Despite the fact that I am a woman, a Democrat and I think Sarah Palin is an “empty skirt”, too much fuss was made of her dropping the puck in the Flyers home opener against the Rangers. She’s a hockey mom. Who cares? So are thousands of other women across North America. She didn’t speak. She came out and dropped the puck. Big deal. On MSG Hockey Night Live! Al Trautwig came on and pontificated about it to the point of embarrassing himself. Also, I hate to see Butch Goring being made to feel so uncomfortable. 
Al would have better served his audience if he had saved his self-righteous indignation about this game for the officials. Maroulli and Kozari did an excellent job of letting the Flyers back into the game. They let the Flyers run Valiquette not once but twice, failing to call an obvious goaltender interference on the second Flyer goal. No one can tell me that the goaltender interference calls on Tomas Holstrom during the playoffs were nearly as egregious as what was allowed to go on tonight.
Ask yourselves this question. Why did the reffing in Prague seem so much better, so even handed and judicious? Could it be because the NHL was trying to showcase its product to its best advantage? Those officials let the ticky tacky BS go and let the teams play hockey. Ice tilting would have diluted the product and cast a negative light on NHL hockey. Czech fans are a very intelligent hockey audience.
The refereeing didn’t need to be fair tonight. The Flyers were being blown out. The Flyers needed to be given every chance to get back in this game and the officials saw to it that they were. That makes me indignant, Al. Sarah Palin has and will prove herself to be enough of a bubblehead on her own. We need Al and all the Ranger commentators to hold the officials accountable. Joe Michelletti is a pretty fair person. Even he was annoyed by bad calls and the non-calls tonight.
Last night may have been the season opener but the real season started tonight as we saw the Rangers get hosed again in an obvious attempt to make home ice advantage mean something more then the last line change for the Flyers.
Posted under New York Rangers
This post was written by m hurley on October 11, 2008
Margaret, I agree with your assessment on Trautwig. He can get a little TOO MUCH at times, and I think he did on Saturday night.
BUt c’mon, Butchie’s Palin glasses were cool!!!>????
Nice start for your boys… Contributions from all and Zherdev is doing what he should have done for Columbus for years…. Should be a cracking match tonight against the Devs.
Gary,
Tonight was a character win for the Rangers in the face of an unspeakable tragedy. My younger daughter is 20. My heart goes out to the family of young Alexei Cherepanov, to the Ranger organization, all Ranger fans and Jaromir Jagr.
A very sad day.
I totally concur. It is such a shame. He looked like he was going to be a special player.
Its a member of the hockey family that is gone. We all are the losers not to get the opportunity to see what many thought would be a great career.