Tyler Johnson – Stop being an ECHL Ref - Mon, Apr 14, 2008

Dear Mr Tyler Johnson (#24) of the ECHL Ref Squad.

You don’t know me, but I am a fan of the Stockton Thunder. On the playoff game against the Las Vegas Wranglers, I witnessed so many missed, botched, and generally bad calls that not only did I feel sorry for you, but I felt embarrassed for you.

The final call of the night that lost us the game was your crowning achievement. You see, I was at glass level, and since there was a delayed penalty on the play I was watching for you to blow the whistle to end the play once Las Vegas regained control of the puck. However you never did. Stockton’s player had the puck for a full 2 to 3 seconds and no whistle was blown. We scored to win, but you waved it off saying that it was made after the whistle blew. Does the puck glancing off of the goalie to go into the net count as “possession” and is grounds to end the play? How can the whistle blow when you in fact never blew it? You wonder why not only myself, the rest of the fans, AND the entire team went ballistic on you. You made a horrible call. You screwed up big time and did not have the courage to admit it. You skated off with your tail between your legs and hid while the players gave you dirty looks and the crowd threw things at you. You see, we see everything, and the amount of blantant in-your-face calls that you “missed” were more than we could take. Everyone could see the look on your face that you in fact realized your error, but just sat there and did nothing.

Thanks a lot, thanks for costing my team the win over the #1 team in our league. Thanks for showing our players that the entire game of hockey is not how hard you play, or how much you practice, but what “favors” you give to the head ref.