Pronger blames Canada

"The league should make its own calls, not be pressured into anything by the media, and more to the point, the Canadian media.

"I think inconsistency in the refereeing has been there all season, let alone in the playoffs. All you've got to do is look at our games against Detroit. You could bring in other series. The referees have been very inconsistent from series to series, from game-to-game and from team-to-team. As you witnessed, [Thursday] night was an absolute joke.

"But that's neither here nor there. It's over with. I just hope going forward we're going to be on a level playing field."

— Chris Pronger

The best part of this saga, of course, is that Pronger didn't face any disciplinary action for trashing the officiating — something that is in itself a huge inconsistency given every other party that has made similar comments has been hit with a stiff fine this season.

A rule's a rule, as they say, and if you're going to hammer players and coaches for criticizing the referees, you've got to step up and do so every single time.