Sounds like I missed a barn burner...and am definitely PO'ed it ended
on an arena timekeepers decision! Of course he'll say it went in
late! He is partial!!! Anyways, the article.




By SAL MAIORANA
STAFF WRITER


(January 4, 2004) — BUFFALO — Paul Day has been involved in indoor
lacrosse as a player or a coach for approximately 30 years, and he'd
thought he'd seen just about everything. He was wrong.

Saturday night at HSBC Arena the Rochester Knighthawks appeared to
tie their game against Thruway rival Buffalo on a goal by Derek
Malawsky as the final horn sounded, and one of the referees raised
his arms to signify the goal.

However, after a three-minute discussion during which the National
Lacrosse League officials ultimately based their decision on the
testimony of the arena timekeeper, the goal was waved off and the
Bandits escaped with a head-shaking 12-11 victory.

"There's one second left and the referee closest to the crease makes
the call that it's a goal and the other referee who called it off
never made a motion," said an enraged Day, who came racing across the
field to confront crew chief Paul Ravary.

"He (Ravary) went to the timekeeper's box to get their opinion. Why
are we getting their opinion at all? I'm closer on my bench to the
net than they are."

In one of the wildest finishes in Knighthawks history, Buffalo had
possession of the ball with 6.5 seconds left. All goalie Steve
Dietrich had to do was throw the ball to the other end of the floor
and the Knighthawks would have been doomed.

Instead, Dietrich tried to make a pass and he threw it out of play,
giving Rochester possession deep in the Buffalo zone with one second
remaining.

On the re-start whistle John Grant fired the ball toward the net
hoping for a miracle and he got one — or so he thought — as Malawsky
slipped in from the back side and cleanly one-timed the pass past
Dietrich just as the horn sounded.

Instant replay is not used to determine the outcome of plays in the
NLL, but a replay shown in the press box showed the ball entering the
net before the green light, located in the goal judge's box behind
the net, came on. The green light automatically illuminates when the
clock reaches 0:00.

The red goal light, which is operated manually by a judge who presses
a button, did not come on because once the green comes on, the red
cannot be lit. However, given human reaction time, there's no way the
red could have come on in this situation.

Without the benefit of video replay, Ravary asked the timekeeper if
the green light came on before the ball went into the cage and when
he said yes, that apparently was good enough for Ravary.

"I've never actually seen a scorekeeper reverse it," said Day, still
fuming 20 minutes after the fact. "Hopefully our scorekeeper in
Rochester would reverse it for us. That's definitely not the
protocol, I'm almost positive of that. The guys on the floor have to
make the call.

"They said the green light came on, but I don't think the goal judge
would have time to put the red light on before the automatic green
because he has to make sure the ball's in the net. It's impossible.

"With video replay there's no problem, it's a goal, but there's no
video replay so I'm not sure how they called that back."

Lost in the bizarre finish is that Rochester didn't play particularly
well and fell to 0-2 for the third time in the last six seasons.

"We battled all night long, we got behind, got back into it, but we
had little things that broke down so we have to fix those," said
captain Mike Hasen.

"It's tough playing these guys four times, but that means we've got
three more cracks at them."

As they were in their season-opening 13-7 loss to Philadelphia the
Knighthawks were sluggish on offense, and their power play was a
gruesome 3-for-9.

"We were awful," Grant said of the power play.

"That's two games in a row the power play has just not come through."

After a 6-6 deadlock in the first half, Buffalo opened a 12-9 lead
early in the fourth quarter on rookie A.J. Shannon's third goal of
the second half.

The Knighthawks, scoreless for nearly 17 minutes, rallied to within
12-11 with 2:12 to go when Grant whistled in a pair of long shots
1:47 apart to set the stage for the conclusion.

"I've never seen some guy who works the time clock change the play of
the game," said Grant, who had two goals and five assists. "I'm
awestruck, to tell you the truth."