Last Sunday the Worcester Railers and Maine Mariners faced off at the DCU Center, and the four on-ice officials were so bad it was comical. Yes, the ECHL is allegedly a developmental league for referees and linesmen too, but fans who watched the game saw was reaching the point of incompetence.
For the record, the officials were not the reason the Railers lost. They made more than enough mistakes of their own to put this one in the loss column. But, yes, they did get some help losing this game from the guys in stripes.
If you’re interested in the actual goings on of the game, you can check out what Bill Ballou wrote on the Railers official site or go see what Dylan “WooHockey” Schofield has to say. There are two other idiots with blogs out there who wrote stories without actually seeing the games, so if you want to read someone regurgitating the box score to make it look like they watched, you can search them out.
As some of you know, I rewatch every Railers game I attend to get a broader view of stuff I might have missed. A couple of folks joked I should keep track of all the missed calls, and as I drink my coffee on Christmas Eve morning with Sunday’s game playing on my TV, that’s what I did.
What you’ll see below is the period and clock time of anything I took note of. The referees are noted by R#, R31 is Nolan Bloyer and R43 is Emile Charron. Same for the linesmen, L88 is Patrick Philbin and L93 is Matthew Heinen.
Nothing listed is “borderline”. Everything noted is a clear cut missed or wrong call. There were many times either referee could have called two players for matching penalties and instead allowed them to play on, and I did not note these. If you think I got one wrong, or missed one, let me know. I’ll be glad to take another look at it.
1 15:51
L88 calls handpass
You can’t tell on the video if it’s a handpass, but it doesn’t matter because Maine had two consecutive touches of the puck in the defensive zone, so if there was a handpass, it was legal. If the linesman thought the Railers had handpassed for some reason, the next faceoff was then held in the wrong location, as it should have been in the neutral zone.
1 7:53
R31 calls Piercey for roughing
The video cuts away from the action, but from memory, there isn’t any way Piercey did anything compared to others to warrant any penalty. Now Kopperud on the other hand deserved at least a minor, as did Maine forward Matthew Philip. This probably should have been 4v4 as opposed to a Mariners power play, but at the very least they called a penalty on the wrong player. Maine scores one second after their man advantage ends.
1 5:52
Maine goal
Railers head coach Nick Tuzzolino wanted referee Nolan Bloyer (R31) to review the goal for goaltender interference. It’s hard to tell from the video if Chase Zieky prevents Michael Bullion from making the save. The issue is Bloyer wouldn’t talk to Repaci or Tuzzolino about it at all. That’s unacceptable for a referee to not even speak to the captain about it. That’s literally why the captain exists.
1 1:43
Railers goal/Kopperud roughing minor
R43 misses a spear from Brad Arvanitis against Kopperud just after the goal is scored. That’s a missed major penalty and game misconduct. Also missed is Arvanitis headbutting Kopperud, which is another major penalty and game misconduct not called. R43 also misses a roughing by Arvanitis just moments before the Rajaniemi goal. So after that goal and assuming a Kopperud roughing minor, by the rulebook Arvanitis should have gotten 5 minutes for spearing, 5 minutes for headbutting, and a double game misconduct, resulting in a 8-minute major power play to the Railers. If you want to call the spear a slash, go ahead, that would still be a Worcester major power play. Instead, it was just a Kopperud minor for roughing.
2 19:14
L93 (closest official) missed Maine hand pass. Technically, all four stripes missed this.
2 19:06
R31 misses Welsh crosscheck on Carter Johnson. They fight a few seconds later.
2 17:35
R31 misses Alex Sheehy interference on Dickinson. Dickinson would need to leave the ice as his helmet came off.
2 16:41
After rewatching the play Hatten’s six minutes in penalties, rouging and double roughing, is probably correct. If you wanted to call Hatten for fighting instead of the double minor, you’d not get an argument from me. Patrick Guay shouldn’t have gotten a penalty for anything. What caused the whole fracas was R43 missing multiple slash and slash attempts by both teams moments before in the Railers zone.
2 15:14
R31 calls Rons for a slash on Nick Jermain. Jermain steps on the puck and falls, which is when R31 calls the penalty. Essentially a phantom call that leads to two Maine goals and arguably a third.
2 9:22
Just in case any Maine fans are reading this and want to mention Kopperud taking down Arvanitis, it happens right here, and it’s a total dive. It’s almost comical how obvious it is.
3 14:37
L93 missed Maine offside
It’s not viewable from the FloHockey video but was clearly visible from the other side of the ice. Maine scores seconds later. The reaction by the Railers players before the goal is all you need to see. But if you did see video from the other side, it was offside by a significant margin.
3 12:09
Luce double misconduct
I’m not sure which referee called any of them, but the first for “Continuing Altercation” is a phantom call. Both he and Zachary Massicotte were doing nothing but jawing at each other, no reason for any penalty to be called there. And one needs to just scroll up to see why Luce had had enough of both referees and decided to let them have it.
3 10:22
R43 missed elbow by Sebastian Vidmar on Dickinson. It was accidental, but it’s still a penalty.
That’s a whole lot of missed calls. I’d ask the Railers about them, but they’re all smart enough not to say anything one way or the other. And I’d ask the ECHL about it, but like the AHL when I used to ask, they’d just ignore me.
Hopefully they won’t ignore how poor some of their officials are performing this season, because those four are hardly the exception.
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