See, now, doesn't that statement count as "showing up or embarrassing the officials"? You know, because anything short of "The officials have a tough job and they're doing the best they can" is pretty much an insult. And in turn, sort of like last year, wouldn't that be cause for the officials to exact their own form of phantom call poetic justice?
I agree. The "officials have a tough job and they're doing the best they can" logic is bulls***.
Anyone who think they were just doing the best job they could while for years ignoring hooking, holding, and interference (i.e. obstruction), before the lockout, then suddenly deciding to call it.. well, they need a few brain cells rerouted to this galaxy.
Diving today is exactly
like hooking, holding, and interference, before the lockout. The refs and the ref system have collectively decided NOT to call dives over the last few years, with the (now) two exceptions in the last week, despite how absolutelyf****** obvious they are in almost every game seen. These refs are not idiots and just suddenly lost their dive-calling mojo they used to have. They have purposely decided not to call it. Ask yourself why and what purpose, if you can actually logically deduce the fact that on this issue the refs are not "doing their best", and therefore not be swayed at all by the "tough job" nonsense.
Refs to me are just like border patrol guards. They have the rule of law to follow, but there is no law about being a nitpicky *******. For this very reason Tomas Holmstrom gets picked on by referees around the goal crease (some of them are interference penalties, most of them are not), and similarly refs eyeing Chara is why he had been acting like a good boy in the face of bad PR from a very vocal (yetf****** crazy) Montreal community during the Boston-Montreal series.
This ref system is, like a border guard, dictated by moods, and whatever the mood (i.e. penalty enforcement) du jour the ref system is in, decides what penalties they call. If you can stand this, by all means then make s*** up about how tough the refs have it. If not, then time to start bitching up a storm because while ambiguity is tolerable, giving the sport which this league represents a bad name is not.