Former NHL referee doesn't like the direction the league is taking with emotion
Former NHL referee Tim Peel had an amazing NHL career, but unfortunately the way it ended is likely how he'll be remembered. Peel was caught on a hot mic admitting he was calling a make up call to even up the penalities. While this is a well known and commonly used practice, it was heavily frowned upon for this to be admitted by an official.
Peel was subsequently fired by the league and had his final year cut short. Since that time Peel has started his own podcast, conducted radio spots and even coaches minor hockey in St. Louis with former NHLer Jamal Mayers.
This morning Peel joined the crew of TSN 1200 and shared his thoughts on emotion in the National Hockey League:
Host: But the interaction with the referees, the coaches, kind of blowing their stack. Why has that changed? Is there less interaction? Is this a different handling by the refs or have the coaches changes? Or all of the above?
Peel: Probably all the above really, you know, I don't, everything I have is because of the National Hockey League.
So this isn't that I'm not being negative towards but it kind of when I see coaches getting fined for having an outburst on the bench. And I seen Maroon and Simmonds getting 10-minute misconducts for chirping, I just caution the sport that we do not want to take the emotion out of the game and that's the only thing that concerns me.
I remember Brian Boyle came up to me one night in Tampa after giving it to me and he came up the next shift and came up and apologized. And I told him "don't you ever apologize, because we need emotion in this game."
There's a difference between emotion and abuse. We know when we're getting abused but when a player or coach gets emotional, that's what makes our sports so good.
Peel: Probably all the above really, you know, I don't, everything I have is because of the National Hockey League.
So this isn't that I'm not being negative towards but it kind of when I see coaches getting fined for having an outburst on the bench. And I seen Maroon and Simmonds getting 10-minute misconducts for chirping, I just caution the sport that we do not want to take the emotion out of the game and that's the only thing that concerns me.
I remember Brian Boyle came up to me one night in Tampa after giving it to me and he came up the next shift and came up and apologized. And I told him "don't you ever apologize, because we need emotion in this game."
There's a difference between emotion and abuse. We know when we're getting abused but when a player or coach gets emotional, that's what makes our sports so good.
It's amazing to hear these kind of stories from former officials on how they see the game going. I know personally this isn't a direction I want the game to go.
| POLL | ||
Is the NHL trying to remove emotion from the game? | ||
| Yes | 285 | 82.8 % |
| No | 59 | 17.2 % |
| List of polls | ||
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