ESPN.com - nhl/playoffs2003 - Once again, playoffs following different rules

Thursday, May 8
Updated: May 8, 1:32 PM ET

Once again, playoffs following different rules

By Adam Proteau
The Hockey News

There is a sad and disturbing ritual this time of year in many cold-weather cities: Each spring, when the snow melts and the swollen creeks and rivers are at their most dangerous, some dude and his dog are out walking when Fido decides to jump into the water. The pet's owner, frightened at the prospect of losing his companion, dives into the swirling torrent to save him -- and nine times out of 10, it's Fido who doggie-paddles his hairy behind back to safety while the "heroic" owner doesn't. That it happens with such regularity is both maddening and fascinating; on the one hand, it's tragic that lives are lost, but you wonder, why do people keep doing it when the same thing happens almost without fail?

The NHL has its own sad and disturbing springtime ceremony: the burning of the rulebook otherwise known as the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Go through enough back issues of The Hockey News and you'll know what we're getting at. For decades now, the NHL has proclaimed its disgust for obstruction, trumpeting at every turn its insistence that this time, this time, the league is serious about removing the clutching and grabbing that hamstrings a sport that should reward skill rather than skill's impediment.

This season, the league was as vociferous as ever. Chief disciplinarian Colin Campbell and commissioner Gary Bettman promised the landscape would change, and, for a while, it did. A superstar no longer had to make dinner reservations for three to accommodate the fourth-liner protruding from his posterior. The ice surface seemed bigger, the plays prettier, the game sexier.

But the players just rolled their eyes and pointed at the calendar. "See the All-Star Game?" they said. "Things will be back to normal by then."

Damned if they weren't. Damned if sticks didn't have three gloves on them instead of two. Damned if the term "water-skiing" didn't return to the league's lexicon.

When questions began mounting about the slide in vigilance, the league's answers were as quick as they were predictable: it's a process, the process takes time, judge us later in the season, yadda-yadda, blah-de-blah-blah.

Well, it's May, and the verdict is in: Obstruction is back from its vacation, and its legacy is as ugly as it ever was.

To wit: Did you see Game 4 of the Senators-Flyers series? Did you need smelling salts to make it through? For those who missed it (lucky you), Game 4, officiated by Kerry Fraser and Brad Watson, had one power-play opportunity for Ottawa and one for Philadelphia. Two power plays in a game that had more hooking than a convention of travelling salesmen. Two blips on what the officials would have you believe was a crystal-clear radar screen. Too ridiculous, especially when you consider how physical the series had become.

And again, nary an eyebrow was raised among people in the know.

"Once you've seen the playoffs for a long time, you know it's going to change," Daniel Alfredsson said after Game 4.

"You saw it, write it," coach Jacques Martin told reporters the same night.

The message, as illustrated by players' words and games' results, is unmistakeable: there are two sets of NHL rules -- one for the bulk of the regular season and one for the games that matter. And the sheer lack of logic behind it is breathtaking.

Take football. Pass interference in the regular season is pass interference in the playoffs -- and if physical contact managed to sue its way into the Pro Bowl, it'd be pass interference there, too. In baseball, the strike zone doesn't shrivel or elongate because the stakes are higher. The rules are the rules and unless you're Dirty Harry or hold public office, they're to be adhered to.

Those opposed to a full-blown obstruction crackdown argue that players, not officials, should decide the outcome of the game. Guess what, folks: officials are in the business of deciding games. They either decide it by calling the rules as written, or they decide it by choosing to ignore them. In either instance, the entire point of playing the game is to have one team prevail, and referees are mere tools (insert snide aside here) of the process. And if letting players decide how the game is such an integral part of the package, why the heck is the instigator rule still around?

Now, we're not demanding that the men in stripes morph into robots. Interpretation will always play a part in officiating, and calls will always be missed. It's the nature of the beast.

But to suggest officiating is more art than science, more subjectivity than objectivity, is an insult to the profession. These guys hear it almost every night from almost every player and coach in the league and they're doing their damndest to keep their emotions in check. They're not successful every night, but you wouldn't be either after dealing with the likes of noted sentimentalists Pat Burns, Mike Keenan and Pat Quinn on a regular basis.

No, the real problem here is that the league has hung its officials out to dry. With no clear rule philosophy to stand behind and no resolve to follow through on new officiating initiatives, the NHL effectively serves up its zebras to the wolves.

Or, put differently, the league is Fido, and the officials Fido's owner. One keeps jumping into the river; the other follows and pays dearly for it.

E-mail Adam Proteau at aproteau@thehockeynews.com.

Material from The Hockey News.
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