[NHL] Video: Roger Neilson Surrenders to Referee

[FredFan7]

Vancouver coach, Roger Neilson, feeling like his team has been taken to the cleaners by referee Bob Myers in a 1982 playoff game, waves the white flag on the bench.

Myers was not amused and kicked Neilson out of the game.

This is legend in Vancouver.

bit.ly/lCYbOj

[JugglingReferee]

Neilson is highly respected in many circles.

[impz45]

Roger Neilson was an innovator of video for his coaching style, great contributor to the game.

IMO Bob Myers struggled earlier in his career and turned into a fairly good referee. I thought he called games to closely and called too many borderline penalties. I feel he was a notch below Wick's, Hood, Newell and Van Hellemond during this era.

[cj]

May 15, 2011 17:31:35 GMT -5 impz45 said:

Roger Neilson was an innovator of video for his coaching style, great contributor to the game.

IMO Bob Myers struggled earlier in his career and turned into a fairly good referee. I thought he called games to closely and called too many borderline penalties. I feel he was a notch below Wick's, Hood, Newell and Van Hellemond during this era.

The best referee of that era, IMHO, was Wally Harris. He had excellent rapport with the players and the coaches and he never had this standoffish attitude so common to some of the others i.e. he let them play the game and often took the attitude you had your shot at him, he had his shot at you now let's play the game. Statistics show he called fewer penalties than the other referees and his work at the goal mouth i.e. blowing plays dead with the puck still loose was the best of all of them. He was consistant that way. Some of the others you mentioned such as Hood, Wicks and Newell were quite incosistant; one night they would call everything and this sometimes led to their games getting out of hand, other nights they seemed obvlivious. Van Hellemond was a very strong referee. Other referees of that era included Bryan Lewis and just before you had Art Skov (an outstanding referee), Bill Friday (too pompeous), John Ashley (the Leaguer liked him but I never thought he was a good referee) and Lloyd Gilmour. You have to understand the league doubled in size right at that moment which is why they brought in so many new referees then. You also had really top notch linesmen sxuch as Matt Pavelich, Neil Armstrong (not the astronaut) and John D'Amico. Other guys who had long careers such as Claude Bechard, Bob Hodges, Swede Knox and Ron Finn came along right about then. The league also began using only full time linesman; before that you had some regional linesman who only worked games in certain cities during the 6 team NHL era.

That was anb era when referees were allowed to have individual styles (and didn't wear helmets) and with only one referee, you immediately recognized who the referee was (I'm sure coahes like Neilson had them all catalogued). I used to kid with my friends that the NHL at that time never had in their list of official signals for referees a signal for a goal (they felt the red light gong on was enough) but several had very interesting styles. If you look at the tape at the head of this thread, Myers had no signal at all for a goal, you could see him just skating towards the net not pointing or anything like that. Neither did Wally Harris. Dave Newell just raised his hand, several of them pointed at the goal scorer.

Today's NHL rule book tells them to point at the puck in the net when a goal is scored. The other major change in officiating mechanics (besides the idiotic 2 referee system, don't get me started how ludicrous it is) involved the linesmen and icing the puck. When I grew up watching the game on a possible icing, the rear linesman raised his hand and the forward linesman followed the play in (much like today) and when the icing touch up occurred the forward linesman raised his hand but it was the rear linesman that blew the whistle and gave the icing signal (arms folded in front of the chest same signal as delay of the game in football)...about 10 years ago they changed it so that the forward linesman blows the whistle and then raises his hand. I suppose that makes more sense.

Incidentally, one other point. The NHL asked the AHL to begin using the 2 referee system this seson. The AHL used the 2 referee system in about 1/3 of its games. Supposedly this helps bertter prepare the referees for the 2 referee system in the NHL.

Another case of Bettman and his cronies not knowing what's best for the game!