Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve likely heard several thousand takes on the Tim Peel hot mic saga at this point. Reactions have run the gamut from outrage to indifference, culminating in the NHL relieving Peel of his duties effective immediately.
After the now infamous “It wasn’t much, but I wanted to get a [expletive] penalty against Nashville early” quote got released, debates around the role of officials in the game of hockey were rampant. Some argue that “managing the game” has always been a part of hockey and is as ingrained in the sport as skates and pucks. Others claim that referees should be calling every play by the book, regardless of what’s going on around them.
Wherever you fall on that debate misses the point entirely. Lost in the NHL’s high horse, holier than thou condemnation of Tim Peel is the fact that the league has an officiating problem that runs deeper than just one man in stripes. Peel may be the scapegoat, but it doesn’t change the fact that the league has an opportunity to address fundamental issues with the game that fans, players, and pundits alike have been complaining about for years. An opportunity the league, in all its archaic wisdom, seems unwilling to seize.
Hockey Operations VP Colin Campbell recently stated “nothing is more important than ensuring the integrity of our game” as part of his damage control media tour. Ok, so what will the league be doing about the larger issue of uneven enforcement of the rules moving forward? *Crickets*
Banning Tim Peel from officiating future NHL games is the equivalent of slapping a band aid on a festering sore and deeming the wound healed. Peel was scheduled to retire at the end of this season anyways, so you’re effectively just sending him off into the sunset 15 games or so early. You’ve yet to address the root cause of the outrage, which is the quality of officiating the league has seen in recent years. Peel is just a symptom, not the source of the problem. He happened to be wearing the mic that night, but it just as easily could have been any number of other referees getting caught.
Fans aren’t dumb, we know there will always be a human element to the game where mistakes are made or calls are missed. Just like how in baseball certain umpires have tighter strike zones than others, some hockey refs view what constitutes roughing differently than others. Unlike baseball however, where you actually could get a computer to determine balls and strikes, you can’t defer the intricacies of interference, slashing, clearing the front of the net, and the other dozens of everyday hockey plays that are borderline penalties at all times to a string of 1’s and 0’s. If you tried, you’d have half the team in the penalty box on any given play. You need a human element to determine what actually affects the play, and what puts players in dangerous positions.
That’s not what people are upset about. Anyone who’s ever played sports knows full well that a game isn’t called the same way in a blowout as it is in a tight game. Nor should it be. If a team is up by 20-30 points in football or basketball, let’s keep the clock moving, keep everyone safe, and get everyone home. But when it’s a 2-0 final, in a shortened season, where points are arguably at a premium each game more so than in an 82 game year, your officials have to eliminate that kind of “management” from the on ice product. What would have happened if Detroit scored on that powerplay, won the game, and Nashville missed the playoffs by a point?
There’s a time and place for that kind of ticky tack stuff, as previously mentioned, usually reserved for lopsided affairs. But when officials think they need to inject themselves into the game, or make a show about who’s in charge out there is where fans and players alike get frustrated.
Should Tim Peel have been let go? Absolutely. If I got caught on a hot mic saying “It wasn’t much, but I wanted to get a [expletive] coffee this morning so I took some cash from the register” I’d expect to be canned as well. But if the league thinks that they’ve solved the problem by removing “one bad apple” then they’re delusional.
It’s no secret that of the big 4 sports leagues, the NHL lags well behind the other 3 in terms of cash flows and revenues. Which is why when fans return, they’re going to be leaning heavily towards aligning themselves with gambling sites, and sports books. Millions of dollars are at stake here, and the league will be more than happy to see a new windfall of cash, especially given the lost revenues the past year. It’s the same reason that we’re likely to see the vague “lower body/upper body” injury designations being ruled out in the near future as well. When Vegas demands knowledge about the likelihood of a player taking the ice, the league will make sure it gets it to them.
Which is why the entire Peel situation just reeks of empty promises and posturing. “Gotta look like we know what we’re doing for these potential sponsors, and DFS sites”. The league doesn’t want to admit that it has a problem on its hands, and would rather chalk it up to the actions of a lone wolf than something more systemic in nature. The NHL is run by old white guys, who hire their old white guy buddies, who in turn promote their former player teammates (also older white guys) and that’s who winds up making the decisions at the highest ranks of the sport (I feel like a broken record at this point constantly harping on this “old boys club” but virtually every issue with the sport can usually get traced back to this dynamic in some capacity).
Why the league wouldn’t seize this opportunity to inject some much needed attention, and training into its officiating system is beyond me. They’ve already done it once, where they emphasized calling interference and holding penalties to create a faster pace of play and emphasis on speed (as opposed to the clutch/grab era of the 90s, thanks New Jersey…). Why can’t they emphasize this kind of “re-training” in the offseason with their officials?
A perfect night for a referee is one where you don’t notice them out there. Whether it’s basketball, football, hockey, or baseball, if you’re noticing the officials, odds are there’s a testy atmosphere in the air. Referees who feel the need to take a starring role in the game, regardless of sport, shouldn’t be officials in the first place. Weeding these types of individuals out, and re-emphasizing how you want the game to be called moving forward is paramount to the viewer and player experience. Tim Peel might be the face of this controversy, but he’s far from only one causing it. Let’s just hope the league chooses to be proactive in its response as opposed to doing the bare minimum in order for the headlines to go away. Sadly, I think we know which direction this is headed in.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @dynessports