An Open Letter To The NHL (4/2/09) If you saw my last blog post, you know I am a long time hockey fan. Over the last few years I have seen a major problem grow to ridiculous proportions, to the point where finally I have to be very vocal about it. Since the NHL does not have a way to contact them directly, I am making this post public. I suspect I am not the only hockey fan who has seen this problem become worse. The problem I speak of is the officiating. It's so erratic in the NHL that it's frustrating watching a game... That's right, a life-long fan of hockey finds it frustrating to watch the game he once loved. Games should not be decided by the officials, but more often than should be they have become integral to a team winning. Be it not calling an obvious penalty or offside, leading to a team scoring, or calling something that clearly isn't a penalty, and the ensuing power play yielding a goal, the officials not doing their job properly directly effects the outcome of the game. It's so bad, that what's called a penalty one minute, isn't called a minute later when it's an identical situation. And the same problems occur with the replay refs, who given identical goals to decide if they're good or not, one time calls it a goal, the other time doesn't. Equally applaing, is these ignorant officials act like gods. They have the final say so, and they don't care if they get it right or not. If a player or coach complains about a bad call, or missed call, the ref gives that person a penalty. If I was as bad at my job as these referees and linemen are, I'd have been fired a long time ago, yet these guys continue to do a bad job game after game, and it's gotten worse year after year. THIS IS BULLSHIT! The NHL better fire a lot of these bad officials, and re-train the others. I've actually cut back considerably the amount of hockey I watch, as a direct result of my anger over the officiating. Eventually I may become so fed up with the officiating that I'll give up watching hockey altogether...and as a sport that gets pre-empted on NBC for golf, the NHL can't afford to lose any fans. But my love of the game is rapidly being replaced with my anger over games being decided by bad officiating. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman lives in New Jersey. If anyone knows him and can lead him to this blog post, it would be greatly appreciated. I would love to have Mr. Bettman on my show to discuss what I see as a major problem ruining the game I once loved...