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I watched video replay foul up one NHL game and almost screw up another on back to back nights this past week. In one instance, the Calgary Flames gave up a goal on what appeared to be a clear cut case of goaltender interference; but their coach wasn’t allowed to challenge it because he had called a timeout earlier in the game.

Say what? Yeah, apparently if you need to call a timeout to regroup your team, you lose the ability to right a wrong later on. Meanwhile, in overtime on Saturday night, the Vancouver Canucks gave up a brutal goal as the opposing player accepted a pass and stepped over the blueline and fired a shot into the back of the net. Nobody stopped trying. It was a hundred percent effort by everyone.

However, the Canucks were able to challenge and the shooter was a couple of inches offside as he accepted the pass. So, no goal. In the Calgary case, the Flames lost the game.

In the Vancouver case, justice was served as they gave up another goal just over a minute later that counted. Leave it to professional sports coaches to wreck something that’s intended to make games more fair.

I think what should happen is give teams an unlimited number of challenges; but if they are wrong then they have to serve a double minor penalty. That’s right. Double minor. Make the offence for challenging so harsh that these needless time wasting video reviews would be stopped immediately.

The only challenges you will see are calls that are worth risking the loss. Football should be a fifteen yard penalty for a failed challenge and baseball should result in an automatic out. Baseball, by the way, is really goofy in that they actually let managers go to the top of the dugout steps and tell the umpire to just hold on before continuing the game as they’d like to take a second look at a close call. There’s no way something like that should be allowed, especially in a sport that doesn’t move very fast as it is.  

Something scary happened prior to the opening face off of an AHL game on Saturday night when Phoenix Coyotes’ minor leaguer Craig Cunningham collapsed and went into convulsions on the ice. Medical staff cut his jersey off and it was stated the player went into a ‘medical emergency’. Details since he was taken to hospital are sketchy (as of press time), but this isn’t a good sign. You don’t see things like this very often, thankfully, but it reminds us that our heroes are still human. I can recall as a kid reading in the newspaper (because the internet and television highlight shows hadn’t yet been invented) that Boston Bruins forward Normand Leveille had suffered a brain aneurysm and had to be taken to hospital.  The end result was that Leveille never walked again, but he’s still alive today and a major proponent and activist for people who suffer physical disabilities. Let’s hope Cunningham, maybe the most popular Vancouver Giant WHL player ever, gets a clean bill of health.

If you are wondering the origin of your last name, the Oxford Dictionary has the answer. Researchers have put together explanations for 45,000 English and Irish surnames. I’ve always assumed my last name was a result of ancestors who were carpenters or home builders. You wouldn’t know that if you knew me as I can’t hammer a nail.  Nevertheless, it would be fun to check it out; however the $600 price tag to have access to this information is too much for me to quench my curiousity.  

Miscarriage of justice story of the week comes from our neighbors south of the border where a father was sentenced to 40 years in jail after he killed the man who sexually abused his daughter on a regular basis when she was four up until she was nine. The predator was sent to jail for his actions and did 2 ½ years (6 months for each year he tormented the small child). The father, mentally and emotionally, spent finally snapped after 12 years and put a bullet into the man who damaged his little girl. Here’s what I find interesting about the justice system. Officials hail rehabilitation. So, a sexual predator, who’s extremely likely to reoffend, gets 2.5 years for a crime pattern that lasted five years. A father, who very likely suffered tremendous amounts of mental torture and illness, gets forty years for committing a crime he won’t ever commit again even if he doesn’t do a single day in the slammer. The message here is that bad guys are sent to jail and given every opportunity to rehabilitate. Good guys who are, justifiably, frustrated with the legal system; are put in the clink and the key is tossed away as a means of punishment for taking the law into their own hands. Something wrong with this picture, if you ask me.  Let’s either rehabilitate everyone or punish everyone. This case also opposes the theory that mental illness is the root of most crime and therefore deserves our understanding. I’m no doctor, but I’m betting the dad in this matter suffered a great deal of it. Forty years.

Nice person mentions this week: Kevin MacKay, Dennis Blum, Hayley Citron, and Josh Morales.