So to review:- Toronto comes to Ottawa to play a hockey game.
- With two and a half minutes to play in the third, Toronto is one point back.
- Toronto Coach Wilson calls for a stick measurement on Jason Spezza.
- Spezza's stick is deemed illegal, and Spezza is sent to the penalty box for two minutes.
- Toronto fails to win the game.
- Coach Wilson admits that he's knowns Spezza had an illegal stick all season, but decided to wait until a potentially game-changing moment to call him on it.
- Coach Wilson gets all huffy that his integrity gets challenged over the call.
Well, there you have it. Working Class Howard did question Ron Wilson's integrity by suggesting that he sat on the stick measurement back when it would have made more of a difference (I don't get it. Do you get more points for wins in November?). Ronnie's reply is spot on. They weren't down by a goal with just over two minutes left in those games. I guess the reason Wilson got so angry is because it's hard having your integrity challenged by someone that has shown that he does not possess any.See, it's crap like this that makes people wonder about your integrity. If he knew about the stick and didn't call him on it, then either he was OK with the rules violation or he was respecting this nebulous "code" that the coaches have to turn their backs on each other's equipment... let's call them irregularities.
But he did call for the measurement, which means either he wasn't OK with the rules violation (which makes his earlier silence on the matter odd) or he doesn't care about this "code".
Yes, Spezza had an illegal stick. Yes, he deserved to get called on it. Yes, Wilson's actions are legal, strictly speaking, because the rule book doesn't explicitly say anything about you having a requirement to call out violations you know about in a timely manner.
Maybe it should. Maybe it should have a passage about preserving the integrity of the game.
But it's an angle-shot. It is a cheap, lite-beer call. It shatters the illusion that the teams are trying to play the game within both the spirit and the letter of the rules to the best of their abilities, and that the team with the best game wins, not the team with the best lawyer wins.
And for that, yes, Coach Wilson should have his integrity challenged.
Sadly this is perfectly fitting with the rest of the amateur-hour officiating that happens in this league.
(You know, the officiating that leads to the requirement that players be permitted to fight to deter blatant rules violating behavior.)
