You are incorrect on two fronts.
1. It in fact WAS meant to officiated in a manner where there is an objective set of parameters in which the game is played. That is very, VERY clear in the rules that are written.
You say that like offside was never a subjective call, which is false. Look at rule changes since the league’s inception.
The rules on things like icing and offsides are binary - it either is or it isn't.
Icing most certainly does include subjective elements. It’s only an objective call in the most clear-cut circumstances.
The inherent objectivity of this rule is important for maintaining the integrity of the game. If you allow subjectivity or inconsistency in the enforcement of such clear-cut rules, THAT will lead to an overall lower quality and fairness of the game. Imagine if all of a sudden, icing and off-sides and goals were called with the same level of subjectivity that they call goaltender interference.
A referee making a mistake is not “subjectivity”.
Normal human mistakes were made on offside calls for 90 years, and nobody saw this as an urgent issue. It’s just part of the game, sometimes the ref sees the high stick and sometimes he doesn’t, either way you play on. That isn’t subjectivity, a high stick is a high stick, but this is in no way a game that was designed to be stopped and re-played every time a high stick happens.
2. The duration and frequency of offside reviews is so f***ing exaggerated here. In reality, these reviews occupy a negligible fraction of the total game time, especially when you look at it league-wide. In return, you get to ensure goals are actually goals within the defined rules. The minimal time invested in these reviews is a reasonable trade-off for the benefit of accuracy and, ultimately, fairness. People acting like these reviews are taking hours to complete are arguing in bad faith.
You have obviously never had the experience of being in the arena when a key goal is scored, having the whole place explode into a frenzy, then everything dies down and descends into a chorus of soft boos while the ref argues with the coach, the players skate to their bench looking up at the scoreboard, the ref finally goes over to talk to the scorekeeper, the ref comes back and announces the review to a louder chorus of boos, then the refs conduct the review while the Jumbotron shows frame-by-frame replays while 18000 people squint to see exactly where a skate was at a particular millisecond, then the ref comes out an announces no-goal to extremely loud boos, then the ref goes over and argues with the
other coach, eventually the coach sends out his guys for the next shift, then the furor dies down into a discontented mumble while they get set for the faceoff, and the loudspeakers play “let’s go ____ clap clap clap” which nobody participates in as they settle back down.
That feeling of the air slowly going out of a balloon deeply, deeply
sucks. In live-arena time that turnaround of several minutes feels like it takes forever, and it leaves the building dead and the game changed. Over what? A guy picking up his foot at 48:09:08 instead of 48:09:09? It’s not worth it. People are paying to be entertained, not frustrated to tears.
What if a running back is tackled at the 1-yard line? Close enough for a touchdown, yes? Or if a WR catches the ball with his feet on the white lines. Close enough right? Certainly, football and things like touchdowns and pass completions were never meant to be judged objectively, right? It would clearly lead to a lower-quality game if the officials took the time to review it, right?
I went to a football bowl game yesterday that took over FOUR HOURS to play.
I’m not even going to write more about it. FOUR HOURS.
The argument against these off-sides reviews highlights an inherent hypocrisy in the majority of posters here who believe that the game should be called fairly. The subtext to the argument is "MY team should be allowed to cheat in the game when it is advantageous". Nothing more.
Boy was tonight the wrong night for you to pull THAT card. Here’s my post from our GDT about two hours ago:
See, here’s me coming right back and saying a review like this is dumb as hell even if it ends up benefiting the Canes. The ref was all over that call, this is just throwing shit at the wall and making the game last longer.
I’m perfectly happy to watch an NHL where my team gets screwed by calls — guess what, I
already watch that 82 games a year! It’s sports, bad calls happen. Come at me with terrible calls. 90% of the sports fan experience is being mad about something, so nothing changes.
What I don’t want to watch is a stupid mini-game between the coaches where they try find a way to screw each other out of good hockey goals by litigating irrelevant crap that happened elsewhere on the ice.
