The NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs are underway, confirming that playoff hockey is the best pro sports has to offer, but NHL officiating is not.
This was typified by an incident during a Saturday afternoon game between Colorado and Nashville.
A goal was scored by Colorado, but Nashville challenged it with video review, alleging goalie interference.
Goalie interference is hockey’s version of football’s pass interference. No two officials seem to have the same definition.
Fans, who think they know the rules, are often astounded when the calls go precisely opposite of what they might have expected, prompting utterances not fit to be heard on Mother’s Day.
Often, too, the obligatory rules experts that decorate broadcasts these days can’t agree with the calls that are made.
There was a delicious side note to Saturday’s Colorado-Nashville example because TNT’s rules expert was retired NHL referee Don Koharski.
For those who are not hockey fans, Koharski was at the center of one of the most memorable coach-ref incidents in the history of the NHL.
It happened after Game Three of the Eastern Conference finals in 1988 between New Jersey and Boston, a 6-1 Bruins win.
Jersey coach Jim Schoenfeld didn’t like the way Koharski had called the game and confronted him afterward as they left the ice. According to various reports, Koharski caught his skate on the concrete corridor floor and stumbled, after which he accused Schoenfeld of shoving him.
A video of the incident (and how fitting that video would prove an apparent officiating error) seemed to back up Schoenfeld.
But while Koharski threatened Schoenfield that he would not coach another (game), Schoenfeld shot back one of the most memorable retorts in the annals of hockey: “You fell you fat pig. Have another doughnut.”
The NHL suspended Schoenfeld for at least one game without a hearing. New Jersey management got a court order to stay that and the regularly assigned officials refused to work Game Four, leaving that to a makeshift crew which included the manager of a New York skating rink.
New Jersey won what was considering a poorly officiated game, but Boston went on to win the series.
Schoenfeld eventually was suspended for Game 5, notably the reason given was “verbal abuse of an official” but not the alleged shove of Koharski.
Koharski, in his role as officiating guru on Saturday’s broadcast, was called upon to weigh in on a question of physical contact and Koharski was positive it would be ruled no goal due to a Colorado player contacting the Nashville goalie.
“I’d be shocked if they don’t (overturn the goal),” Koharski said.
Here’s the irony. This time Koharski was sure that a Nashville player had not shoved the Colorado player into the goalie, which would have negated any interference call.
But the league’s situation room saw it the other way, Later, a league statement read that contact by Nashville’s’ Mikael Granlund on Colorado’s Artturi Lehkonen had forced him into the goalie and therefore it was not goalie interference.
This time it was decided there had been a shove and Koharski had missed it, too.
Somewhere Schoenfeld must have been smiling, perhaps while eating a doughnut.
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