The diving of many players this season and post season has gotten out of hand. The league needs to take a serious look at players falling and faking injuries to draw a call.
If it's an unsportsman call in the game, or a review and a fine after the fact, something needs to be done.
I'm not going to single anyone out, or site specific plays, we've all seen them in every game of every series. It's always been a small part of the game, but seems to be a growing problem.
The NHL needs to address this, because it's starting to look like soccer out there.
Anonymous2011-04-28T09:03:02Z
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First let me say i hate diving and this it has no place in the sport but really it would be too hard for the refs to be alret enough to call 100% of diving calls they cant watch everyone at the same time and pay just as much attention to their fhead looking for a high stick as they can looking at the players feet to watch them leep in the air to fall to the ground.. its just stupid what i do think should happen is a 5 min pen for the times where the stick gets too close to their head and they throw their head back like they are lucky they were not just decapitated.. when you do get cought the punishment should be severe so its just not worth the risk
Definitely. Officiating is a difficult job, and sometimes penalties are called out of the corner of someone's eye. Some penalties occur behind the play, which would require the referees to have two sets of eyes. So will they make incorrect calls? Of course they will...
However, the "diving" penalty hasn't really been called very often. Sure, here and there... Such as yesterday when Letang took a flop. The referees have almost decided to either call a penalty (tripping, roughing, etc.) or not call the penalty if it was a dive. By not enforcing the diving penalty call, guys have no incentive not to dive. Maybe they'll get a call, and if they don't, they just get back up. Enforcing the diving penalty will make these guys stay on their feet.
The league reviews all instances that appear to be diving after every game. If the perpetrator is a repeat offender he is cautioned by the league. If it occurs again he is fined. If it continues the fine increases and a suspension could result. To date there have been no suspensions. Before every game the officials meet and discuss any specifics about the game, such as divers, grudges etc. The coaches and players are warned before the game. Sometimes during a game officials will warn players about this. And often they will ignore penalties which might have received a little too much embellishment.
good luck trying to get all players to not dive, there's always going to be players who dive, even in high school hockey we had a couple of small forwards who would draw penalties by diving and all the coaches would say to them is Good Job as we began to own on the powerplay. I'm not saying I like it but it already became a part of the game a long time ago, yes the refs need to call it better and a fine actually doesn't sound too bad, you make a good point