This just in from Greg Wyshynski, aka PuckDaddy on Yahoo! Sports, about the clock not starting after a faceoff late in last night’s Caps-Bruins game:
‘Patrice Bergeron and Brooks Laich came set for a faceoff with the clock reading 9.5 seconds left in the third period. The puck was dropped, the Capitals won the draw, the puck went to the corner, then to the right point and then over to the left point for a shot by Johnny Boychuk.
During that entire sequence, the clock didn’t move.
Why? Mike Murphy, NHL Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations, released a statement after the game explaining the huge snafu:
“With 9.5 seconds remaining in the third period, there was a stoppage and resulting face-off in the Washington zone. During the stoppage, the game clock operator and Series Manager determined that 0.9 seconds should have been added to the time remaining in the third period and attempted to contact the on-ice officials to delay the puck drop to accommodate making the necessary clock adjustment to 10.4 seconds remaining.
“The off-ice officials were not able to attract the attention of the referees or linesmen despite sounding the horn, which was not audible due to crowd noise, and the puck was dropped.”‘
I love that last quote: “The horn was not audible due to crowd noise.” That’s a foghorn, folks … right around 100-110 db.
Welcome to playoff hockey.
thistownvt 