Recent games have brought the PWHL's officiating standards into question. The calls continue to be consistently inconsistent impacting the product and outcome of games.
After an interestingly-officiated game between the Vancouver Goldeneyes and the Ottawa Charge on Saturday afternoon, it was one of the league’s most powerful names, Sarah Nurse, who raised questions about the league’s standards when it comes to penalties.
“I felt like the game was pretty out of control today from puck drop, and I don’t think it ever got under control. I think that as we went through the game, everybody’s skating around not really knowing what a penalty is. That’s kind of frustrating. I think us, the referees, nobody really knows what’s a penalty. That gets frustrating because you go into a battle and you’re like, ‘Could I get called here? Maybe. Could I not? Maybe.’”
In Nurse’s case, the call that caused the most controversy was a slash to her hands that caused her stick to fly out of her hands during overtime. Ultimately, the play resulted in Nurse having to readjust to grab her stick while chasing down the rushing Charge, with Ottawa scoring the game-winner off the play.
After Ottawa had scored, Nurse had tried talking to a referee about the non-call, though she claimed that he “didn’t really want to have a conversation” and said she dropped her stick instead.
The result ended up being a confused Vancouver bench that took a little longer to get back out and complete the handshake line at the end of the game.
Nurse was one of a few players who ended up on the receiving end of non-calls that have sparked anger within the Goldeneyes’ fanbase. Izzy Daniel was called for illegal body checking towards the beginning of the third period, though a near-identical hit occurred only a couple of minutes after that went uncalled.
The calls (or non-calls) didn’t all go against Vancouver. A crosscheck to Taylor House’s neck on the Goldeneyes’ second goal of the game went uncalled, with the forward having to leave the ice due to the incident. In Ottawa’s case, had the play been called, this could have made the difference between two points versus three.
Photo Credit: Nancy Shields @ THNSaturday’s matchup between Vancouver and Ottawa is only one of a long stretch of intriguingly officiated PWHL games. Only a day before, a missed boarding call on Minnesota Frost forward Taylor Heise against Lexia Adzija of the Seattle Torrent also struck up some controversy. During the play, Heise shoulder-checks Adzija into the deep corner, sending her flying face-first against the boards. Adzija had this to say after the play:
“I think when dangerous plays aren’t called, you gotta protect yourself and you gotta protect your teammates. If those are called earlier in the game, I think you have a game that’s a lot more under control. Obviously, can’t control what the refs do. Gotta kinda work through that as a team. I think it’s just about the protection of the game."
This hit took place during the same game that saw Britta Curl-Salemme receive a two-minute penalty for a hit on Torrent forward Mikyla Grant-Mentis. The implications for this hit are vastly different, however, as Grant-Mentis left the game and may be out longer than expected or hoped for Seattle.
“It’s a call. Not sure how that’s not a 5-minute [major] or at least looked at. I mean, we’ve lost a key player, and probably long-term because of it,” Torrent Head Coach Steve O’Rourke said after his team’s loss.
There are many other instances of questionable officiating standards as of late, on high-stakes plays with points on the line. A 3–2 overtime matchup between the Frost and Toronto Sceptres produced yet another string of questionable non-calls both in regulation and in overtime.
“If you look at that first power-play goal against, there was a missed icing. We would have had an offensive-zone faceoff. Then there was a scrum where we cleared the puck out and the whistle was blown with the puck out. Instead of us being able to clear it and get a line change, we ended up with a defensive-zone faceoff and they scored. So to me, that moment there is probably bigger than the moment in overtime,” Sceptres Head Coach Troy Ryan had said post-game.
“It happens a lot. That one’s obviously so blatant, a broken stick in half with the puck sitting there on the goal-line, it makes it even harder when it’s a non-call,” Sceptres defender Renata Fast told The Hockey News’ Cee Benwell. “You just hope the refs learn from it, because that’s obviously crucial points right there, how tight the standings are right now. But at the end of the day there are missed calls a lot, it’s just that one was so blatant that you hope it gets called.”
The lack of consistency in calls is not a great sign for the PWHL’s officiating standards, especially at such a crucial point of the season for many teams. What makes this even more concerning is the fact that this result comes only a couple of months after changes were already made to the PWHL’s reviewing system, which eliminated the Coach’s Challenge in favour of having reviews decided by on-ice officials or the league’s central situation room. While many players will need to look past non-calls to focus on the better of their season, at the end of the day, it will be hard for them not to when some of these calls may dictate whether they make the playoffs or not.