Moray Typhoons 4 Paisley Pirates 3
(Typhoons win on Golden Goal)
In a night of sheer mayhem approaching pantomime farce, Pirates maintained their dismal record of failing to win a Scottish Cup tie in almost 9 years, as they fell 4-3 to Moray Typhoons in a match which chalked up almost 200 minutes in penalties.
The visitors were behind in the 5th minute as Durkacz opened the scoring for the hosts, and with penalties being liberally handed out by referee Young from just after the opening marker, both teams had difficulty in retaining five skaters and the hosts doubled their lead just after the halfway point in the period as Russell netted a second for Typhoons during the chaos. Pirates came back and reduced the deficit four minutes later as McCamley got on the end of a move with Cowan and Wilson to put his team onto the board and they headed for the dressing room 2-1 behind.
The Renfrewshire side were level only three minutes into the middle session as Conaboy fired home on the powerplay, but their equal status lasted barely 90 seconds as the home team were ahead again through Munro. While there were no more goals during the period, the penalties continued to flow with the referee unable to keep control of a game in which a number of illegal challenges went unpenalised.
Pirates had a goal chalked off by the referee who, having first awarded the goal and then prepared to drop the puck for the re-start, then changed his mind and after an argument with the goal judge, who found himself summarily dismissed from the action thereafter by the official, chalked it off. In spite of playing with a numerical disadvantage for much of the period, as in fact they had done for most of the match, they continued to push forward and were finally rewarded with an equaliser less than 3 minutes from the end of regulation time, as Wilson grabbed the lifeline to tie the scores before the end.
However, in spite of the rules clearly stating that a drawn cup tie should be resolved by immediate progression to penalty shots, the referee ordered overtime. Pirates should have been awarded a penalty shot when Moray were called for having too many men on the ice during the final session, but once again the official ignored the rule book and the home side scored after almost five minutes of further mayhem, penalties, and utter confusion, to be declared the winners.
Pirates have filed an official complaint regarding the events of the night and, as yet, await an outcome. They return to Elgin on 13 December on league business.
PAISLEY PIRATES-UPDATE
Paisley Pirates coach Ian Turley was still angry and frustrated after a weekend which saw his side slip out of the Scottish Cup after a shambolic and highly controversial evening at Elgin, his side going down 4-3 in overtime, courtesy of a golden goal awarded to the home side.
“This is going to sound like sour grapes even before I say it, but there comes a point where the level of refereeing gets so low that player safety is put at risk, and there were a number of occasions on Saturday night where I seriously wondered whether I should be pulling the players off the ice” he raged. “I know referees have a difficult job to do, but I have a responsibility to look after the players’ safety, and on Saturday night the level of incompetence displayed by the referee was such that I was close to pulling the players off during the game, and risking the very severe consequences to the club which that would bring. I asked a number of times in the course of the game to have a word with him, all within the rules, but after ignoring me for most of the game he told me I was on my first warning, yet we hadn’t had an exchange of words up until then.”
“Our players were taking cross checks to the head, and from behind, which were going unpunished by the referee, yet when we complained, we were being penalised. Now, as anyone will tell you, we’re perfectly capable of looking after ourselves on the ice when the occasion merits it, but you have to be competing on a level playing surface to do that, and let’s just say we were climbing a slippery slope for 60 plus minutes.”
“He disallowed a goal after first awarding it a full minute earlier, before going back to the goal judge, disallowing our goal, although the judge said the puck had definitely crossed the line, and then, after arguing with the goal judge, dismissed him from the game. In overtime he called Moray for having too many men on the ice, but that merits an automatic award of a penalty shot to the other side. A bench minor was given even after our captain explained the ruling in depth as per the IIHF handbook. A penalty shot in overtime could obviously have won us the game. To compound matters, the decision was made to play overtime when the rules in cup competition state that a drawn tie should immediately go to penalty shots, without overtime.
“We can take losing games when they are played according to the rules. This one wasn’t for which it is important that our club addresses the issue, something which we’ve never had to do before. We’re scheduled to be going there in under 3 weeks on league business, and, as I say, I have a duty to look after the safety of the players, something I could not do in our last encounter. We believe the cup match should effectively be replayed, given that the rules were not followed in this instance and I will be raising my concerns should the same official be scheduled in to referee any of our future games.”