WCHA apologize for Friday screw up

The 60 Minutes, No Alibis, No Regrets blog was able to obtain a draft of the new apology letter to the Wisconsin Men’s Hockey team being written by the WCHA “leadership” of Bruce McLeod and Greg Sheppard.


Dear Coach Eaves;

 It is with sincere regret that Friday’s WCHA contest between the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs and the Wisconsin Badgers ended in the manner that it did at the Kohl Center. An obvious tripping call on the Badger Jake Gardiner was not called, allowing the Bulldogs to score late in the overtime session.

Greg Sheppard and I have discussed Friday’s game with both on ice referees Tim Walsh and Brian Thul. I assure you that we are reviewing their performance this weekend and will issue an appropriate punishment to them in accordance with WCHA policy. I’m sure you were puzzled by their review of the overtime goal on Friday night. They assured me that they looked for every conceivable reason to disallow the goal to make up for their incompetence, but were unable to find a legitimate reason.

In the past, WCHA officials have regularly blown their whistle too soon when the puck was clearly not controlled by the goaltender, having to wave off legitimate goals, but unfortunately we couldn’t play that card this weekend to help your team out. And we all remember how Randy Schmidt totally blew that last second goal against Denver back in 2008; again sorry about that one Mike.

Here at the WCHA we strive to make the best conference in Men’s DI Hockey into a weekly clown show through horrible and inconsistent officiating (we spread the wealth around on bad calls, you know that) and pathetic conference administration and leadership. Our officials meet the highest standard of excellence completing the required workshops on “the NCAA rulebook, who needs that shit,” “making the right call is the wrong decision” and “letting the game get out of hand, oh what fun!”

While Wisconsin has certainly had its share of missed calls, which may or may not have cost your team an NCAA berth or conference home ice in the past few seasons, every team in the WCHA (except for my beloved Denver Pioneers) have consistently been screwed over by our WCHA crews.

If there is one thing you can count on in the WCHA, when our officials do screw up, I will be prompt with an insincere apology letter expressing my deepest regrets for continuing to let our officials do a bad job each weekend across WCHA arenas. We are good at writing letters, and at making players write apology letters to mascots when they assault them. Making the right call on the ice, we’ll leave that to professionals.

In closing, again Greg Sheppard and I express our sincere regret that our on ice officials again cost you points in the WCHA standings. We’d like to assure you that it won’t happen again, but we both know that is an empty promise. The only guarantee that we can extend is that the next time the WCHA officiates a contest for Wisconsin the officiating will be inconsistent and frustrating. It is likely the game will get out of hand or a call on a goal will be blown, but we assure you that our next apology letter will not only be thoughtful and sent quickly, but that it won’t be a duplicate of the one you are reading right now.

Sincerely,

Bruce McLeod
WCHA Commissioner and Clown Shoes in Chief