Hawks Hockey Hoiden

OK, surely Blackhawks fans can’t be the only ones who see that referee Dan O’Halloran has it in for the Hawks.  In tonight’s Blackhawks win over the Dallas Stars, 5-2, dreaded anti-Hawks referee Dan O’Halloran made two abominable calls on two of the Hawks’ most revered and even-tempered players: Jonathan Toews and Patrick Sharp.  About midway through the 2nd period, Jonathan Toews was called for slashing on Steve Ott.  As any ref should know, slashing involves a swinging or hacking motion of the stick on either the opponent’s stick or his body.  Toews did neither of these; he simply had an active stick in trying to harass the puck away from Ott.  Commentator Eddie Olczyk also indicated he too did not see slashing.  Nevertheless, the slashing penalty stuck.  Still, Tazer would have his revenge when, seconds after shooting out of the penalty box, he rocketed down the ice, paused, and hammered off a snapshot for a goal.  That’s what fans love about Jonathan Toews.  He doesn’t get mad; he gets even.  (more…)

Wow, what happened last night in the Blackhawks’ season opener against the Dallas Stars?  It would’ve been a shutout had Nick Leddy not crashed the net with sheer determination in the last few seconds of the game to score the Hawks’ lone goal.  The final score was 2-1 Dallas, but it could’ve been so much worse given how the Hawks played.  They did not appear to be well-conditioned at all.  They could not match the Stars on their stamina, and even Jonathan Toews was left far behind on one of Patrick Sharp’s mad dashes to the net.  And while Sharpy had a high-throttle game coming strong off of his emergency appendectomy, the rest of the team appeared tired and sluggish as early as the 2nd period.  (more…)

In last night’s Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, once again Canucks Alex Burrows provoked Bruins Milan Lucic.  Burrows feigned tripping over Lucic’s stick during a neutral zone face-off and Lucic about burst a blood vessel trying to point out Burrows’ embellishment to the zebras.  Yet inexplicably, Lucic was called for “tripping” instead of just Burrows being called for unsportsmanlike conduct (i.e. “diving”).  (more…)

It was good to see former Blackhawk James “The Wiz” Wisniewski, even if he was playing for the bad guys (the Ducks), though he was more of a blur.  The Ducks were really amped up and played a very fast game; so fast the Hawks were having trouble keeping up on the way back to their defensive zone! (more…)

How is it that the goal that Oilers’ Ethan Moreau scored at the beginning of the 2nd period in tonight’s Hawks/Oilers game was able to stand?  All that Pat Foley and Eddie Olczyk seemed concerned with was whether it was a good goal or not.  The bigger issue was that the “goal” was as a direct result of goaltender interference by Dustin Penner on Nikolai Khabibulin in the crease.  I even looked it up in the NHL rulebook which states that a goal is disallowed, “When an attacking player has interfered with a goalkeeper in his goal crease.”  So what did I miss?  Better yet, how did the War Room in Toronto miss that?

What was with that interference call on Cam Barker after he checked David Backes on the boards in the first period of the Hawks/Blues game tonight?  Barker got a five-minute major penalty for that interference call. The hockey pundits said that interference is usually a minor penalty, meaning only two minutes, but has anyone ever seen interference called as a major penalty, meaning five minutes?  Pat Foley and Eddie Olczyk were even baffled at the interference being a major penalty, though Olczyk acknowledged later that per the rule book a major penalty can be called for interference; that it’s at the discretion of the official.  Still, what about that hit merited a major penalty?  (Oddly enough, history repeated itself in the 3rd period when Dustin Byfuglien got called for interference for the same exact kind of hit.  Yet Byfuglien’s interference call was only a minor penalty.)  (more…)