The Whistler

I uploaded Finley's "elbowing" penalty to youtube. I don't think this is something that's been called in a regular season season game let alone in a tied national semi final game with four minutes left. Of course we very well may have lost to BC without this penalty, but it would have been easier to take if the players settled it, not the officials.

Maybe not a drubbing, but they did take the play to us, especially in the second period.

I honestly don't think the gophers would have won last night. Not without Jon Campion anyway.

I think BC has two national titles.

I voted with my heart, not my head.

That's an understatement. We couldn't get anything going during certain parts of the game. I think that more has to do with how well BC played us rather than us not playing well.

I'd like to know that too. I think that perhaps the D were down deep or maybe the guy was the other D's responsibility. (Lee was coming from the other side). Without seeing a better replay you can't make a fair judgment about what happened. It's likely that Lee rather than getting beat down the ice showed the most hustle trying to cover the play.

I'll be posting the Finley penalty on youtube, but probably not until tomorrow. Porter's penalty could easily have been an open ice checking from behind if not a charge. On the other hand didn't Duncan take a similar (if less violent) hit in the first period? Anyway I am not complaining about the Porter call, but from that point on Shegos was in my opinion in the way of the game. First he made a bad call on Finley and then he was calling make up calls in the last minutes of a National Semi Final game.

I suspect that Brian Lee will get blamed by a lot of folks, but he was coming from the other side. I'd like to see a wide angle shot to see what really happened. Without seeing the whole ice you can't make a judgment of the play.

I thought a bigger problem was that when we did win the faceoff we wouldn't be able to take the puck out of our zone. They really gave us a hard time breaking out and getting through the neutral zone. Then especially in the second period we'd maybe get one shot off if we got that far. They're a very good team, I don't like the way we lost, but they are a good team.

I fear the worst, but I don't think another year of college hockey would hurt his career one bit.

No argument from me.

Low expectations I see. I would agree that in general the officiating wasn't too bad. I thought Duncan took a late hit from behind (open ice) in the first. I thought Porter's one penalty going into the boards with the BC player side by side was a dive on the BC players part. And of course the quickest whistle ever in the last couple minutes of the third. Aside from that up to the last four minutes was fine.

I agree with you. Apparently I could have been more clear.

I don't know. ESPN has a business to run and if they think they'll get more viewers from Boston than North Dakota then that's their call. (That's not a slam dunk by the way as we're talking college hockey fans and we are pretty well represented.) The one thing I noticed is that for the BC fans they kept showing the same smallish section. There were a lot more ND fans in attendance. Good job guys.

It's called makeup officiating. The referee blows a call and makes the difference in the game. He then starts making up the calls. Why? Because he knew he blew it.

Did I say differently? A blown call is a disaster in any hockey game but with four minutes to go in the semi finals?

Finley had his elbows down and his body set for the check. That was not a penalty.

That was a terrible call. Now BC certainly carried the play and if we would have lost without the referee making such a bad call at that time I could accept that we lost to a better team.

Right because 7>5 is so much more comforting. Since you're being such a good sport I'm not too sad that we were the ones that knocked you the #1 overall seed out.

The game is on KCNN in GF if you're stuck at work. However I'm sure that if you're stuck at work you won't be reading this on the internet.

I can live with this.

Dave Hakstol has never blinked, never.

This is a good omen. Look for a rematch of the 87 game.

If paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, and scissors beats paper, what beats all 3 at the same time? Answer: The Fighting Sioux.