An eerie calm follows Cujo's stormy protest
Quinn's at a loss for words (wink, wink) on assaulting goalies
Cam Cole
National Post
John Major, Ottawa Citizen
Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Curtis Joseph flipped up his mask, and then flipped out, after Ottawa's game-winning goal on Monday.
Hockey Night in Canada, CBC-TV
Curtis Joseph wanted to give referee Mick McGeough a piece of his mind -- not a re-enactment -- about goaltender interference in Game 3.
KANATA, Ont. - Here is how it went, bet you a hundred bucks.
Pat Quinn is awakened from several hours of the fitful, the morning after Game 3, by a phone call from the National Hockey League's lord of discipline, Colin Campbell.
"OK, Pat," says Campbell, "we're going to cut you some slack on Curtis Joseph. We're not going to suspend him, even though he could have injured Mick McGeough when he chased him into the corner the other night. We're not suspending him, even though knocking the referee down -- accidental or not -- is about as serious as it gets. We're absolving him, because we know Cujo's a good guy, with no prior record, and it would be a crippling loss for your team.
"But it's on one condition: I don't want to hear another whine out of you, not one sentence in one newspaper story with your name attached to a quote asking how come they never call this or they always miss that. Get off the refs' case and we'll let you keep Curtis in the lineup. Got it?"
Having illegally wiretapped the conversation, the only admissible evidence of a gag order I can offer is the following response by the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs yesterday, when tossed the kind of softball question about injustice to his team that he usually hits out of the park.
"No comment," quoth the mighty Quinn.
And he meant it. We pumped, we cajoled, we tried the end-run, the side-door trap, the good-cop/bad-cop.
"Don't try to take me back there. I've put my foot in there enough, I don't need any help, thank you," he said.
So Coach, you're saying there was nothing that ruffled your feathers about Ottawa Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson's clever left-footer that sent your goaltender's left pad inside the net, complete with puck, on the winning goal of Game 3?
"Obviously I've voiced my opinions several times and it's the time of year when ... you can't, uh ... I'm boxed," he finally confessed.
But then, what exactly is the new NHL rule concerning goaltender interference? A year ago, you couldn't breathe heavily on a goalie. A toenail inside the crease was enough to negate a goal, except of course the last one of the season, the Stanley Cup winner by Dallas' Brett Hull.
And now, having been persuaded by public opinion to deep-six the needlessly inflexible instant replay rule in favour of referee judgment on cases of assault on goaltenders, the authorities have taken a powder. Disappeared without a trace. The league pretends there is no rule, and the referees won't call it.
"Free rein, it looks like," was as far as Quinn would be drawn out.
"Here, we're in an area where nobody is ... my reading of the directive and trying to figure it out ... see, right now I'm in an area where I can't be. So you'll have to make up your own minds."
The big Irishman, muzzled. It was not a pretty sight.
After Monday's 4-3 loss that let the Senators back in the series, you expected the Leafs to report for work in an ugly mood. Instead, they were ordered off the ping-pong table and out of the rink by the Stars On Ice figure skating tour, which had a show last night at the Corel Centre. It's never a good sign, heading into Game 4, when your hockey club gets pushed around by Tara Lipinski.
Joseph, corralled outside the black curtain that kept reporters from seeing such highly confidential material as what Josee Chouinard was going to be wearing later, had regained a measure of good humour about his Monday night conniption fit.
"It was pretty funny, wasn't it?" he said. "I didn't mean to fall, obviously. But I saw [McGeough] signal 'goal', and I was sure it wouldn't be a goal, so I wanted to let it be known I was interfered with -- I thought I had a chance to at least make him go upstairs [to the replay booth], because he was in the other corner and didn't see it."
As for taking the burly McGeough's feet out from under him, Joseph pleaded innocent: "I lost my balance. I wouldn't have risked him landing on me, you know, risked injury. I guess it's best to laugh about it today, and then we have to put it to bed."
Joseph's violent reaction, said his backup Glenn Healy, was probably pent-up anger over "a lot of situations over the course of the year where promises have kind of been broken."
Namely, NHL promises that abolishing replay wouldn't mean open season on goalies again.
"You've gone from where you were protected like the president of the United States to where you're pretty much fair game," Healy said.
Apparently, some happy medium was not an option.
"The league," Healy said, "has admitted the rule needs to be tweaked a little. I was one of those guys who liked the black-and-white of the old rule. The crease is blue, stay out of it.
"In defence of the referees, it's tough. Guys are big, there's a lot of obstructed views, particularly around the net. We watch them on replay afterward and we can be far more accurate and far more judgmental.
"But you want the goalies to be able to perform their jobs. I mean, that was a shot Curtis probably could have stopped with no equipment on, you know that. So if he didn't, you have to ask what happened? I think by his reaction you could guess.
"Let's face it, in Toronto you've got arguably one of the best goalies in the world, if not the best, so if I'm an opposing coach, how do I coach against Curtis Joseph? You know how. You have to stop him from doing what he does best. So traffic and obstruction and all those things are definitely mentioned in their locker room. I mean, they'll deny it, but hey, Colin Campbell was my coach [in New York], and whenever we played a great goaltender, that's what we talked about.
"Have they called a goal back against us all year? Have they called goaltender interference more than once, maybe twice? Are you saying Curtis Joseph has been interfered with twice all year? Come on. Put the big steel pegs back in. We'll see who goes to the net.
"I mean, what's the answer? You don't want players taking it into their own hands, and every time someone goes to the net you rip his head off. That's not hockey. That's not what we want. So it's a league situation. It has to be mandated by the league, and officiated by the referees."
Or policed by the goalies' association. "We don't have one. But maybe we should start one," said Healy. "Put in $50 each, and anybody that goes to the net, we call up the Scottish mafia. One call, and I can have you [bag]piped to death." That would do it. |
