Whl Referees Take A Hit From Rival Coaches Inconsistencies, Player Injuries Concern Chiefs, Winter Hawks

Players in both locker rooms were still coming down from Sunday night’s spirited 5-5 tie when the coaches of two of the top clubs in North American junior hockey took up a familiar refrain.

The quality of officiating has to improve.

The one thing - maybe the only thing - coaches Mike Babcock of the Spokane Chiefs and Brent Peterson of the Portland Winter Hawks agreed on in Memorial Coliseum was the continued inconsistency of Western Hockey League referees.

Referee John Potter called the Chiefs-Portland game the night after he did the Tri-City-Spokane game, when he called a match penalty on Chiefs center Greg Leeb. Leeb was ejected for high sticking.

Typically, WHL rules call for at least a two-game suspension for a match, which means the Chiefs scoring leader may have to sit out Wednesday night’s rematch here with the improving Kelowna Rockets.

Potter let the teams play Sunday night, meaning by the third period the approach was no carnage, no call.

“I saw some slashes tonight that were way more blatant than anything that happened (Saturday night in Tri-City),” Babcock said.

Without identifying players, Babcock refers to Portland’s Marty Standish, who gave Spokane’s Rick Berry a whack that Spokane general manager Tim Speltz said was an obvious penalty.

Perry Johnson of Spokane and Standish carried on a personal war through the night. The enmity goes back to preseason when Standish broke then-captain Joel Boschman’s thumb here with a two-hand slash.

The two players - Johnson and Standish - were tied up at center ice 4:05 into the third period when Johnson freed himself with a kick to Standish’s midsection. Standish crawled off the ice to the Portland bench. The initial fear was he’d been cut by Johnson’s skate, but apparently he just had the wind knocked out of him because he returned.

Speltz said he could pick out video clips that would demonstrate why Johnson was frustrated enough to kick free of the sticky Standish.

“I’m not criticizing Standish - he’s a great player for them who does what he has to to play in this league,” Speltz said. “But that’s why you have a referee.”

The Chiefs outshot Portland 16-3 in the third period. Dominating the game in Portland’s end would lead you to think the Winter Hawks had to do something to fight back, Speltz said.

Like hook, hold and slash.

Yet nothing was called, other than three matching minors.

Speltz said referees have to do more in the third period than keep a game close.

Peterson said his team is aware that late in a playoff atmosphere the referee will let nearly everything go.

“It’s wrong,” Peterson said. “They (WHL referees) do a terrible job, but that’s the way they’re going to call it and we know it. You can’t change it. They can say they’ll call the game like it’s supposed to be called, but they’ll never do it. They don’t have the courage to.

“There’s not one guy (in the WHL) who has the courage to call the rule book.”

One WHL executive said talking about referees is a “cash cow” for the league office. Coaches and GMs vent their frustration and some end up fined for levying criticism.

Portland’s Andrej Podkonicky was injured in Sunday night’s second period. He sat out the third with what Peterson said was a groin injury caused by a spearing incident.

“And not even a call,” the Portland coach said.

How badly was Podkonicky hurt?

“Pretty bad,” Peterson said. “Speared right in the groin. No penalty. When you lose players from a spear, that’s when I care. We don’t have enough players.”

Apart from critiquing the impossibly difficult job of officiating a major junior hockey game, Peterson had an interesting observation on where the two clubs tend to play their best.

“We seem to play better and get more chances on them in their building,” the Portland coach said. “Any time you can go in their building and take four out of five (which the Winter Hawks did this year) you’re doing something right. (But) they play really tough in here. They’re 1-1-1 with us here (in Memorial Coliseum). I don’t know what it is.”

One explanation is motivation.

“This (Portland) for us was a way bigger situation than last night (Tri-City) was,” Babcock said.

Chiefs captain Trent Whitfield agreed.

“We knew that if we came out for Portland the way we did in Tri-City, we’d be done,” Whitfield said. “Done in the first 20 minutes. Twenty guys came out hard. We’d like to have had two points (for the win), but we’ll take one point against this team anytime.”

The Winter Hawks also talked like a team happy to rise to the bait.

“Games like this are fun,” Portland’s Todd Hornung said. “They get you ready for the playoffs.”

Have Chiefs escaped goalie hell?

Babcock divides the 72-game regular season into 12-game segments. He, and his goaltenders, Aren Miller and David Haun, were glad to see the previous segment end.

Asked if Miller is again his starter after the 5-5 tie in Portland, Babcock hesitated. “Whomever’s playing (on a given night) is the goaltender,” he said. “This last segment was the goaltender voodoo segment, the one from hell. Now that that’s over, they’re both going to be unbelievable.”

That may be a little optimistic, but even so, “they’re both glad to be done with that segment,” the coach said. “I don’t know what it was, but they’re both ready to get goaltending back on the map for the Spokane Chiefs.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Coming up Kelowna at Spokane, Wednesday at 7:05 p.m.