I took my time to write this: Referees drive me nuts - Game 2: Minnesota 3 Colorado 2 (OT)

As a broken-down old newspaper columnist, I must admit that I find myself worshipping at the altar of the blog.

In the newspaper dodge, if you’re covering an event, you often find yourself on deadline, rushing to get the news out the other end of your laptop so the editor can butcher it and get it into print eight hours later.

Everyone has read copy from an otherwise terrific reporter that appears senseless and garbled because it arrived on deadline and the copy editors were either too stressed, too stupid or too lazy to make sense of it. That’s when reporters get their e-mail inboxes clogged with missives from readers that say, "Were you even at that game, you f*$*%#&g moron?!?"

It’s embarrassing and avoidable, but those of us who have been in the business understand that editors are like sports referees: they have authority and power, but sometimes you just can’t understand how they got their jobs.

And that’s why I waited 10 hours to write this post. I wanted to tap into the luxury of the blog. Nobody said I had to file it right after the game so as I watched the conclusion of Game 2 of the Minnesota-Colorado series on Friday night, I wanted to watch all the replays, listen to all the commentary and then, do it all over again in the morning.

My concern centered around two plays. A late penalty to Minnesota’s  Kim Johnsson with less two minutes remaining and the winning goal by Keith Carney - or allegedly, the winning goal by Keith Carney.

The Wild were leading 2-1, when the official (who shall remain nameless), called a hooking penalty on Johnsson. It was obviously not hooking by any definition, and thankfully, eagle-eyed commentator Darren Pang, on the TSN desk, made it clear that the offended, Ryan Smyth of the Avs, actually fell over the goal stick of Minnesota netminder Niklas Backstrom. It was, in fact, a dreadful call, left the Wild with four skaters to Colorado’s six and eventually resulted in Milan Hejduk’s tying goal.

The most annoying thing about any sporting event is when a bad call has an affect on the outcome. It makes the game look scripted. It’s an embarrassment.

In this case, it appeared to happen a second time, only on this occasion, to the benefit of the Wild.

In every replay I saw, Keith Carney’s slapshot that went past Jose Theodore, deflected off the skate of Brian Rolston, not off the skate of Colorado defenceman Ruslan Salei. In fact, commentator Pierre McGuire believed it might have been re-directed by Rolston and shouldn’t have counted. It looked pretty shaky, but in this case, the official went upstairs, got the green light from the video booth and the goal stood.

Perhaps it was the hockey gods. Perhaps they knew the penalty to Johnsson was just a horrible call at a very bad time in what was otherwise, a great hockey game. Perhaps someone or something divine just decided to even things up.

Whatever. On this night, the better team won - although that’s not to say the Wild are the "best" team in the series - and every one in St. Paul went home happy.

But sadly, a bad call at an odd time, made a great game look phoney. We all make mistakes, but sometimes you just have to wonder.

By the way, in four years at the National Post, I’ve had one angry e-mail — from a St. Mary’s University football fan who didn’t think the Vanier Cup champion University of Manitoba Bisons were as good as I’d suggested. Those are "good" angry e-mails.

I guess, to no one’s surprise, I’m now working with the best referees in the newspaper game.

And, to be fair, by the time we get to the Conference finals, we’ll be watching the best referees in hockey.

Frankly, I just feel better this morning. I feel better that I didn’t sit down at my computer last night, seconds after that awful call on Johnsson, and started to rant like a lunatic. It’s the beauty of the blog. You have time to sit back and take a measured look.

Although I’ve been noticing that a lot of us don’t.

Minnesota vs Colorado Game 2 highlights below - including that goal.