pardon? Of course Raymond's head was down, you pedantic little idiot. It was jammed between Boychuk's legs!
The most bitter pill to swallow here, however, is that the NHL will not be reviewing this matter further. So I ask again if this sounds familiar--a player with no malicious intent attempting to finish his check does so in questionable fashion and, unfortunately, a player got hurt. So I ask again--how does Aaron Rome get the book thrown at him while Johnny Boychuk gets nothing?
Maybe it is Mason Raymond's fault. Maybe it's his fault for not being a star player, a big point producer like Nathan Horton. Maybe if he was, there would be more outrage. But as it is right now, Boychuk is skating on free of the short, shrivelled arm of the NHL law. Hypocrisy.
I wish I could say that I felt the poor calls on the night ended there. Zdeno Chara and Henrik Sedin got tangled up a short while later. Chara sent Henrik Sedin crashing to the ice with a bodily shove. It was somewhat akin to watching a gorilla swat a fly. The whistle went and, one assumed, the Canucks would go to the power play.
Except Henrik got called for "diving". I beg your pardon? A wookie slams Henrik Sedin to the ice and he gets called for diving?
It's an interesting world. I can somewhat understand that they offset both Chara and Sedin; they are both star players, it's not taking them both off is a lopsided tradeoff. But let's flash forward to later in the game to when Brad Marchand had ahold of Daniel Sedin and proceeded to punch the NHL's Art Ross Trophy winner and Hart Trophy finalist in the face approximately seven times.
The result? No call.
Imagine if the table was turned and Alexandre Burrows or Maxim Lapierre grabbed David Krejci and proceeded to punch him in the face seven times. The outrage! The nerve! The shock!
But no, a rookie shift disturber for the Bruins slugs the NHL's leading scorer and potential MVP seven times and it doesn't even warrant a foot note in the writings and ramblings of the talking heads around the league. If a Canuck player did it, it's horrible/disgraceful/terrible, but a Bruins player does it and it's a "good hockey play" and perfectly acceptable to the officials, the league and the fans.
Not to sound like a broken record, but again, it's a double standard. Just like the Bruins fans chanting "flopper" after Mason Raymond was sent into the boards, fracturing his vertebrae. Not even a mention of the complete lack of compassion, care and class of the Bruins faithful. Not a peep. But lo and behold if it happened in Rogers Arena--Vancouver fans would be called the worst in professional sports, not just the NHL.
I wrote a piece the other day on how the Canucks were the mosted hated team and fanbase in the NHL and wrote "do we really give a damn?" The answer is still no. I really don't care if we're hated. What I do give a damn about is that the game is called fairly, and that means knocking the halos off the heads of the Boston Bruins. They have been just as dirty, cheap and disgusting as the lowest moments of the Vancouver Canucks in this series, but not a peep gets written about them.
Topping it off with listening to morons like Glen Healy talk about how "the officials have not been a factor" in this series just makes it all the more difficult to swallow. How idiot, marginal NHL players like Healy get coveted positions as "hockey analysts" is simply astounding. First we have to listen to Mike Milbury's misogynistic and sexist rantings with respect to the Sedin Twins, now we have to listen to Healy try and defend the incompetent and ludicrous officiating that has been front and center in this series.
What are these men's qualifications? In Milbury's case, he is noted for two things--climbing into an audience and beating a man with his own shoe, and being one of the worst General Managers in the history of the National Hockey League. And they let this idiot have a microphone and air time?
And Glen Healy was a marginal backup goaltender at best. Have I missed some sort of background or pedigree that qualifies him to be a TV personality?
It's adding insult to injury when the calls on the ice are pathetic enough, but then we have to top it off by listening to the inane ramblings of marginal hockey players turned worse broadcasters.
I will fully focus on the setup for Game 7 tomorrow, but today I am simply left shaking my head. I do not think the Canucks were truly awful in Boston last night. A disastrous first period sunk them, but there were positives to take away, such as outscoring the Bruins in the 3rd period 2-1. The Canucks also missed a glut of open-net opportunities, a recurring theme through this series. They seem to always miss the puck/miss the net/break the stick whatever the screw-up du jour at the moment is.
But of course, the media will continue their love-in with "likeable" Tim Thomas. Credit where credit is due--he has made some fine saves in this series, but he has also been absurdly lucky that the Canucks have not capitalized on any of the various open net chances that they have had.
One last thing that really gets my goat. It's like deja vu all over again, but it needs to be said once again: I cannot believe, for the life of me, that there are people still questioning just who should start Game 7. Do we suffer from short-term memory loss, or are we just stupid? Roberto Luongo rebounded from the two worst games of his life to take on Game 7 against Chicago and win. He did it again, rebounding after two awful games in Boston to win Game 5 on home ice in this Stanley Cup Final. All the man does is bounce back from controversy, and I am 100% confident he will do it again in the Stanley Cup Final. And for those fans who turn on him over the course of one game, step back and chill out. You don't win every game, and not every loss is going to be flattering. This man has gotten us this far, and I remain confident in his ability to bring this thing home tomorrow.
The Canucks need to salvage what they can from last night. They need to take solace in the fact that the Sedins--finally--hit the scoresheet. They need to remember that apart from a 10-minute span in the first period, they outplayed and outscored the Bruins. They need to remember that they had a littany of offensive opportunities that they simply didn't capitalize on.
They also need to remember their comrades who have fallen in this final, or on the way here: Mikael Samuelsson, Dan Hamhuis, Aaron Rome and now Mason Raymond--important foot soldiers who all played big roles to get here, but now due to a combination of injury and suspension, are unable to fight the greatest fight of their lives tomorrow night.
The Canucks need to remember all of this, in addition to the preposterous calls of the league and the media, and play the game of their lives tomorrow.
But we'll talk more about that then. For the moment, I am disgusted with the league as well as the media.
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