Re: Saturday 1/29/11 - a new Leis on my BMW? Oh Claire, there's a Knight at the door
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa what game did ya watch, the birds scored all their goals on the PP.........
Alright, I'll respond to this now that I've had a chance to sleep on it. First of all, what does Plattsburgh only scoring on the PP have to do with the refs possibly handing over the game to Oz? I can see how it could be if each one of those calls had not been a legitimate and dumb penalty. Despite the win, I'm sure a few of those boys in green and gold will be getting quite an earful at their next practice, if they haven't already. The Cards played an effective powerplay, and took advantage of the opportunities the Lakers were giving them. Are you going to tell me that if the final had been 3-2 you would have complained that the refs played too much of a role in the result? No, of course you wouldn't, because the Cardinals would have beaten you in a legitimate part of the game.
However, having had time to sleep on it, I would like to take this opportunity to amend my previous comment. The refs did not "absolutely hand the game" to Oswego, but a couple blown calls did significantly contribute to the result. I'm talking about 2 specific calls here.
First, there was Whitelaw's goal in the 3rd. How in the world can a referee call that a goal when he was not in a good position to see it, the goal light never came on, AND the goal judge was sitting there shaking his head and saying "no" the whole time? This "goal" gave the Lakers some momentum going forward. Who knows if Craig would have taken the penalty or Moodie would have scored at that point if this goal hadn't influenced the momentum of the game. If those things still did happen, fine. It's a tie game at that point, not a laker lead.
Second, Docking's 5 for CTH. Even the oswego fans here have been saying that should have been a 2. I'm not going to argue it wasn't a penalty, it was. But to guarantee that a team that is trailing in part because they blew a call on the goal will play the remaineder of the game with only 5 on the ice, instead of 6, is atrocious. I don't even care if the too-many-men was a makeup call. You can't tell me that the fact that Platty had a guy in the box for the remainder of the game no matter what was a significant confidence boot to the Lakers, especially the defense and Beckwith.
All that said, the Cardinals had plenty of opportunity to tie it up, right the wrongs that had been done to them. And they certainly tried 100% all game long. But in the end, they fell just short. It wouldn't be fair to the Lakers topeg this ALL on the refs. They executed their game plan and kept the puck out of the net 5x5. (Well, not really. Emery's in the Press Republican saying that the tape shows the Clarke no-goal as being a legitimate goal... but I won't get into that) It's sad that, the way these polls work, Plattsburgh will drop like a rock this week and Oswego might gain some ground by beating the then-#7, when these two teams were so obviously not that far apart. I look forward to a rematch or 2 in March.