Make-up calls exist in every sport, at every level. Whether they are right or wrong doesn’t matter, they happen. It’s human nature and referees are human beings, even if fans and parents sometimes don’t treat them as such. But when the make-up calls are blatant and a microphone picks up a referee saying he made that kind of call for the world to see, now it matters.
During Tuesday night’s game between the Detroit Red Wings and Nashville Predators, Referee Tim Peel, a 22-year veteran NHL referee, was caught on a “hot mic” saying to another referee that he had made a make-up call on the Predators. Although his words were a little different…
*UDATE: Peel was not talking to another referee, but rather Flilp Forsberg and the Nashville bench, according to Matt Duchene. Which makes this all the more bizarre.*
(Warning: NFSW Language)
Maybe if you're a mic'd up ref, you shouldn't express how you wanted to call a penalty against a team earlier in the game, changing how you ref the rest of the game.
"It wasn't much but I wanted to get a fuckin' penalty against Nashville early in the…"#Preds #LGRW pic.twitter.com/6fZImkdqLr
— Matt Best (@bestofmatt) March 24, 2021
Peel can be heard saying he, “It wasn’t much, but I wanted to get a f*****g penalty against Nashville early-” before the mic cuts out. Essentially admitting that he was purposefully making up a call against the Predators to even out the calls with Detroit.
That didn’t sit well with the league. On Wednesday morning, the NHL announced that Peel, a veteran of nearly 1,400 games in the regular and postseason (and two Blackhawks outdoor games), would no longer be working games this season or in the future.
Referee Tim Peel no longer will be working NHL games now or in the future. https://t.co/mrnDc61W5P pic.twitter.com/tKsg2SwGh8
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) March 24, 2021
Peel was reportedly supposed to retire from the NHL after this season.
The league HAD to do something. In the past, referees making bad calls almost always went unpunished by the league, even when calls were reviewed after games. With the audio to back up the claims of a blatant make-up call, the league’s hand was forced to punish Peel.
There’s real dollars riding on each and every NHL game, and for a league that just recently got into the gambling scene, you can’t go around looking like you don’t care that you have referees clearly making up calls that impact the game. Again, it’s not the first time and certainly won’t be the last time a NHL referee has a make-up call, but they’ll be sure their microphones are off the next time they make one.