WinterSports2002.com, Saturday, February 23, 2002

Russians grumble at hockey officiating

By Jody Genessy
Deseret News Olympic specialist

WEST VALLEY CITY — From Russia, with lots of sour grapes.

Yep, another day, another Russian controversy or three at these Olympics.

A week after the IOC awarded gold medals to Canada's figure-skating pair and a day after Russian leaders threatened to pull out of the Winter Games altogether, part of the delegation from the former Soviet Union's largest republic was grumbling again.

Bartender, serve up another Russian whine, please please.

This time the Russian complaints came after the country's disappointing 3-2 loss to the United States in the semifinals Friday night at the E Center.

Russia coach Slava Fetisov believes this is just a repeat of the pairs figure-skating dilemma in the sense that North America is getting what it wanted. In the skating conflict, Canada's pair received gold medals after a public outcry about alleged fixed results. Now, Canada and the U.S. are getting the dream hockey grand finale Sunday that two-thirds of North America drooled over.

"It was designed to have Canada and United States in the finals," Fetisov said. "And that's what you have."

Fetisov bristled about the officiating, which had come under scrutiny by the Russian Olympic Committee after the victory over the Czech Republic on Wednesday. Even Friday, the Russian parliament threatened to tell the team to pack its bags if the officials were from North America. They were. They had to be due to an agreement with the NHL.

And Fetisov noticed.

"They definitely didn't help us for sure," he said of the officials. "They're professional referees, but they live here. They know the players. They are Americans and Canadians."

So, it's only natural, Fetisov hinted, that they would swallow a whistle to favor their countries as well.

His examples from Friday's game:

• Russia believes U.S. captain Chris Chelios got away with an illegal hit to the head on forward Sergei Samsanov in the frantic final minutes.

• Fetisov was upset that the Americans didn't get penalized more in the third period, when Russia put on an aggressive attack. Brett Hull was sent to the sin bin at 50:19 for hooking, but he was the only one until Chelios' infraction with one second left.
  

  Said Fetisov: "The whole third period is in the U.S. zone, and we only get one power play."

• Russia was also mad that Samsanov was not credited with what would have been a game-tying goal on Russia's only power play opportunity in the third. Samsanov whacked the puck at U.S. goalie Mike Richter a couple of times, and the puck hit the sprawled-out Richter, the two posts and the cross-bar. Russia thought it passed the goal line, but the refs didn't review it. No goal.

In all, Russia was penalized six times compared to four American infractions. Though Darius Kasparaitis griped at ref Bill McCreary when the game ended and Daniil Markov got suspended for today's bronze-medal game because of "verbal abuse of an official," at least one Russian believes the game was won by the U.S. players, not the refs.

"I think it was pretty fair," said goalie Nikolai Khabibulin of the officiating. "We should try not to look for some fault with the refereeing."

And take all the fun out of the newest Olympic sport — whining?

E-MAIL: jody@desnews.com

© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company