Wednesday, November 28, 2007

 

Misdirected anger

I suspect, though I'm not certain (I hope?), that I'm a somewhat typical hockey fan, in the sense of the highs and lows I go through watching my team play. More specifically, I find that my heart rate is highest, and I'm the twitchiest, when my team is losing a game that they could be winning.

Not deserve to be winning, necessarily, but could be winning. When that's the status of the game, the emotional impact of every little thing that happens on the ice is amplified three or fourfold. I find myself on my feet when the good guys are going north with numbers, and when something bad happens, I just burn.

I also find that when I'm in this, uh, state, two things that usually don't bother me too much suddenly become rather infuriating.

One is the reffing. It becomes unavoidable for me to starting doing the, "How can [that thing that the other guy just did] not be a penalty when he just called our guy for [doing something that didn't seem as bad] five minutes ago?" Last night it just ended up a bit off-balance, IMO... I'm not quite sure how to articulate this, but it was a situation where the final penalty tally didn't really reflect the balance of illegal/borderline plays. Or put another way, it was a pretty intense game with a fair bit of stickwork and near-dubious hits, and as a whole, I don't see how you could watch it and think the Flames cheated more than the Wings. (I should add that this reflects well on the Wings, i.e. aggressive enough to get me up in arms at times, but disciplined enough to stop just short of anything that would raise the ref's arm.)

The one specific question I do have is why Lilja didn't get an instigator penalty for going after Phaneuf. I've gotten the impression over the past several seasons that this is the prototypical scenario for calling the instigator penalty: Player A cranks Player B1, B2 hunts down A for a fight, B2 gets an instigator. That's how it went for both of Phaneuf's previous fights this season.

I'm pretty agnostic about the instigator penalty in general (though I don't think eliminating it would do squat in terms of protecting star players), but like most rules, I like to be able to understand them and see them applied consistently. Obviously last night, the whole situation hurt the Flames; their comeback prospects (such as they were) were hurt by Phaneuf going off for 5 with 7 minutes left in the game, and they didn't get the PP either, even though under the English definition (if not the NHL one) it was Lilja who instigated the fight.

Anyway... the second thing that goes from annoying to infuriating when the game's not going my way is bad colour commentary, and man was I ready to kick Charlie Simmer in the teeth last night.

As mentioned previously (see first 2 comments), Simmer has a comically romanticized view of his playing days. And as a bonus, it's also totally incoherent! Last night, after a hit from behind on Phaneuf (apparently, at any rate, they never replayed it) he said (I quote from memory): "It goes back to the issue of respect for your fellow players. In the old days, when a guy's back was turned, you'd wait for him to turn towards you, and then hit him." Riiiight.... you know, I don't mind a bit of chit-chat about how things worked better when the players policed themselves -- even though I don't really believe it, and btw there was NHL supplementary discipline in the old days too -- but this statement is clearly bullshit.

And it must be! -- because he regularly contradicts it with statements about how in the old days, players knew how to protect themselves better and not get into vulnerable positions. Why on earth they would have been concerned about this, back in the Golden Age when their opponents were so much more respectful of their safety, is a mystery that will surely be explained in a future telecast.

The real kicker though was after the Filppula goal to make it 5-3. The Flames were carrying the play, and Phaneuf had pinched, gained possession, circled behind the net, and gotten back to the point, whereupon he had a shot blocked and the play changed direction. At that moment, Nystrom and Lombardi were right on top of Osgood, and Nolan was headed toward the net after covering Phaneuf's spot. None of the 3 forwards were able to get back quickly, and Filppula scored as the trailer on a 4-on-2.

Simmer's take: "Well, Dion Phaneuf, it goes back to (yes he does say that a lot) understanding the flow of the game, and knowing when to go and not go."

Seriously Charlie? Phaneuf pinched in, while down a goal, in an effort to sustain zone pressure, and this was a bad decision? Even with the benefit of hindsight, showing that he didn't end up out of position? (Not to mention that if the shot gets through, it's a 2-on-Osgood while two Wings are holding hands over by the circle?) Time to reset my favourite take on this topic:
What's most shocking is how rarely ex-jocks provide this kind of understanding, and how superficial their apparent feel for the game they played can be. The theoretical benefit of having them in the booth is usually more than neutralized, if it's present at all, by their grudges and biases, their need to reassert their hard-won insider status [ding!], and their tiresome espousal of cliches originally developed to ward off reporters [ding ding!]. Since most booth athletes were winners on the field of play, they share a general interest in favouring disingenuous character-based explanations for losing and winning rather than technical ones [ding ding ding ding ding! Charlie Simmer, you are our winner!].

Which reminds me, I have one more TV gripe before I forget. I understand that, to a certain extent, what I'm bitching about here is a matter of taste; there are no doubt people who want little more from their colour analysts than the odd joke and some periodic warm fuzzies about the good old days. I do think though that there is some base level of "helping viewers understand what's going on in the game" that is rightly expected of hockey broadcasts.

Much of it is simply using replays effectively: did that goal deflect off of something, what was that penalty for, where was our d-man on that 3-on-1, etc. -- I suspect that hockey producers agree here.

In Thursday's game against the Hawks, their 1st goal was scored shorthanded when Alex Tanguay stepped onto the bench from the point, letting the puck coast by for a wide open breakaway. It was a strange play. Stranger still, though, was that the TV guys spent zero time attempting to show us why it happened. Presumably he was trying to avoid a Too Many Men penalty -- would he have gotten one, or was he confused? Was another Flame jumping on the ice, then held back?

In a 2.5 hour broadcast of a game that featured a total of 3 goals, these questions were never addressed, let alone answered. Why? If you don't want to bore the majority of your viewers with a bunch of technical blah-blah, then fine, but that even fell short of superficial.
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Yep, the Flames have some work to do.

Comments:

I think my biggest complaint against last nights officials was the Chelios knee/trip on Phaneuf in the first that wasn't called. It was both blindingly obvious and unmissable (on the puck carrier, in plain view, in open ice). Im not saying old Vag-face should have been suspended or anything, but you'll rarely see a more prototypical "trip".
 


Detroit always gets the benefit of the doubt when it comes to calls. I'm absolutely positive on this. I have no hard proof--zero--but you'll never be able to convince me otherwise. Same goes for Chelios. He's been getting the Jordan treatment for 15 years. I was really torn last night, watching him and Phaneuf (who was leaping again). It was like the passing of the guard, one douche handing off his bullshit antics to another.
 


Yeah, nice to see calls and things going against Ugly though. If there's someone that has a karmic "getting run from behind" coming to him, it's that guy.

The whole colour commentary kills me as well, Matt. Lately, what I've noticed our own Ferraro doing is that he'll listen to MacT's scurm from the afternoon of the game and then he'll bring up all those points without saying where he got them.

Plus, then he goes on that radio show in Van and verbally filates all things Canucks.
 


Isn't it cool how big strong Phaneuf can do no wrong? 2 of his 3 fights this year were with swedes coming to the rescue of a little guy...what was the 3rd one?

He was chirping at Gagner in the last BOA...wonder if he was hoping Tanstrom would come to the rescue;o)
 


Is Matt Cooke a little guy now?
 


phaneuf is and always will be a twit. i'm almost 100% sure he checks for EU citizenship prior to tangling with anyone his own size. brian orser would be proud of the air this guy manages to get prior to ont of his hits. meh, who cares? one day a legitimate tough guy is going to get the go ahead to take an instigator and they will beat this moron until he's left with a face only a mother could love. oh wait, that already is the case...
 


Sorry, I meant Matt Cooke...fighter extrordinaire
 


Just for the record, in 2.3 NHL years, Dion Phaneuf has never been suspended, never been assessed a major penalty (apart from fighting), and unless I'm forgetting something, never hurt someone badly enough that they missed more than the remainder of that game.
 


Matt...did you not read Dennis' post about Karma?
 


My favourite Chelios moment from last night was when he was absolutely *outraged* to get a penalty for slashing Alex Tanguay in the face (sounds worse than it was -- not vicious -- but that's sure as shit what happened).
 


i love chelios for that very reason. he could be standing above a corpse with a bloody stick in his hand and he still would be yelling all the way to the penalty box (even though he was only getting 2 minutes for interference).
 


My favourite Chelios moment from last night was when he was absolutely *outraged* to get a penalty for slashing Alex Tanguay in the face (sounds worse than it was -- not vicious -- but that's sure as shit what happened).

He didn't slash him in the face. He slashed Tanguay's stick, and then his stick came up and hit Tanguay in the face. His outrage was typical Chelios, though.

Just for the record, in 2.3 NHL years, Dion Phaneuf has never been suspended, never been assessed a major penalty (apart from fighting), and unless I'm forgetting something, never hurt someone badly enough that they missed more than the remainder of that game.

Oh, so now outcome is more important than intent? How con-veen-ient.
 


Battle of Alberta = battle for the bottom?

Thank goodness for the Kings, I suppose.
 


I'm sorry Andy, did I miss something? Do you have a pile of evidence that Phaneuf has been trying to injure people but failing? Scratch that - any evidence? I didn't think so.
 


I think Dion Phaneuf will probably play 18 more years in the NHL. And I will hate him every year.
 


i have evidence that dion eats puppies. i kid you not, the guy eats puppies. he also beats up girl guides for their cookies. oh yeah and i saw him in the mall this one time and he was trying on ladies undergarments. not only do i despise mrs. phaneuf for his on ice play but i find his off ice behavior deplorable.
 


I don't know who's worse - Simmer or Millions. It's really painful to hear them.

In regards to penalties, Detroit has running interference without getting called to a 'T.'
 


I'm sorry Andy, did I miss something? Do you have a pile of evidence that Phaneuf has been trying to injure people but failing? Scratch that - any evidence? I didn't think so.

I thought you said the point of any hit was to injure?
 


The Detroit Red Wings play under their own rule book. Specifically, the old rulebook before the crackdown on obstruction. Much like individual players, referees will give teams that they "respect" the benefit of the doubt.

This is just part and parcel of playing that franchise. You just gotta work through it.


And LOL @ the jealous Oiler fans crying about Phaneuf. Especially since you know, to a man, they would be bragging about how Phaneuf is better than Orr if he was wearing an Oilers logo.
 


Gee Andy, too bad there's no way for you to somehow check that. If there was, you'd realize you somehow took away the exact opposite of my point from reading it.
 


And LOL @ the jealous Oiler fans crying about Phaneuf. Especially since you know, to a man, they would be bragging about how Phaneuf is better than Orr if he was wearing an Oilers logo.

i can honestly say that if he were given the priviledge to wear the oil drop. i would pick a new team to cheer for. i have no idea what drives this hatred but i actually watch a fair number of flames games in hopes of seeing his career ending injury.
 


ps actually i do know what drives my hatred. the fact that phaneuf plays like a guy who fought the president of the math club in high school to prove his toughness only to have his butt handed to him by the girl who held that post.
 


I'm the guy who pimped Avery long before the Rags started putting up way better win-loss records with with him in the lineup then without him.

So, recognizing that Phaneuf has value, and serious value at this currernt contractual stage, would I cheer for him if he was an Oiler?

Damn right I would because I was also a big fan of Marchment.

That being said, you have to recognize that when you play the way he does, if he gets the same end of the stick that he's been using since he came into the league, well then no one well feel the least bit sorry for him.

In keeping with that theme, I watched the first 30 min of the Ana/Cgy game last night and I'll be damned if Reghier didn't try to do the same thing to one of the Ducks as he did to Hemsky; ie recognize a guy's falling face first into the boards and try to help accerlate the impact in the process. Can't rememeber which Duck it was but the guy just manged to duck under at the last second.

Fuck, I really hope the Oilers consider Avery this summer. He's coming up as injury prone and the divisional games are being thinned but it would be nice to have him in our divisions considering all the dirtbags and/or advantage takers in our division.
 

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