from Leo Roth of the Democrat & Chronicle,

In the National Football League, replay has taken the game hostage to the point where catches and fumbles have been given new interpretations and nobody is quite sure what just happened. And that spontaneous rush of joy fans feel reacting to a touchdown? It’s now muted waiting for some video geek in the league office and the referee in the peep-show booth to give a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Now hockey is skating on that slippery slope and it feels even worse.

Having a goal disallowed after reviewing an offside that 99.9 percent of the fans didn’t see is like taking a pin to all the balloons at a kid’s birthday party. Sam Reinhart’s goal last Tuesday in the loss to Dallas was a beauty. And Tyler Ennis was indeed offside. But the linesman missed it and we should’ve just lived with it and gotten the pleasure of hearing Ruff whine and cry afterward had his Stars lost.

By “getting it right’’ we got NHL 15 for Xbox.

I get that games can be decided by a blown offside. But on my list of things wrong with the NHL, that was number … well, it wasn’t on my list. If the NHL wants to start enforcing its rules for clutching, grabbing and interference – a proven solution for increasing scoring – then it can talk about taking hard-to-earn goals off the scoreboard.

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