I wish I had a dollar for every nimrod in Wisconsin who wants to be handed a tie after the game has been decided.Rather than bore you with the entire stupid article we'll just cut and paste the lowlights and add our own comments.
by Tom Oates
Why do its [the WCHA] bylaws fail to cover crisis situations? Why can't its referees get calls right even with television replays? Why do its leaders vanish when people need answers the most? [LetsGoDU: Why do birds suddenly appear, every time, you are near... come on everybody sing]
A better question is this: How can anyone take college hockey seriously when its premier league is run like a mom-and-pop store in a Wal-Mart world? [LetsGoDU: Wisconsin might be Wal-Mart world, but don't trash the rest of us who live in the high rent district].
But that's not the only bush-league action by the WCHA recently. Two weeks ago, UW had to play a key series against Colorado College without three of its best players, who, like others in the league, were participating in the World Junior Championships. Predictably, UW couldn't buy a goal in the series, losing twice by a combined score of 5-1. [LetsGoDU: Ok, now this is funny. CC's best player Billy Sweatt was overseas but they managed to score ten goals. Excuse me for a minute. I need to take a shower. I just gave CC a backhanded compliment].
Can you imagine any other college sport scheduling league games when it knew its teams would be losing their best players to another competition? [LetsGoDU: College basketball seems to conflict with Mardi Gras every year and you don't hear LSU, Tulane or UNO complaining about their players being hungover for two weeks].
Meanwhile, UW has appealed to the WCHA to declare Friday's game a tie, which, at this late date, is a reasonable solution. A better solution would have been to play an overtime period the next day. [LetsGoDU: Here we go again. Lets have all the fans who paid money to see a college hockey game go home and then finish the game the next day. That will help college hockey attendance].
15 comments:
I had never realized before that so many of the badger faithful were former test-tube (cry) babies...
Wow. I'm on UW's side of this matter, but that article was bad.
Probably won't be too long before we hear about death threats against Randy Schmidt... this is getting ridiculous.
To start crying about games scheduled during the World Junior Championships is pretty weird. I'm sure Eaves probably kick started that crap as well.
I think this whole flap has been probably exacerbated by the fact that Wisconsin apparently feels as though the WCHA is an inferior organization to the Big 10. Obviously, such a high-end athletic program should not be relegated to participating in a 2nd-tier league. This is probably the beginning of a Wisconsin full-on offensive for the creation of the BTHC.
Some folks aren't smart enough to let sleeping dogs die... so i am a gonna join in.
I think the WCHA should take away a point that Wisconsin "earned" on Saturday and give it to DU to make up for all the roughing, charging, elbowing, cross-checking, boarding, and such Schmidt let them get away with all weekend!
Wisconsin thinks everyone should love them because they aren't Minnesota, in case you need a clue.
So much for DU fans providing a voice of reason in a conference full of radical nutjobs. Are MSU's ten fans the last sane people in the bunch?
The reaction of many DU supporters painting justifiably annoyed Badgers as whining crybabies is childish at best.
Bad calls are a part of sports. In fact there are entire websites devoted to blown calls.
http://www.askmen.com/sports/fitness
_top_ten_60/60_fitness_list.html
Its OK to complain about bad calls. Its perfectly acceptable to appeal the decision.
But to expect the WCHA to reverse the final score and/or ask for a tie and/or to replay overtime at some future date is just plain stupid.
Doesn't it seem a bit disingenuous to say "Yes, Wisconsin, you got hosed big time. And you deserved a chance to play for at least one point, even if you wound up not getting it. But we're not actually going to do anything about that. Just accept the pat on the back and don't do anything about it."
I can't think of many fan bases (least of all UW fan bases, I suppose) out there that would be fine with just that. Perhaps if the blown call had less extreme direct results, it would be understandable to take the "Que sera, sera" attitude... but doesn't UW need all the points they can get?
dggoddard... Wouldn't you think that the WCHA is essentially saying that Friday's game is a 3-3 victory for DU?
I know that by now, you can't do much about it (as playing an OT is probably the only reasonable solution, and that's now impractical), but if Oates has a single good point in there, its that the WCHA showed to be quite inept at handling this type of situation.
If we are going to take as much pride the WCHA as most WCHA fans do, shouldn't we expect it to be less impotent of a governing body? It doesn't bode well for governing bodies in a "struggling" sport (if you'd believe the national media) to care so little about the integrity of the game.
In short, yes, its pointless to demand a changed result by now, as the time to play OT has passed. But protesting a solution as baffling as "you got screwed, we know you got screwed, but you should just take it and be happy with that" can at the least help make the WCHA realize how poorly they managed the situation in hopes that this won't happen again.
Or to make sure it happens to Denver.
Anon 2:26,
I don't think anyone, DU fans included, question whether the Badgers were shafted or whether they have a right to be pissed. Even as a DU fan, a fan of the team who got the win, I feel lousy about it. The whole incident was handled very poorly.
What's the root of the problem? The replay system, Magness Arena, the referee? All signs point to Randy Schmidt. He needs to go--I think we all agree on that. That's the best way to resolve this--go to the source of the problem. Hopefully that will satisfy all parties in this mess.
But league administrators can't start redistributing points on games that have already been played, that are already in the books, that are already official. That's opening up a huge, dangerous can of worms. That's just not feasible.
First and most important thanks to the Wisconsin fans who have commented this week.
We published Icebadger's now famous picture "0.00:3" Saturday morning. We posted every relevant Wisconsin article about the blown call. LetsGoDU has called out the ref who blew the call.
But when you see situations like the Oregon-Oklahoma football game, "Colorado's 5th down" and countless other calls with video evidence that directly affected National Championships and know that nothing more than an apology was ever granted the "victims," its pretty easy to predict what was going to happen here.
dg...
I'm sure that there are precious few people out there who would disagree that the result is going to stay as it is.
I think the whole purpose of appealing and making a fuss is to draw attention to how poorly the whole situation was managed. Hopefully, it'll do that.
Anyone think that Randy Schmidt should open a bar in Denver, and offer Screwdrivers as a weekend drink special? Seems like he could do well that way. Better than when he's forced to ref Bantam games for the rest of his life.
:-) Priceless DG
I was there. What kind of team bitches about Friday, when they came out and trounced the Pios the next night. Sad Badger fans with penis envy of the Gophers and Sioux don't relize that this little episode may change the course of their entire season, giving them a NCAA bid they would have never got from their under-performing team. (Yes Turris is that good, but a trash talker and he's gonna get his lights punched out in the NHL when they can drop the gloves for real).
On another note, if Butler would pull his head out of his a** and flip the puck to the center ice, the whole controversy wouldn't even be on the radar. He kills this team every night and I hope he jumps.
Anyway, keep up the good work on the Blog
anon @ 1:20 PM CST:
You're an idiot.
That's all I have for now.
I think it's funny on how you all think because a NEWPAPER wrote something, it must be the thoughts of every Badger fan, coach, and player. Box scores are the only thing that isn't opinion of somebody in a newspaper.
Somebody has to appeal eventually to get Schmidt to be responsible for his actions of stupidity, might as well be a Big Ten school so it gets better results. Would have been nice of SCSU would have appeal just for the record, but it probably would have gotten thrown under the rug.
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