PDA

View Full Version : What was he thinking?



sleddy2008
01-13-2010, 03:10 AM
From Sportsnet.ca

Referee Stephane Auger might have been wise to use a little patience and a lot more subtlety.

Alex Burrows says referee Stephane Auger has it out for him.

Most hockey fans will simply take the player on is word, even if Burrows’ reputation as a frequent diver defines him as someone who likes to portray situations in a flawed light.

Auger wasn’t talking at all when reached by sportsnet.ca Tuesday morning, but the belief is that he made Burrows pay on Monday night for a Burrows forgery that fooled Auger into giving Jerred Smithson a charging major and game misconduct Dec. 8 in Nashville.

We know the league later rescinded that game misconduct. But did you know that it is usually the referee himself who takes the call back the next day, when presented with the video evidence?

So why would Auger hold a grudge, when he has owned up to the mistake already?

If only we knew what Auger was saying to Burrows before Monday’s game. Video shows them talking, but Burrows doesn’t react like a guy who is being told "he was going to get me back."

Nor can we see an NHL referee taking a player aside to announce to a player before the game that retribution was on its way. It simply doesn’t work that way, in our experience.

What most refs would have said is this: "That dive in Nashville doesn’t really portray you or the game is such a great light. Let’s not have any of those tonight, OK?"

Translation: "Don’t waste your time diving tonight. I won’t be falling for that again."

So what really happened in Vancouver Monday night?

"It’s all about integrity now," a veteran NHL official told sportsnet.ca on Tuesday, one of four officials who spoke without attribution Tuesday morning. "We’ll see what happens."

In the end, a little patience and a lot more subtlety might have saved Auger the long march down Colin Campbell’s carpet this week. But for some reason Auger felt the need to have a long chat with Burrows prior to the game — the first Canucks game Auger was assigned after being burnt by a Burrows in Nashville.

Then Auger called two, third-period minor penalties on Burrows, followed by a late unsportsmanlike and game misconduct. A lot of circumstantial evidence, to be sure.

The NHL is investigating. Auger could face a suspension.

"It was personal," Burrows said post-game, moments after Auger had him sitting in the penalty box for Nashville’s game-winning goal in a 3-2 Canucks loss. "It started in warm-up before the anthem. The ref came over to me and said I made him look bad in Nashville on the Smithson hit. He said he was going to get me back tonight and he did his job in the third."

Given the overwhelming evidence, another official doesn’t like Auger’s chances of surviving this without a serious reprimand and suspension.

"You don’t even have to be a ref to figure it out," he said. "Don’t leave the gun at the scene with your fingerprints all over it."

One official admits that, when a referee gets burned by a certain player, he is happy to hand out a penalty or two to the offender some time down the road. But not at the expense of the game.

"You file it away in the back of your cranium," he said. "But you wait until you get a game where the score is 5-1, and then you might call him for something. You say, ‘We’ll meet up again one day.’ But you don’t hurt the team."

Both of the minors in question were defendable calls for Auger to make. Especially against Burrows, who is noted for drawing penalties.

Said one ref: "Diving, finishing a hit long and hard (after the puck is gone), initiating a fight, then turtling. Coming late into scrums. With every element of the game, there are certain players who have a propensity to exhibit that element. We talk (pregame) about them all."

Usually, however, a referee won’t call that dive in the third period of a 2-2 game. But Burrows makes his bed as an instigator and diver, and sometimes he has to lie in it.

Director of officiating Terry Gregson turned down an interview Tuesday.

Auger didn’t work the playoffs last season. The missed call on Smithson — plus this latest episode — will hurt his chances again.

"Look, we’re all human," said a referee Tuesday. "Like players, we make a mistake. I’ve had game misconducts turned over (at the league level). You just have to admit that it didn’t happen the way you thought. Or you didn’t see it the way it happened."

If there is a debt to be paid, should you wait until a 5-1 game?

"That’s an unfair question," said former referee Mark Faucette, an NHL zebra from 1985-2003 who ref’ed nearly 1,000 games. "If I ever get myself in a position where I should be getting this guy back, I shouldn’t be doing the job. I always say, if I got paid for all the ones I missed, I’d be a richer man today.

"You can’t have a guilt complex (for missed calls in the past). It will multiply and magnify your problems, as it is doing right now for Mr. Auger."