Jim Montgomery Has No Idea What A Dive Is, But It's Hilarious To Watch Him Bitch About Them Nevertheless
I know that we, as a society, are often overly critical of refs in professional sports. Everybody thinks that they could do the refs' job better than them. But you have to give these guys credit. The game moves at such a ridiculous pace, there is shit happening all over the ice, and I'd say they still manage to get the call right 90% of the time. The 10% they miss ends up driving everyone insane, but there's just no way that anyone can go out there and get absolutely everything right unless you had 16 refs on the ice at the same time. One for each player on the ice, one behind each net, and one at each blueline.
If there's one thing we learned for sure last night, it's that Jim Montgomery would be a god awful ref.
Don't get me wrong--I get it. The Bruins are down 3-1 in the series. They feel like they've been shafted by the refs so far this series, so Jim Montgomery is reaching for anything possible to get a call. But let's break down the tape a little.
So here's where everything gets started. Right as they cross the blue line, Mason Lohrei attempts to slow down Eetu Luostarinen from getting to his position in the slot. Right off the bat, we have an interference penalty here. The definition of interference straight from the NHL rulebook says, "The actions of a player who does not have body position, but instead uses illegal means (e.g. hook with stick; hold with hands, trip with the stick or in any manner) to impede an opponent who is not in possession of the puck. Illegal means are acts which allow a player or goalkeeper to establish, maintain or restore body position other than by skating".
But that's not even the point I'm going to make here. I'm here to argue against the idea that Luostarinen embellished this penalty in anyway. Because once Lohrei makes contact with him at the blue line, it kicks his right skate off the ice. He's never able to get that right skate back on the ice before Lohrei decides to drive through him.
Keep in mind that Montour still has the puck on his stick here. So again, it's interference. But you have Mason Lohrei trying to plow through Luostarinen when he only has one skate on the ice. I don't know how much you guys know about ice, but it's pretty slippery out there. Especially if you're getting hit by an opponent, and ESPECIALLY if you only have one skate on the ice to try to balance yourself on.
The final call ended up being hooking. When we're talking about hooking as far as interference goes, it's "A player who does not have body position on his opponent, who uses his stick (either the blade or the shaft, including the butt-end of the shaft) to impede or prevent his opponent from moving freely on the ice shall be assessed a hooking penalty."
Lohrei didn't have body position. He used his stick to prevent Luostarinen from getting to the slot. Did Luostarinen go down relatively easily? Sure. But that's because he only had one skate on the ice to begin with because Lohrei decided to engage contact while he wasn't even close to having the puck. Sure seems to me like the right call was made on the ice, but that's not going to stop Jim Montgomery from thinking he knows more than the refs.
But at least he's entertaining about it. Lady behind the bench here has no idea what to make of this maniac. She thought she had seen it all with Florida men. Little did she know what 60 minutes behind the Jim Montgomery experience was going to be like.