I don’t normally make a post just to provide a bunch of links but this appears to be a special case that is worthy of it. The media and Stephan Auger’s peers have now had some time to diget Alex Burrows’ post game comment and weigh in on the whole thing. The more I think about it, the more I believe Burrows. It appears as I’m not alone as a poll on tsn.ca showed that 85% of voters believe Burrows was telling the truth. Honestly, I didn’t think the number would be so high among non-Canuck fans because Burrows doesn’t have the greatest reputation across the league but without an actual statement from Auger or the NHL, it appears as if people will take Burrows’ word as the truth. Now lets take a look at some of the comments made across the league.
Perhaps the most interesting is from an annoyamous veteran official:
“You file it away in the back of your cranium,” he said. “But you wait until you get a game where the score is 5-1, and then you might call him for something. You say, ‘We’ll meet up again one day.’ But you don’t hurt the team.”
“You don’t even have to be a ref to figure it out,” he said. “Don’t leave the gun at the scene with your fingerprints all over it.”
I was pretty surprised when I read this because I thought most referees would blindly support their own or have no comment. In all honesty, referees have an incredibly difficult and thankless job to do and as a result will likely stand by their own. The fact the first public comments by someone, basically throws Auger under the bus should tell you what Auger’s teammates think of him.
Next we have Ray Ferraro who knows a thing or two about yapping. The “Little Ball of Hate” talks about how most officials, or at least a good official, dealt with people like him or Burrows and how the they should maintain a bigger sense of professionalism even when you want to get back at a guy.
“I have a little experience with this type of situation from my playing days. I, like Burrows at times, talked too much for my own good. I never hesitated to tell an official if I thought he made a bad call. Paul Stewart was one of the officials that I butted heads with. I felt like he saw that the game revolved around him, and I told him that every chance I had. It got to the point where we hated each other – he felt I was a big mouth, I hated seeing his name on the game sheet.
But a strange thing happened. Nothing.
I never felt that Paul leaked his feelings into giving me the short end of the stick. We never spoke, and he would ignore me whenever I had a question, but he was totally professional.”
Head Coach Alain Vigneault is concerned about the bigger picture for his team. Vigneault, rightfully so, is concerned that as a result of Burrows’ comments that the team will be hit with more biased officiating, like the ones in Vancouver last night. If he knew about what some of Auger’s peers were saying about him then his concerns might disappears but nonetheless it appears as if it could end up being a distraction to the team now
“It’s a concern,” Vigneault told sportsnet.ca on Tuesday. “I can understand the situation, but that being said right now I think it’s best for our players and myself to let Mike Gillis and management take care of this with the league. It’s something they will have to deal with.”
Of course, while the Canucks are concerned of the distraction that might come from all of this the team completely supports Burrows. As Jason Botchford of the Vancouver Province writes that Burrows has the full support of the team and Burrows and Colin Campbell will have a conference call tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm pst. Mike Gillis has shown that he’ll support his players in anyway that he can since taking of as General Manager.
“Alex Burrows, Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillis and NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell will have a hearing via conference call Tuesday afternoon as the league begins an investigation into the accusation one of its referees had a personal vendetta which spilled over into Monday’s Canucks game.”
“We’re going to support him in every way we can support him,” Gillis said. “We’re going to support what he said occurred and we’re going to show why we support that.”
While Burrows will meet with Campbell tomorrow it appears as if the winger is done talking about it for now:
“My focus is on (Wednesday) night’s game,” Burrows said. “They are playing well and they are a good team and the won on Monday night so just make sure we get two points.”
