Beanpot: Thoughts & Gripes

Ok, if you’ve stayed with me this far first of all THANK YOU! I feel I did my due diligence in putting up game recaps of the on-ice action and sated your thirst for hockey content. After all, I have to earn that media credential somehow.

In case you missed them; here are the other blogs.

• The First Game
• The Second Game
• Brownie’s Overall Thoughts & Gripes

And I want to say how great everything was last night at the game in terms of media access. There were clear directions for picking up credentials, parking passes were issued and parking was a non-issue. The press box seating was clearly labeled and the post-game press conferences were professional and media got access to all the head coaches and players on the winning teams. Shout out to the team at BU for a job well done.

But now it’s time to get some shit off my chest.

Where to start? Oh yeah, how about the gong show of the NESN feed? What the absolute hell are you doing? I received a number of texts throughout both games about the feed cutting in and out, the feed freezing and having to jump from camera to camera (I’m assuming due to the aforementioned freezing and cutting) so fast that people were afraid of seizures. I watched back (or tried to) the end of the 2nd game today and the entire feed froze as BU potted the game winner. The audio kept going but the screen was a frozen image.

And who’s in charge of quality control? A quick glance at rosters is easy enough to manage when typing in the name of the players.

FYI, that’s not Emily Davidson. But I guess you could argue that it’s tough to see the number on her sleeve? I guess? #31 and #1 both end in the same number so I guess that could happen? I mean it’s a piss-poor excuse but okay, I’ll give you that one.

But that’s def NOT Emma Conner doing rinkside reporting. I mean what did Kasey Hudson ever do to you? Do you think this clown shoe type of broadcast would happen on the men’s side? Not a fucking chance.

Now let’s talk on-ice officiating. I’ve seen better reffing at 10pm in Wilmington on a Tuesday night in December for beer league games (and most of those refs are drunk). Do these refs have any training? Can they even spell consistency? The first game descended into chaos due to the refs (in my opinion) losing control of the situation. I’m not for over-officiating, but you have to keep control bud. They completely lost control of the game and then basically sat back at the end of the game when there was a dog-pile in the corner with punches being thrown.

Look I know it’s a thankless job, but maybe if you did it better there’d be more thank you’s?

And then in the marquee women’s hockey event on the calendar when Hockey East and the ECAC get together to put on a banger of a tourney – these donkeys call a penalty in OT??? I mean don’t even get me going on the 3:3 OT that’s played at the Beanpot. That’s one of the stupidest rule changes that I’ve seen since the NHL implemented the FOX glowing puck.

There are a few things in life that you don’t do. You don’t wear white after Labor Day. You don’t play pool for money with firefighters. To paraphrase the late, great Jim Croce: “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, You don’t spit into the wind, You don’t pull the mask off the ‘Ol Ranger” and you don’t call a fucking penalty in OT. The only way that “slash” should have been called if it was out of Monty Python.

To do this and hand one team a power play to go 4:3 was to basically hand the game over. First star to the goal scorer, 2nd star to the goalie and 3rd star to the refs. Send everyone home happy.

I hope and pray that there’s a more competent team on the ice at TD Garden. What we saw last night was inconsistent, unexplainable, horrible and downright embarrassing.

Can we just treat these women athletes with the same respect that the men are treated with? They work just as hard without the same level of support and they at least deserve equal treatment. They didn’t get that last night from the TV coverage to the officiating and they deserve so much more.

If you’re reading this you’re clearly a fan of the women’s game. Please give us a follow and check out our podcast. You can find us on all socials @BTGHockeyPod

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