SouthernWingsFan

I rarely grow facial hair (not because I can't, just can't stand goatee/beard itching) so you're excuse is more than valid. Just saved last night actually so I'm violating the look/appearance rules of playoff hockey, hehe. Congrats on your new child!

Hit looked worse than what it turned out to be. Bottom line is, KEEP YOUR HEAD UP! And I at his interview as well!

I don't think VS cameras caught Abdelkader's slashing penalty, so I'm assuming it was committed away from the main game flow. Hopefully coaching stuff focuses more on his goal contribution/hitting vs. the penalty he took and not use that as an excuse to put him out. He's obviously not going to score ridiculous goals like he did last night all the time, but hopefully last night shuts the door on any uncertainty of him playing over Williams at least for the immediate future.

I love watching this game and it'll take a lot to change that, but this is just another example of how a lot of rules need to be switched and how painfully loosely defined they are. What's bad about this is that, at least I sound like a bitter fan or whatever focusing so much on this missed high-stick call and not giving Phoenix credit for the win. They deserved the win, they eventually took the play to Detroit and took care of a business. Blowing an obvious call though there late in the game played a significant result in the game, which is so frustrating that officials had to play a bigger hand in determining the outcome of a game than necessary.

Worst comes to worst, try atdhe.net or channelsurfing.net. I don't have NHL Center Ice and have usually found those fairly reliable, although atdhe.net starts late sometimes.

Goal Scorer. I'm a defense wins championships kinda guy. Baldy or Chrome Dome

Nah. Last bones I broke were nearly 6 years ago thankfully. The person below me thniks this is funny. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYIvN1f7ex8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYIvN1f7ex8

Personally, I thought the officiating was pretty good up until the no-call high stick incident. I don't mind it being called tight if calls are made for both teams. I can live with missed calls more often than not. I've been a sports official of different sports, albeit a much lesser level of competition, so I know it is a pretty damned hard job in the heat of the moment. So I can usually live with stuff like a missed accidental high stick if you're say 40 feet away with your back turned to that specific incident. You can't have eyes in the back of your head. Some human error is inevitable here. What irritates the bejesus out of me though is that the officials CONSULTED with each other on a dead whitsle immediately after the high-stick happened for a few good moments, were not far away when it happened, and THEY STILL GOT IT WRONG. I absolutely cannot stand when fans in here go nuts with conspiracy theories against Detroit or that Bettman and his chronies are up to no good again, because that clearly isn't the case. But I also cannot stand when officials do not do the right thing or play more of a role than is necessary in deciding the outcome of a game. When there was no penalty called there on an obvious infraction, the hair on the back of my neck nearly stood up. Now, would that call have changed the outcome of the game? Maybe not. But if it's called, the Wings go on a 4-on-3 and then 5-on-3 PP. Seems like those odds increase a bit to tie the game then. I'll give full credit to Phoenix for winning this game. As it went on they took the play to the Wings and deserved the win. But the referees playing much more of a role than necessary in the game as well. Your job as a referee is to be as fair as you can, and not get noticed. Well, the refs got noticed in a bad, bad way late in the game there blowing an obvious call.

More often than not, I can live with bad calls or missed calls as they are usually inevitable. Accidental high stick when you don't have eyes in the back of your head, I can live with accidentally missing stuff that's pretty hard to see. Human error is inevitable in stuff like this, I get that, understand, and try more often than not to give them the benefit of the doubt. When they are right there though with something that should be an obvious call, have a discussion for a decent amount of time between dead whistles though, and still don't get it right, that irritates the hell out of me. They did a great job the whole game both ways until that point, and it's unfortunate that it was a big, big error.

^ This. This x 1000. There's no side agendas and it is so fricken irritating to see fans think there is some sort of conspiracy theories going on. Phoenix definitely deserved to win that game last night, but I was absolutely shocked nothing was called there late last night. And it's not like they missed it, we've definitely seen accidental high sticks been missed before by the refs eyes. I wouldn't have so much beef with that, but they CONSULTED whether he was high sticked or not. They saw it from a matter of feet away. And they do NOTHING. Now, would the outcome of the game been different? Perhaps not. But the Wings go on a 4-on-3 PP there late, and either 5-on-4 or 5-on-3 after. Odds are significantly improved for them to possibly tie the game up late. The referees were extremely good up until that point. It irritates the hell out of me when referees play a bigger hand than necessary in determining the outcome of a game with obvious blown calls like that.

Nap? Pffffft! There's too much going on in life for napping!

I sit on my couch. I watch the game. Yeah... I got nothin'.

Nah, I don't work in the entertainment industry. And the public should probably thankful I don't because under clothes it's not all that pretty! The person below me thinks it would've been cool if George Washington just had to whip out a quarter to show ID for himself.

Dial up, better than nothing. Car or Truck

Not surprising. They've been "closely" watching goalie interference or whatever you want to call it the past few seasons. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is such the ridiculous gray area there is regarding rules or penalty time when goalie interference or bulls**t phantom interference is called, on anybody or any team. It absolutely drives me up the wall. Even when it benefited the Wings, for example, when they beat Chicago in that 5-goal 2nd period outburst, Byfuglen (spelling?) got called for phantom interference that would've put the Hawks up 3-0, making it damned hard to come back. I'm glad it gave the Wings momentum being a Wings fan obviously, but the call was absolute crap still. It's impossible for referees not to look like idiots whenever this comes up because the rules is beyond ridiculous in terms of how loosely it is defined. Either you completely interfered with the goalie (regardless of whether the puck went in the net or not) resulting in a minor penalty, or you did not. None of this halfway s**t where a goal is waived off and there's no penalty, but you still "interfered". Fix the damned rule to not be so loosely defined.

Nope. Just a live pet hamster. The person below me thinks this is funny, and hopes stuff like this is what happens to the Phoenix Coyotes this next week or two (figuratively speaking of course).

Creamer! Cough or Sneeze

Every team is going to have their fair share of idiotic fans. There's a few in here. Shouldn't sound so shocked.

Dan O'Hallaran

Only people that are really going to give a hoot about it are maybe 153 die hard Red Wing fans in North America. It's not going to matter much in the grand scheme of things. I'd look at it, as pointed out earlier by another poster, as a sign of respect. Using something the Red Wings fans usually do as an example of a cool fan tradition, instead of approaching like "The big mean Coyote fans are stupid and copying us". If it catches on in the future regardless if they play the Wings are not, more power to them. If it doesn't, then hopefully they'll think of something else. EDIT: This is something though that Coyote fans are not used to since the franchise relocated from Winnipeg. They haven't experienced postseason play all that much, and the few times they have it's been a quick exit. As tempting as it is to mock them and say they are stupid for mimicing a Red Wings tradition or whatever, this is almost brand new stuff to a lot of these people, espeically the ones that have just caught onto the Coyotes this year as a result of them probably putting their best product on the ice since they relocated. Give them some slack (not you specifically, but people/Wings fans in general).

This. I want Williams to do well and I get why he's still playing/his roles, but he just hasn't been producing lately. Hopefully he will be put on a short leash.

Lower the paranoid level, please. The Red Wings have certainly gotten jobbed at times, but they've also benefited this year, especially later in the season. The problem is not so much with officiating, but the rules of bogus calls like phantom interference or intent to blow the whistle on a goal. It is impossible not to be an idiot when something like that arises because the rules have so much gray area in them, it isn't black and white, no matter how good or bad of a ref you are. The officiating can be questionable at times of course but these conspiracy theories are just downright absurd sometimes that come up on here.