Friday, November 23, 2007

It's a divin' good time!

I know, long time no post. What can I say, the semester is winding down, which means papers and assignments and presentations and exams. Lovely.

But that doesn't mean that hockey stops! In fact, I've been keeping an eye on things this last week. Here's what has happened so far:

- Capitals fire coach Hanlon and they hope to climb out of the basement of the League. Maybe it'll happen, maybe not - Edmonton, Buffalo, and Los Angeles aren't that far ahead of Washington. But I will say one thing: Ovechkin will have lots of time this summer to work on his golf swing. And hey, look at Philly in 2006-07, and now in 2007-08. Not the same team...literally.

- Penguins lost to the Devils and MT gave the evil eye to all who watched the post-game presser. I think he wanted to sucker punch some poor journalist to (temporarily) relieve his frustration.

- Penguins won against the Senators! The SENATORS, for crying out loud! Way to show up, fight through two 2-goal disadvantages and win a game against the best team in the NHL. Now let's see if the guys can do it again.

Now, let me talk about something that has me scratching my head. It's called diving, and not the diving you do in the pool. I'm talking about diving on the ice.

Ruutu, who scored the game winning goal in the shootout, was assessed a 2-minute minor for diving after being hit in the face/throat. Here's the kicker - Shean Donovan was also assessed a 2-minute minor at the same time for roughing when he hit Ruutu.

It's something I see time and time again...Player A will get a penalty for tripping Player B, and Player B will get a diving penalty for falling to the ice. I just don't understand it...it's not like they're all Sean Avery:



Is it just me, or does this seem a little stupid?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The "dive" in your video does look legitimate. He seems to have embellished the actual force of the hit.

However, in Ruutu's case, getting punched in the face and falling backwards to the ice seems like somehting anyone would do when they take one to the face when they aren't expecting it.

In other words, I don't feel Ruutu embellished anything at all...it was a very poor call (and only the first of TWO in that game!).

Ashley said...

that's definitely part of what i was getting at. sean avery clearly dove - it's hilarious to look at. i don't believe that ruutu did, yet he was called for it.

i also don't understand why some refs will call diving and roughing/tripping/hooking/whatever at the same time. if a player was tripped, for instance, then it wasn't a dive...it's one or the other.

DaBich said...

I'm with both of you. Avery is clearly trying to KICK the other player as he Dives LOL. What an idiot.
Then again, while Ruutu is an instigator of great talent, there is NO comparison between him and Avery.
I think the refs who call roughing, then diving on the other player involved should be suspended/and/or sent back to ref school! lol