To put simply:
Preach brother! Preach!
After all the nonsense involving Tim Donaghy, my eyebrows go up every time an official makes a questionable call - particularly an official with a track record of questionable calls. I think the main point here is not that this one call completely changed the outcome of the game - though nobody, not even BC's coach, disputed the magnitude of the call - but that the officials seemed to have no standard on which to judge it. Did his skate touch the puck while kicking, or didn't it? If the replays were obstructed that'd be one thing, but they weren't and somehow the replay booth still needed five minutes to think about it. That tells me all I need to know.
Mike, being so closely located to Indy yourself, any chance you could red-phone this in to the NCAA? I'm sure they'll file it right next to the Reggie Bush investigation on the priority list.
Hadn't heard of this blog until OCDomer mentioned it, but it looks like some good stuff. All I ask for in a ND blog is semi-frequent entries about anything ND-related.
What class are the guys that do this blog? Class of '05 here...
Rule 59 has the standard of review, which is "conclusive evidence".
Setting aside the question of how reasonable the definition of "distinct kicking motion" is, the movement of Lawson's left skate into the contact with the puck qualifies. On that ground, I say the no-goal was a good call, although I think that they blew it with respect to the right skate, which I don't believe was moving toward the goal at the point where it made contact with the puck (and even if it was, the video quality isn't good enough to say conclusively... maybe if ESPN had done the broadcast in HD...).
Also, I assume your nonconference official comment is about football. In hockey, the NCAA will not assign an official from the conference of either of the competing teams in the tournament. ND had Todd Anderson's WCHA crew in three games: vs. UNH (HEA), Michigan (CCHA), and BC (HEA). The replay official in the BC game was WCHA supervisor of officials Greg Shepherd.
(FWIW, let's just say that Shepherd is not popular with WCHA fans.)
Thanks for the input. The conference affiliation thing was in regards to football. It's good to hear that the NCAA has a policy on this for hockey.
Somehow I lost your Blog in moving. Glad to see it back where I have my fAVORITE SITES
Sir John from DD
Two points:
FIRST, Mike, good points, but I think that the issue is distinguishable from the 'innocent-until-proven-guilty' in the court system, in that in instant replay, the judges are trying to overrule a split-second, on-ice (-field, -court, etc) call that is made by an official.
Given that the replay judges have all of the relevant camera angles, as well as far more time to decide the call than the officials on the field, why defer at all to the original on-field judgment? As Gary Thorne aptly pointed out, it may be preferable to employ a "de novo"-style review, where the officials will get a clean slate, and not be forced to factor in the questioned original judgment.
If the evidence shows that it is more likely than not (>50%) one way or the other, then why allow the judgment of the official to override the more-likely-than-not test? The vague standard of "clear and convincing evidence" seems to be a holdover from the non-replay era.
Since various camera angles puts the video replay judges as close to the action as the refs on the field, those initial judgments are rendered effectively useless.
I do like your proposed 3-man replay system, with votes; and the idea of a majority vote (rather than unanimous) deciding the issue further suports the >50% analysis.
SECOND, in terms of hockey specifically, I'm not sure that the "no-kick-in rule" makes a whole lot of sense. Given that it is fairly difficult to kick a puck past the goalie with skates, why not make the play legal, and avoid this issue in the future? Fallon, if my soccer player mentality is obscuring the issue, I'd love to hear compelling rationale for the "no kick-in rule" from a Dillon hockey legend.
And, where the hell was the replay when Brett Hull's skate was in the crease back in '99?
-Angelo
Angelo,
Let me wade through the 'legal BS' and remind you that, as a Dallas resident, replay was in effect during the 1999 Cup Finals, but at 2:30am, the officials decided that it was far too late to reverse a call, and the fans of Buffalo faced another looooong winter.
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