The weather outside might be frightful but the hockey is so delightful for fans of the Canadian NHL teams. After years of mediocrity, Vancouver and Winnipeg are shockingly at the top of the league’s standings. Red-hot Edmonton has won a league-record 13 games in a row. Offensive juggernaut Toronto is biding its time till the playoffs with a win/lose pattern.

After a rotten start Calgary is suddenly butting up against a wildcard spot. Only Montreal and the hapless Ottawa Senators are lost causes at the moment. The March 8 trade deadline will be crucial for teams like the Flames and Habs as they decide whether to make a grab at the wild card or settle for re-arming.

As Meatloaf once said, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

For the clubs at the top, however, there is the excitement that comes from April hockey and the possibility— sigh— of becoming the first Canadian team since 1993’s Canadiens to win a Stanley Cup. That possibility will likely come down to another team. NHL referees.

Like people who’ve had root canal surgery or women who’ve gone through childbirth, the awful pain of being robbed by NHL refs teams does fade quickly. (Okay, Toronto fans are still salty over Gretzky getting a pass from refs after carving Doug Gilmour in the 1993 semifinals.) To help prepare fans for the inevitable miscarriages of justice we harken back to last May when we provided our Playoff reffing primer:

“Why no penalty? Why do birds sing so gay and lovers await the break of day? It’s all part of the NHL’s fungible notion of justice. Rules are rules. Unless they aren’t. In search of an even playing field we must first consider timing. Like comedy, NHL penalties are all about timing.

Let us explain. In the first period of a tie playoff game, referees can call 1) puck over the glass 2) too many men on the ice 3) slashing a stick out of an opponents’ hands. 4) a stick to the face. Anything more requires special dispensation from Gary Bettman’s barber or the NHL’s head of competition.

If a team manages to get a one-goal lead, only they can be called for rules 1) through 4). Trailing teams must be allowed to even the score at all costs. If the lead stretches to more than one goal in the second period, the trailing team must emulate Vlad the Impaler to visit the sin bin.

By contrast, the team with the lead is also vulnerable to the whole rule book. Slashing, holding, interference, passing bad cheques. The price of success is to be hobbled by the striped men Because of something Brian Burke said 20 years ago, but we forget now.

Should there still be a two- or three-goal lead come the third period the rule book is now the size of a first-class postage stamp. As we saw Saturday, carving your rival with a composite blade renders referees sightless. Refs pray for a puck over the glass so they can call something unimpeachable. Anything.

“None of the paid TV panelists are allowed to mention this charade, unless they are Kevin Bieksa. But social media does. And so every spring the cry of Reform! shakes the hockey landscape. After many heated columns and radio diatribes the fuss then dies away when the Stanley Cup is awarded. The reformers, exhausted swimming in the oatmeal of NHL rules, fall away.

Attrition is always the league’s best friend when the product is questioned. Even when public opinion achieves a change in how rules are called the NHL knows time will have its way. These 2023 playoffs provide a few examples of previous reforms gone to seed.

For instance, remember the uproar from the 1998 Olympics? Not about the shootout. No, we are talking about face-offs. Fans noted the rapidity of face-offs in international play. Instead of endlessly noodling in the faceoff dot, waiting for the scene to revert to still life, international linesman dropped the puck as soon as the two players entered the same postal code.

To bored fans, this was a revelation. “You mean we don’t need the drawn-out kabuki we’ve seen for ages?” The din grew so loud that the NHL began using the hurry-up face-off. Fans loved it. There was much satisfaction at changing minds in Toronto.

As anyone who watched the 2023 playoffs will tell you, we now have reversion to the old on face-offs. Once more, linesmen move with the speed of registry-office workers, tossing out miscreants and generally annoying everyone again. But the NHL’s justice system has had its way.

Ditto for forwards dumping the puck into the opponents’ zone. By the start of the 21st century the sport moved like a mastadon in the LaBrea tar pit. As part of the reforms after Bettman’s insane 2004-05 labour stoppage, it was decided that defensemen could no longe impede a forward who’d advanced the puck past him into the zone.

The game suddenly became more fluid. For months players and coaches were forced to adjust. The sacred right to interfere was negated, And so it was seen to be good.

But lovers of free-flowing hockey did not account for the plugger mentality that infests the NHL head office. As with hurry-up face-offs, defensive obstruction has been allowed to lapse in this year’s playoffs. Defencemen are back to playing me-and-my-shadow with forwards who must avoid bear hugs and arm bars to get to the puck.

Again, no one seems to notice. Ditto for hitting a puck carrier three beats after he’s surrendered the puck. It’s interference. For a while it was called that way. But now, “finishing your check” is a euphemism for take ten strides then pancake on opponent on the boards.

Yes, yes, best intentions. Sure. They are inconveniences to the traditions of NHL refereeing. Actually, blaming the refs is unfair. They are the pawns of the competition bureau that wants as certain type of game, especially at playoff time. Close. Safe. Saleable. Cynical.”

Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent. https://share.hsforms.com/16edbhhC3TTKg6jAaRyP7rActsj5

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent. https://share.hsforms.com/16edbhhC3TTKg6jAaRyP7rActsj5

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

Why NHL Officiating Is Reffing Useless