Ever notice that the only other people besides hockey referees who wear black and white striped outfits are prisoners. Heck, even the armbands that designate them as referees are prison jumpsuit orange. Irony in its truest sense if you ask me.

I watch alot of sports, but mostly hockey. In my humble opinion, the refs are ruining the game. It's no longer a game of sport, but now has become figure skating with sticks. I realize that there has to be some sort of control in the game, but what the NHL is doling out isn't control, its a giant ego trip. It's obvious that the refs are losing control early in the games and spend the rest of the game trying to re establish that control. With little or no success! When over 20 minutes of a 60 minute game is spent in the penalty box (total for both teams playing) something is wrong. I don't think I'm alone in my thoughts that some teams are more favored by the refs than others.

What tweaks my buttons is that the NHL supposedly "punishes" (fines) refs who screw up during games. (disallowing obvious goals, not calling obvious penalties, and such) But, as there have been no evidence that that actually happens, I don't believe they are held accountable for their actions. The league almost trips over themselves to announce the players fines or suspensions, but you never hear about the refs punishments. Anyone else see the double standard here?

The teams and the players have no way of defending themselves. Its mandated in the NHL rules that if the player or team says anything about the referee's they get fined thousands of $. Even if their complaints or comments are valid. It's almost like frontier justice. Most of the lawmen (referees) were corrupt and abused their power. And the persecuted people had no recourse because the powers that be were the corrupt lawmen themselves.

Isn't it funny that the director of officiating for the NHL stepped down when it was discovered that he was giving referees that gave him loans to cover his gambling debts were given preferential game assignments. That in itself showed me that the NHL officiating system was corrupt . Something that fans of the game have been saying for years.

LOL, that's enough of my rant for now. You'd think that my favorite team had lost their game wouldn't you. But, surprisingly they won and won in convincing fashion. Its 2 am in the morning and I'm wide awake. I took a late nap so I'm no wear near tired. I have to get up in about 4 hours because I decided to ride along to Detroit to see my little brother's new apartment.