Paging Doctor Mulder - Sabres 1, Gutsy Habs 1, Refs 1 (OT)

You know, I generally really hate people who blame the refs. It's a pet peeve of mine.Yes, the reffing may have been crappy in a particular game, but give it up dude. You lost, you didn't score enough goals to win, etc. etc. Even if the team that was allegedly screwed was the Habs, I hated falling into that blame the refs trap. I thought it was cowardly and just idiotic. Man up; you / we lost, get over it.

But not anymore. Because I am now one of those people. I blame the refs for last night, and deservedly so.

Do I think the Gomez penalty in the last minute of a 1-1 game was a penalty? Absolutely (though I believe the recipient clearly embellished, and Gomez' stick really didn't connect, his hand did). Do I blame Gomez for taking it? Not in the fucking least, even though he himself has taken full responsibility and others have blamed him. I don't blame him because he believed that the refs had put their whistles away in the last couple of minutes of a tie game, if not the whole fucking last two periods. How could he not when CHeez Whiz was absolutely CRUSHED, FROM BEHIND, INTO THE BOARDS by Gaustad I think it was, with no call whatsoever, no more than a minute before Gomez got called. I tried to find video of it but the NHL powers that be have removed all traces of it from the internet. You could point to a bunch of other non-calls too, from Lego getting hacked IN THE FACE and repeatedly cross-checked and manhandled and roughed and boarded and molested by Tyler Myers to a blatant holding the stick of Moen to other shit I'm too angry about to try and remember.

What REALLY pisses me off is that the refs seemed to have been influenced by Lindy Ruff's little temper tantrum early in the game when one of his players actually did get called for a penalty. Lindy railed into the refs, and from then on out, they seemed to be scared of him. DO YOU SEE NOW CHOKULA WHY SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO SCREAM AT THE REFS??? I hate this fucking league.

Anything else happen in the game last night? No? Moving on then.

Oh right, right, we had a couple guys get dinged. Let's go to the bullet points:

• Squid's shoulder goes crashing into the boards (with a shove from behind btw, no call), looks to be separated, TSN reported minimum two weeks out;
• Max PatCHes' giant heart takes a CHeez Whiz slap shot, he's rushed to hospital though he flew home with the team. RDS reports it's his ribs, no word on seriousness;
• CHallah disappears in the first sometime, returns to the bench but barely sees any action;
• PFK blocks a shot with his foot, limps / crawls off the ice but returns;
• Hal Gilligan injures his wrist, looks to be ok;
• JM appeared to be unconscious (well, ok, that's every game);
• Mcsplooge seemed to be suffering from some horrible laughing disease. Fuck you you asshole, your Hamilton jokes were not funny.

In the wake of all that, the Habs played the game with essentially three lines, a mere 24 hours after a tough win over the Flames. They deserve all the credit in the world for fighting though it and earning a point. Carey played some heroic hockey, and many others really stepped up (PFK, Lego, Gio, even Gomez and Swiss Mister II). I could go on about how courageous they were, but I will close by paraphrasing one of my favourite moments from Lloyd Bridges in Airplane II:

Gentlemen, I don't find it easy to talk at a time like this, but I got to say something about that team up there, and I can sum it all up in just one word: courage...dedication, daring, pride, pluck, spirit, grit, mettle, and G-U-T-S, *guts*. Why, The Habs got more guts in their little finger than most of us have in our large intestine, INCLUDING THE COLON.

/ falls over drunk