Charle-Edouard D'Astous of the Tampa Bay Lightning, centre, was helped off the ice by teammates Nick Paul, left, and Yanni Gourde, right, after his second period injury in Sunday's Game 1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens.Mike Carlson/Getty Images
By national consensus, Sunday’s Montreal Canadiens-Tampa Bay Lighting game was less ably officiated than a Jell-O wrestling match.
The moment that got most Canadians – with an e or an a – exercised was a second-period charging penalty against Montreal’s Josh Anderson.
Anderson came swinging around behind the Lightning goal at the same time that Tampa’s Charle-Edouard D’Astous was swinging in. The puck was bouncing around in there. Another Canadien, Jake Evans, was chasing D’Astous.
At the critical moment, Evans nudged D’Astous toward the oncoming Anderson. D’Astous was blown up like a Subaru in The Fast and the Furious.
It’s possible to explain this chain of events after watching the replay 10 times. In real time, all it looked like was man-fall-down-go-boom.
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Anderson was at first assessed a five-minute major for charging. After deliberations, the penalty was downgraded to a two-minute minor. Montreal had the lead when he went into the box. The game was tied when he got out.
The rule book’s no help here or, really, anywhere. Wittgenstein was less obscure. Per the NHL’s Rule 42.1 – “Charging shall mean the actions of a player who, as a result of distance travelled, shall violently check an opponent in any manner.”
As a result of distance? In any manner? So, what we’re saying here is that every instance of bodily contact during a hockey game could be charging. Squeeze too hard in the handshake line? Charging.
Rule or no, everyone who follows hockey agreed on the Anderson call – dreadful. Anderson had not targeted D’Astous. He hadn’t accelerated toward him. At the last instant, he seemed to be trying to get out of his way. But D’Astous was injured and Gary Bettman hates Canada so we all know what’s happening here.
Juraj Slafkovský of the Montréal Canadiens, left, celebrates his game-winning overtime goal in Sunday's Game 1 battle with the Tampa Bay Lightning. While Slafkovský had three power play goals, five of the game's seven goals were scored with the man advantage.Mike Carlson/Getty Images
This is sport’s most Catholic conspiracy theory, in the sense that it applies to every NHL game, even the ones that don’t involve a Canadian team. Whichever way the refs are blowing, that’s who they’re in the bag for. Oddly, it can change from one team to the other and back, sometimes from period to period.
This folk theory stems from a fundamental misunderstanding. We talk about this like the NHL has rules. It does not. It has vibes. That these vibes have been inscribed on paper does not automatically make them rigorous.
We get angry because the officials aren’t correctly enforcing these vibes-based instructions, which isn’t their job. They’re not paid to get it right. They’re there to get it wrong just enough to keep people interested.
Being right is less fun than it sounds. I say this as someone who’s constantly right. It can be hard on the people who love you, knowing that whatever comes out of your mouth is God’s own truth.
You know what else is always right? A cash register. Do you even look at one of those as it’s tallying up your groceries? Of course not.
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You know what would be exciting? A cash register that’s wrong two per cent of the time. It’s on you to spot it. If you miss it, you miss it, but if you catch it, you get to call for the manager, who, after some excruciatingly polite back and forth, charges you the incorrect amount anyway.
That’s how you turn a chore into sports. The checkout aisles would be thronged by wanting-to-be-irate customers. You wouldn’t be able to get in the door on a Saturday morning. That’s my copyrighted idea, so the Westons know who to call.
The Canadiens beat Tampa in overtime. Fun game. Good win. But if you’re talking about it now, it’s because of the officiating. If you didn’t watch Game 1 and are now planning on checking out Game 2, same reason.
You’re not from Montreal and you don’t have anything against the Lightning, so you wouldn’t otherwise get involved. But you want to see if it’s as bad as the internet says. Can the Canadiens – that Leafs’ poor relation to the east, so under-discussed these last hundred years – overcome hockey’s undisguised hatred of them?
The officiating in Sunday's Game 1 between the Canadiens and Lightning was heavily discussed and it will draw fans in for Tuesday's Game 2, as well, Cathal Kelly writes.Mike Carlson/Getty Images
If the NHL thought getting it right every time would goose their business, they would do that. They’d stiffen up the rules to close the yawning gaps left for interpretation. They’d get Anthropic on the phone and have them blast out ClaudeForHockey.
They’d put a few 3-D cameras up around the rink and every time a rule was broken a horn would go off. All NHL games would start to sound like a John Coltrane record. In the playoffs, it’d just be two-and-a-half hours of steady horn.
But no one wants that. The league doesn’t, the players don’t and you definitely do not. You want them to be wrong. Not all the time. That would be its own sort of boring. But just enough that it gives you the chance to get violently exercised about something that doesn’t matter in the least to your life.
You’re worried about WWIII? Worry about Josh Anderson’s tough night at his US$5.5-million job instead. The Strait of Hormuz will still be there tomorrow, but right now, Josh needs your support.
This isn’t a bug in sports. It’s the whole business model: mostly getting it right, but sometimes also spectacularly wrong. The magic is in the mix.
Some day, they will have robot refs and robot linesmen, the same way they will have robot umpires and robot judges. It’s too much of a meaningless cost savings for leagues to resist.
All of the calls will be perfect, and it will be a disaster. People won’t be able to articulate why they hate the new system so much, but will eventually realize that it is the perfection they find off-putting. Life isn’t perfect. Why should sports be? Then they’ll either bring the humans back, or program an acceptable range of randomized error into the robots.
For now, enjoy hockey officiating in its classic form – inexplicably poor and occasionally hilarious. Be glad it’s only moderately bad. If it was really, truly terrible, you’d feel the need to watch all the games, which would really cut into your complaining time.