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The commissioner's new clothes Add 'Phantom Goal' to growing list of NHL fiascoes
Posted: Monday April 17, 2000 11:40 PM
In a conversation with National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman after the latest No-Goal debacle, he noted that "things happen and people just have to live with it. The game must go on." It's a valid point, but the bigger question is: Where is the game going? Despite Bettman's claims to the contrary, this hasn't been a very good year for the NHL. We've seen coaches roughing up broadcasters and players assaulting each other with reckless abandon. We've seen one player break his neck, another suffer a crushed larynx and a third suffer what may well be a career-ending eye injury. Bettman is quick to note that ratings are up marginally on ESPN, but doesn't acknowledge that those ratings are barely worth noticing. Nor does he brag on the ratings in ABC's inaugural broadcast season, which have produced record lows despite heavy promotion on Monday Night Football, the Super Bowl and most every sporting event in its prime-time lineup. Hockey in Canada, still the No. 1 contributor of talent to the NHL, is in economic chaos. The Ottawa Senators had to have an emergency season-ticket drive just to stay in town. The Calgary Flames appear poised to do the same thing -- though they'll likely fail and ultimately end up south of the border. With problems like this, it's little wonder that Bettman has chosen to make light of the Game 2 debacle in which his game supervisor awarded a goal to the Philadelphia Flyers even though the puck never crossed the goal line. Bettman's argument is that the league produces some 6,000 goals per season and if from time to time one of them is credited by mistake, then so be it. I suppose we're all fortunate Bettman is in charge of the NHL instead of, say, the Three Mile Island nuclear facility. One might even argue that he has a point, but the truth is that the NHL has gotten it wrong in the playoffs three straight times. That's not a fluke, that's a trend. In the 1997-98 playoffs, referee Kerry Fraser refused to go to video replay to review a controversial score by Peter Bondra. Replays showed the goal to be illegal, yet it was allowed to stand. A season later, Brett Hull put his toe in the crease before scoring the Stanley Cup-winning goal against Buffalo. Again, no call. Bettman claims the "absolute correct call" resulted in the Cup being correctly awarded to the Stars. Most everyone in hockey thinks just the opposite.
This season there was an even worse gaffe when John LeClair's bullet through the side of the net turned the outcome of a game and maybe a postseason. The puck crossed the goal line, but on the way out. It wasn't even close on the way in. That the Buffalo Sabres were the recipients of all three of these mistakes is really nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence, but the bigger issue, in fact the bigger problem, is that they happened at all. Bettman staked his most recent argument on the fact that the conclusive replay didn't arrive in time for the replay official to see it. He noted nearly six minutes passed before the shot from behind the net surfaced. By that time, the puck had dropped again. And once that happens, a goal can't be taken back. It's an illogical argument, the kind you might make when you decide to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yet Bettman argues that the NHL must do exactly that. Why? The NHL is already viewed in most circles as a backward league that just can't seen to do even the simplest things right. In this instance, replay officials failed to do their job. They failed to execute the first rule of hockey, the one by which the NHL must live by: For a goal to count, the puck must cross the goal line. This was flat out human error, not a debatable play to the naked eye like a football lateral that may or may not have gone backward or a home run ball that may or may not have curved around the foul pole. Replay officials never saw the puck cross the goal line because it never happened. Being charged with determining that and that alone, they were obligated not to certify the goal as good until they saw that the puck had indeed done exactly that. For the league not to recognize that, for it to just assume that such a thing actually happened is gross dereliction of duty. What the NHL should have done is recognize that, correct it and move on. That it didn't means the league will forever be looked upon as an institution that not only can't get its calls right, but also one that doesn't seem to care. Unfortunately for hockey, that's the way the NHL is viewed in most matters. That's why it has one of its players preparing to stand trial for actions committed on the ice. That's why great players are being forced out of the game with concussions because the league has no specific equipment mandates. That's why a star player is sitting at home wondering if he'll ever regain sight in his eye and wondering why the rules don't mandate players wearing eye protection. That's why goaltenders are mugged in the crease to the point where they've gone so far as to attack referees. Critics of the game see this and turn away. Fans simply wonder why and what next. Under Gary Bettman's administration it would appear this is business as usual. His NHL is broke, not just financially, but esthetically and morally. And the commissioner doesn't even know it. Jim Kelley covers the NHL -- and the Sabres -- for the Buffalo News. His notebook and Rumor Mill appear weekly on CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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