I know I'll be one of the few in the minority to say this, but the penalty shot did not decide the outcome of this game. The fact that the Komets missed at least three open nets did.
To me the key play that decided it happened just before the penalty shot.
The Komets got a turnover behind the Mavs net, centered it to a guy right in the slot, with the defense to the goalie's right and another Komet and slightly behind the goalie's left, with no one within 15 feet of him. The Komet in the slot, instead of choosing the pass and easy one-timer, shot it instead. Glove save.
It should have been 3-1 Komets at that point, game over regardless of the penalty shot.
Right after that save, it looked to me like the Komet with the open net was looking at the teammate who shot it like "Why didn't you pass me the puck - I was wide open."
(I purposely left the names out)
Jeff
Sgriffith
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 12:01am
I would agree about the Komets did not put the Mavs away and allowed themselves to victimized by what happen at the end of the game they lost the game. Mavs goalie is hot, Komets can't capitalize on quality scoring chance and Mavs capitalizing on theirs. Some of the things haunting the Komets now are some of the same things that haunted them throughout the year never have really corrected those deficiency.
burgee60
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 12:35am
I guess if my son was president i would say what he told me to say. If thats the first time in 59 years that Bob Chase has seen something like that, i'm leaning towards the call being BS. Its the playoffs, let them play. The way the information is written from the CHL is sketchy...... I hope they all get indicted for racketerring and deported, even the refs who are involved, are the refs cousins of the president?
OldHockeyFart
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 6:33am
The Head of Officals gave away his BS statement when he said he had contacted "countless others" on the ruling. What question(s) did he ask them? Did he send each a video to review? If he contacted 12 the odds are pretty good he would have not gotten 12-0 vote on it being the right call.
He stated in his long NHL career he never made such a call. I can not believe in all those years and games that the net got dislodged in the last two minutes of a game. My guess is he had at least half dozen but he never called a pentalty shot!!
The rule reads "intentually" not accidentally or must be pushed, shoved, or dumped into the net. A player could trip on a stick or even catch a skate on the goal cage, resulting in him falling onto the net. Even a player loosing his balance does not make for intentually dislodging the net.
The head of the refs went out of his way to try to convince others the call was right. He should had been able to say, "Look at the video, you will see the player do this and push the net off the posts." If he needs to embellish his statement to convince others then he knows it was a bad call!
Hawk Fan
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 7:36am
I can remeber it happening once before at the coliseum. Against the Chicago Wolves. Goalie Wendell Young pushed the net off with his back inside the 2 minute mark and the Komets were awarded a penalty shot, which Lee "Harley" Davidson scored on. The Komets won that game in a shootout. I've seen the video from Friday night and do not believe Henley did it on purpose. And after watching the game Saturday night I believe the chl will do anything to keep the Komets from advancing any further in these playoffs.
Steve
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 10:59am
1. I feel we have to respect Bryan Lewis's experience.
2. I feel privileged to have witnessed such a rare event, especially considering point one and Mr. Lewis has never seen this before.
3. The key to understanding his statement is where he says, "The debate was somebody else did it other than 43,'' he said. "I’ve been through that. When you watch and see the positioning of the players and watch which leans in and which leans out and where is the stick of the defending player."
He still didn't directly address the question of if it was intentional or not. In fact he seems to side step it and that is the real key to penalty, was it intentional?
I also have to agree the Komets put themselves in the position where that one goal tied the game, and they're the ones who lost it in overtime.
Claws
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 11:59am
Here's the deal....
It was too important of a game for Blazic to determine if there was intent to push the net off or not. We have all seen intent before from Nick, Larry, and others....and it didn't look ANYTHING like when Henley tripped and fell into the net, forcing it off the moorings.
The correct call was made IF it was intentional, but I disagree 100% that the ref can call that intent. If te shoe was on the other foot I would have been happy we got a penalty shot, however, I still think I would stand that that net did not come off intentionally.
chuckitt
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 3:45pm
it really doesnt matter if the komets missed a hundred chances to put the mavs away, the fact is the penalty shot call did impact the outcome of the game. yeh we should have been ahead by five goals but we werent so the call did effect the outcome. i liked how mr lewis danced around the real question here. was it intentionally pushed off? no answeer from him. really makes me wonder. if it was such a correct call then why is mr lewis even making a comment on it and going to great lengths to explain something that he never gets around to actually explaining'. its very clear the league is anti fort wayne at the moment and as a believer that the ks should stay in the chl i strongly now suggest that the frankes now take the team elsewhere. if you havent already decided to go echl i hope you strongly reconsider and make the move. in all my 50+ years of hockey ive never seen a worse officaiting job done in the playoffs by both refs and linesmen alike, and never heard such a song and dance by a league exec. the chl is starting to act like a low level busch league and we should take our 7000 fans and highly respected hockey franchise out of this mickey mouse operation. i sure hope the boys fire up and knock the mavs out in their home arena and we just motor on and put a hurt on the entire league.
Alexander
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 4:35pm
Lewis went through the frames "countless" times? And asked the opinion of "countless" others? He must have had a busy day with what amounted to less 15 seconds of video. But hey, I get it, he's blindly supporting his guy. He just threw out a mouthful of empty words instead of directly saying that. In any case, Bryan, I give you countless thanks for taking the time from what I can only imagine is quite a busy day of doing whatever it is that you do.
OldHockeyFart
Sun, 04/15/2012 - 11:38pm
I spent well over an hour replaying frame by frame looking at various things and I invite Mr Lewis to argue any of the following points that took place between the 16-18 seconds of Blake's posted video.
The shot on goal.
1- Mav's player picks up puck and takes a wrist shot.
2- Stop at the frame showing his stick on the follow through of the shot and the net has not moved.
3- The following frame shows the puck after the save and the net still has not moved.
4- Look at the referee, his head is looking at the save and not turned toward the far side of the net.
This shot is only inportent as to establish there was no goal, the net had not been moved, and the referee was looking at the puck play.
The ref's position
1- The referee was in the correct position for the potential of the play of the puck.
2- From that position his view of what happened on the far side of the net is obscured by the netting.
3- Look at the frames as the shot is being taken the ref was not even looking at the far side of the net.
Komet player
1- The Komet Dman is a left handed shot so he carries the butt of his stitck in his right hand.
2- As the K's player attempt to get to the front of the net the Mav's player cuts him off at the side of the net.
3- The frames will show the K's player lift his stick so it does not get trapped on the side of the net.
4- Within a couple frames of his stick going up you will see his left leg nearly out from under him as it hit the pipe across the back of the net.
5- Because the Mav player bumped him and shut the opening he fell into the net.
6- At no time does the K's player show any movement that would indicate he was doing it on purpose.
Mav's player
1- He has K's Dman beside/behind him as the puck goes out front on the other side of the net.
2- As both go for the front of the net the Mav player rubs K's player into net.
3- Even before the shot the Mav player has both skates within the goalie protected area.
4- As the net comes around you can see in one frame that the Mav player was using his thigh to push the net further. This can be seen by looking at his left thigh pad is pushed way to the left as he used his leg to push it even more.
Summary, the Mav player, who took the shot started yapping and showing hand gestures wanting a pentaly shot. It is only then the ref makes it to the back of the net and then calls for the pentalty shot.
Overall sports have to understand fans have access to all the video in the world and can easily look at each frame. So trying to snow the fans only detracts from the people making the call, review officials, and league management.
The right call would have reversed the ruling and the final seconds would have been played before game 2, with the faceoff in the Komet zone.
Frodawg
Mon, 04/16/2012 - 10:47am
This is a very nice blog to read. Lot's of hockey talk ! The K fans should be used to a player pushing the net off. Larry Sterling is notorious for this move !
Jeff
Mon, 04/16/2012 - 5:30pm
I'm not convinced the officiating will be any better — and in all likelihood it could be worse — when/if we move to the ECHL.
How many of you remember the latter days of the original IHL? Rob Martell, Derek Martin, Don VanMassenhoven and others were the referees in that league. Martell and VanMassenhoven made it to the NHL and they weren't suited for the IHL.
Dennis LaRue was a good official, but you rarely saw him in Fort Wayne.
IMO, those days (the mid- to late 1990s, after the Turner Cup) featured some of the worst hockey — too many teams, too many former NHL hangers-on just showing up to collect a paycheck (including some on the Komets) and the poor quality of officiating on most occasions.
All I'm saying is be careful of what you wish for. You just might get it.
Bob
Mon, 04/16/2012 - 8:07pm
Jeff,
I would like to know just how many of us that participate in this blog (and on Justin's) were here watching games during the late 1980s up to the demise of the original IHL (when it was an AAA league).
While I generally enjoy hearing and reading most of the comments on this forum, I do remember several people that have quit coming to games when the Komets left the IHL for the UHL. Since the internet was still fairly new back then, we clearly did not have blogs to exchange our thoughts and comments like we have now.
Having said that, I think there are a lot of people that do not remember the "dark ages" of really bad teams, and some of those officials that I thought were extremely arrogant and incompetent. For me, one of the worst teams during that era was the 1996-1997 team......:(
Since you mentioned Derek Martin, did you ever hear the story about his car being found underwater on the IPFW campus after a game in which his "officiating skills" were found to be offensive to the crowd?
A friend of mine (now deceased) told me this story a long time ago....
Jeff
Mon, 04/16/2012 - 9:42pm
Whatever league the Komets are in next year, I will continue to come to games as my schedule allows.
If we're back in the CHL, I will look forward to building on the rivalry with Rapid City and others.
If it's the ECHL, I will look forward to renewing acquaintenances with Kalamazoo and Toledo.
OldHockeyFart
Mon, 04/16/2012 - 10:36pm
I have been going to Komet games since 1957 or 1958. We got upper arena seats for 75 cents with a 50 cent coupon from Kroger.
I can say there has been far more decent to good refs over below average to plain bad. There was a time that many of the referees where also NHL linesman. We have had some of the best NHL referees do games on their way to the show.
The biggest problem I ever noticed is college level referees doing IHL games. Not as linemen but referees. It seemed many second guessed themselves in the rules that where different between the two.
The funniest thing is how many players that don't know the rules. That even applied to one coach that got tossed from a game because he kept yelling at the referee because he didn't know the rule. Did I tell him after the game? No, I took the chicken way out and said I wasn't sure what the rule was. Two days later he told me that we where wrong! Not sure who set him strait, but it was not me even though I knew the rule.
I have talked to players, coaches and owners who wanted to protest games on things you just can't protest!
I guess I'm saying calling/knowing the game has many that are not up to level you would guess!
Comments
I know I'll be one of the few in the minority to say this, but the penalty shot did not decide the outcome of this game. The fact that the Komets missed at least three open nets did.
To me the key play that decided it happened just before the penalty shot.
The Komets got a turnover behind the Mavs net, centered it to a guy right in the slot, with the defense to the goalie's right and another Komet and slightly behind the goalie's left, with no one within 15 feet of him. The Komet in the slot, instead of choosing the pass and easy one-timer, shot it instead. Glove save.
It should have been 3-1 Komets at that point, game over regardless of the penalty shot.
Right after that save, it looked to me like the Komet with the open net was looking at the teammate who shot it like "Why didn't you pass me the puck - I was wide open."
(I purposely left the names out)
Jeff
I would agree about the Komets did not put the Mavs away and allowed themselves to victimized by what happen at the end of the game they lost the game. Mavs goalie is hot, Komets can't capitalize on quality scoring chance and Mavs capitalizing on theirs. Some of the things haunting the Komets now are some of the same things that haunted them throughout the year never have really corrected those deficiency.
I guess if my son was president i would say what he told me to say. If thats the first time in 59 years that Bob Chase has seen something like that, i'm leaning towards the call being BS. Its the playoffs, let them play. The way the information is written from the CHL is sketchy...... I hope they all get indicted for racketerring and deported, even the refs who are involved, are the refs cousins of the president?
The Head of Officals gave away his BS statement when he said he had contacted "countless others" on the ruling. What question(s) did he ask them? Did he send each a video to review? If he contacted 12 the odds are pretty good he would have not gotten 12-0 vote on it being the right call.
He stated in his long NHL career he never made such a call. I can not believe in all those years and games that the net got dislodged in the last two minutes of a game. My guess is he had at least half dozen but he never called a pentalty shot!!
The rule reads "intentually" not accidentally or must be pushed, shoved, or dumped into the net. A player could trip on a stick or even catch a skate on the goal cage, resulting in him falling onto the net. Even a player loosing his balance does not make for intentually dislodging the net.
The head of the refs went out of his way to try to convince others the call was right. He should had been able to say, "Look at the video, you will see the player do this and push the net off the posts." If he needs to embellish his statement to convince others then he knows it was a bad call!
I can remeber it happening once before at the coliseum. Against the Chicago Wolves. Goalie Wendell Young pushed the net off with his back inside the 2 minute mark and the Komets were awarded a penalty shot, which Lee "Harley" Davidson scored on. The Komets won that game in a shootout. I've seen the video from Friday night and do not believe Henley did it on purpose. And after watching the game Saturday night I believe the chl will do anything to keep the Komets from advancing any further in these playoffs.
1. I feel we have to respect Bryan Lewis's experience.
2. I feel privileged to have witnessed such a rare event, especially considering point one and Mr. Lewis has never seen this before.
3. The key to understanding his statement is where he says, "The debate was somebody else did it other than 43,'' he said. "I’ve been through that. When you watch and see the positioning of the players and watch which leans in and which leans out and where is the stick of the defending player."
He still didn't directly address the question of if it was intentional or not. In fact he seems to side step it and that is the real key to penalty, was it intentional?
I also have to agree the Komets put themselves in the position where that one goal tied the game, and they're the ones who lost it in overtime.
Here's the deal....
It was too important of a game for Blazic to determine if there was intent to push the net off or not. We have all seen intent before from Nick, Larry, and others....and it didn't look ANYTHING like when Henley tripped and fell into the net, forcing it off the moorings.
The correct call was made IF it was intentional, but I disagree 100% that the ref can call that intent. If te shoe was on the other foot I would have been happy we got a penalty shot, however, I still think I would stand that that net did not come off intentionally.
it really doesnt matter if the komets missed a hundred chances to put the mavs away, the fact is the penalty shot call did impact the outcome of the game. yeh we should have been ahead by five goals but we werent so the call did effect the outcome. i liked how mr lewis danced around the real question here. was it intentionally pushed off? no answeer from him. really makes me wonder. if it was such a correct call then why is mr lewis even making a comment on it and going to great lengths to explain something that he never gets around to actually explaining'. its very clear the league is anti fort wayne at the moment and as a believer that the ks should stay in the chl i strongly now suggest that the frankes now take the team elsewhere. if you havent already decided to go echl i hope you strongly reconsider and make the move. in all my 50+ years of hockey ive never seen a worse officaiting job done in the playoffs by both refs and linesmen alike, and never heard such a song and dance by a league exec. the chl is starting to act like a low level busch league and we should take our 7000 fans and highly respected hockey franchise out of this mickey mouse operation. i sure hope the boys fire up and knock the mavs out in their home arena and we just motor on and put a hurt on the entire league.
Lewis went through the frames "countless" times? And asked the opinion of "countless" others? He must have had a busy day with what amounted to less 15 seconds of video. But hey, I get it, he's blindly supporting his guy. He just threw out a mouthful of empty words instead of directly saying that. In any case, Bryan, I give you countless thanks for taking the time from what I can only imagine is quite a busy day of doing whatever it is that you do.
I spent well over an hour replaying frame by frame looking at various things and I invite Mr Lewis to argue any of the following points that took place between the 16-18 seconds of Blake's posted video.
The shot on goal.
1- Mav's player picks up puck and takes a wrist shot.
2- Stop at the frame showing his stick on the follow through of the shot and the net has not moved.
3- The following frame shows the puck after the save and the net still has not moved.
4- Look at the referee, his head is looking at the save and not turned toward the far side of the net.
This shot is only inportent as to establish there was no goal, the net had not been moved, and the referee was looking at the puck play.
The ref's position
1- The referee was in the correct position for the potential of the play of the puck.
2- From that position his view of what happened on the far side of the net is obscured by the netting.
3- Look at the frames as the shot is being taken the ref was not even looking at the far side of the net.
Komet player
1- The Komet Dman is a left handed shot so he carries the butt of his stitck in his right hand.
2- As the K's player attempt to get to the front of the net the Mav's player cuts him off at the side of the net.
3- The frames will show the K's player lift his stick so it does not get trapped on the side of the net.
4- Within a couple frames of his stick going up you will see his left leg nearly out from under him as it hit the pipe across the back of the net.
5- Because the Mav player bumped him and shut the opening he fell into the net.
6- At no time does the K's player show any movement that would indicate he was doing it on purpose.
Mav's player
1- He has K's Dman beside/behind him as the puck goes out front on the other side of the net.
2- As both go for the front of the net the Mav player rubs K's player into net.
3- Even before the shot the Mav player has both skates within the goalie protected area.
4- As the net comes around you can see in one frame that the Mav player was using his thigh to push the net further. This can be seen by looking at his left thigh pad is pushed way to the left as he used his leg to push it even more.
Summary, the Mav player, who took the shot started yapping and showing hand gestures wanting a pentaly shot. It is only then the ref makes it to the back of the net and then calls for the pentalty shot.
Overall sports have to understand fans have access to all the video in the world and can easily look at each frame. So trying to snow the fans only detracts from the people making the call, review officials, and league management.
The right call would have reversed the ruling and the final seconds would have been played before game 2, with the faceoff in the Komet zone.
This is a very nice blog to read. Lot's of hockey talk ! The K fans should be used to a player pushing the net off. Larry Sterling is notorious for this move !
I'm not convinced the officiating will be any better — and in all likelihood it could be worse — when/if we move to the ECHL.
How many of you remember the latter days of the original IHL? Rob Martell, Derek Martin, Don VanMassenhoven and others were the referees in that league. Martell and VanMassenhoven made it to the NHL and they weren't suited for the IHL.
Dennis LaRue was a good official, but you rarely saw him in Fort Wayne.
IMO, those days (the mid- to late 1990s, after the Turner Cup) featured some of the worst hockey — too many teams, too many former NHL hangers-on just showing up to collect a paycheck (including some on the Komets) and the poor quality of officiating on most occasions.
All I'm saying is be careful of what you wish for. You just might get it.
Jeff,
I would like to know just how many of us that participate in this blog (and on Justin's) were here watching games during the late 1980s up to the demise of the original IHL (when it was an AAA league).
While I generally enjoy hearing and reading most of the comments on this forum, I do remember several people that have quit coming to games when the Komets left the IHL for the UHL. Since the internet was still fairly new back then, we clearly did not have blogs to exchange our thoughts and comments like we have now.
Having said that, I think there are a lot of people that do not remember the "dark ages" of really bad teams, and some of those officials that I thought were extremely arrogant and incompetent. For me, one of the worst teams during that era was the 1996-1997 team......:(
Since you mentioned Derek Martin, did you ever hear the story about his car being found underwater on the IPFW campus after a game in which his "officiating skills" were found to be offensive to the crowd?
A friend of mine (now deceased) told me this story a long time ago....
Whatever league the Komets are in next year, I will continue to come to games as my schedule allows.
If we're back in the CHL, I will look forward to building on the rivalry with Rapid City and others.
If it's the ECHL, I will look forward to renewing acquaintenances with Kalamazoo and Toledo.
I have been going to Komet games since 1957 or 1958. We got upper arena seats for 75 cents with a 50 cent coupon from Kroger.
I can say there has been far more decent to good refs over below average to plain bad. There was a time that many of the referees where also NHL linesman. We have had some of the best NHL referees do games on their way to the show.
The biggest problem I ever noticed is college level referees doing IHL games. Not as linemen but referees. It seemed many second guessed themselves in the rules that where different between the two.
The funniest thing is how many players that don't know the rules. That even applied to one coach that got tossed from a game because he kept yelling at the referee because he didn't know the rule. Did I tell him after the game? No, I took the chicken way out and said I wasn't sure what the rule was. Two days later he told me that we where wrong! Not sure who set him strait, but it was not me even though I knew the rule.
I have talked to players, coaches and owners who wanted to protest games on things you just can't protest!
I guess I'm saying calling/knowing the game has many that are not up to level you would guess!