NHL Video Review: You Can't Handle The Truth

At a time when the Florida Panthers needed a break in Game Six of the Stanley Cup Final Series, they got something more like the Zapruder film. Blurry, inconclusive, dramatic and very, very upsetting. Trailing Edmonton 2-0 before a braying Oilers fanbase, struggling Florida thought they’d scored in the second period to make it 2-1.

Hope of a comeback sprung eternal on the Panthers’ bench. At the Oilers’ bench, however, rookie coach Kris Knoblauch was peering down at something on his digital tablet. Could it be the bang-bang play at the Edmonton blue line was offside? Knoblauch decided to risk it all on a challenge. If he won, Florida’s momentum would be stopped. If he lost, it would be a one-goal Oilers’ lead with Florida going on the power play—the penalty for a wrong challenge.

For the next minutes the NHL video review officials in Toronto pondered the play from multiple angles. In the booth the announcers called it too close to call. Several angles seemed to show the play was indeed offside. On the TV broadcast viewers could see the arbiters of angles cogitating about the call in their studio. Others were not so definitive. Time passed like days, not minutes.

After an excruciating wait, the goal was disallowed, the crowd went wild, and the Oilers rolled to an easy 5-1 victory, tying the Final series and forcing Game 7 in Florida. In your grandfather’s NHL, the losing coach would here have exploded in rage against technology, homer refs and the summer solstice. At first Maurice gave an Oscar-winning performance as the aggrieved coach behind the bench. 

Afterward, however, a more-composed Maurice was more sanguine on whether the video system had worked properly. "I have no idea. It may well have been offside,” he told the postgame presser. "The linesperson informed me that it was the last clip that they got where they made the decision that it shows it's offside. I don't have those (clips). So I was upset after the call, based on what I see at my feet and what my video person looks at.”

He then explained that he was most concerned by the possibility of a penalty for a failed challenge. "There was no way I would have challenged that if (the situation) were reversed," Maurice told the media postgame. "There was no way I thought you could conclusively say that was offside. I don't know what (angles) the Oilers get. I don't know what the league gets. I just know that (if) I had to challenge that based on what I saw, I would not have challenged.”

Maurice, who’s noted for his wit, then added, "I'm not saying it's not offside. We'll get still frames, we'll bring in the CIA, we'll figure it out. But in the 30 seconds that I would've made that call, I would not have challenged.” 
So how to make replay better? Those watching the ongoing EuroCup24 soccer tournament can see that soccer, the most hidebound sports for decades, is using technology to get their byzantine offside rule called properly. In one game, Belgium’s star  Lukaku had, not one, but two goals nixed by the technology. 

There have been ponderous delays for review, yes, but there is no question that the calls when finally decided are correct. Much like the Hawkeye technology for calling lines in tennis, soccer’s tech is impartial and unequivocal. And it largely removes the tinfoil-hat contingent from spreading conspiracy theories.

Nothing illustrates the schism between the modern hockey fan and the Original Six sweat more than video replay (they dropped “instant” replay for obvious reasons). People born to the digital age see no problem with getting it right, however long it takes. The only thing wrong is that they can’t (yet) control it with a joystick.

Old-timers like the “human element” romanticism of allowing blown calls, like the phantom tag at second base or the football barely crossing the goal line in a pile of bodies. They want the free flow of the game not to be interrupted (unless by a fight). They insist that lengthy delays, like betting commercials, ruin the sport’s purity.

In this they’re like the MLB folks who are still resistant to having their ABS system call balls and strikes. While old catchers and retired umpires wax lovingly about the art of “framing pitches” (translation: tricking umps into wrong calls) the home viewer can regularly see umpires missing 8-10 percent of the calls in a game. Yet commissioner Rob Manfred still drags his feet on the imposition of a system that is already working in the minors.

The reality is that, in this time of betting and network domination, there is no excuse for getting it wrong. As we have mentioned on numerous occasions, there is no allowing for doubt when you’re taking hundreds of millions from the betting industry.

So let’s see the NHL introduce an offside technology like that in soccer. Let’s see the NFL install a chip in the football that sends the first-down “chain gang” to oblivion. Let’s see MLB get the calls right. Even if the old-timers can’t stand it. 

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. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous 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 brucedowbigginbooks.ca.