We’ve seen just about everything so far in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and we’re still just in the middle of the opening round of what truly is the most exciting annual tournament in professional sports.
The nastiness has increased with each passing game, with not only players getting into it on the ice but multiple coaches squaring off in back and forth wars of words. Simply put, it’s been tremendous entertainment for the fans.
However, there have also been multiple players (and coaches) who have voiced their beef with the quality of officiating, which has been at absolute best, very inconsistent so far in the postseason. The way that penalties are (and aren’t) called, goals being allowed in controversial fashion on one night but being disallowed on the next, and so on.
But there’s one particular hockey insider who is getting tired of seeing players and coaches immediately fall back on blaming the on-ice officials for the outcome of a game. According to Eric Duhatschek of The Athletic, these teams need to simply go back to focusing on coming back with a better effort in their next outing.
“In practically every game, somebody is getting cheated by the officials and somebody — player or coach — is complaining afterward about how unjustly they’re being treated.
Whatever happened to the old idea that when you lost a game in the playoffs, you needed to look in the mirror and try to be better next time out? That’s an old-timey sports euphemism for the act of taking personal responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions. But it doesn’t happen nearly enough anymore.
Nowadays, you mostly get coaches and players trying to deflect the responsibility elsewhere. The underlying message is the fault isn’t internal. It’s external. It’s the missed calls and illegal actions by the other team that are ultimately preventing our squad from being at its best.”
Are you with Duatschek on this one?