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Nikolas Gentilini pokes a power-play rebound past Denfeld goalie Connor Doyle with 3:06 remaining to life Cloquet-Esko-Carlton to a 3-3 tie in the Essentia Heritage Classic championship game. Denfeld won 4-3 in overtime. Photos by John Gilbert.

You can’t make this stuff up. As we embark on 2024, we find that our last taste of sports in 2023 and first sample of big-time sports in 2024 are both afflicted by the same thing — some of the worst, most questionable playing and officiating decisions have turned the outcome of huge games upside down.

It didn’t matter whether you were watching a high school hockey showdown at Essential Duluth Heritage Center, the NFL’s showcase in Dallas, the Minnesota Wild game in Winnipeg or the College Football Playoff semifinals in New Orleans or the Rose Bowl. Let’s round up a few of them, and you decide which were the worst or most astounding.

Let’s go to Dallas, or more specifically Arlington,Texas, where the powerful Dallas Cowboys were taking on the upstart Detroit Lions in the next-to-last NFL game that had playoff-seeding implications. Dallas looked potent, and gained a 20-13 lead in the final two minutes.

I had picked Detroit before the season started, because I really like Jared Goff’s quarterbacking, and the Lions have been transformed into a potent offensive and defensive team. Goff threw some strikes and led the Lions on a 75-yard march down the field on a drive in the final 1:19, when Goff fired an 11-yard touchdown pass to Amon-Ra Brown to make it 20-19.

The Lions, aggressive in their play-calling all season, went for a 2-point conversion and the victory, and they had a semi-trick play ready. Coach Dan Campbell had discussed the play before the game with the officials, informing them if the situation arose, he would have a normally ineligible receiver report in as eligible.

Denfeld goalie Connor Doyle spots the puck on goal line as C-E-C's Niko Gentilini arrives, far right.

When the play arose, No. 68, Taylor Decker could be seen running up the cluster of officials, where teammate Dan Skipper, another lineman and No. 70, already was consulting. The Lions lined up and Goff flipped a perfect pass to Decker, who caught the 2-point toss, and with 23 seconds left, the Lions had taken a 21-20 lead. After some discussion, however, the officials declared that Decker did not report, but that Skipper did report, and that no more than one player can report in such circumstances.

However, Rule 5, Section 3, Article 1 says there is no limit on how many ineligible players can report as eligible!

Confusion reigned, and got worse when the Lions retried and failed again on the 2-pointer. But this time, the Cowboys were offside, so the Lions got yet another chance. But Goff threw low to James Mitchell, circling up the left toward the end zone, and the pass failed.

Dallas got the victory, and a lot of impartial observers could only assume the officials favored the Cowboys, and were simply not going to allow the Lions to win. The call of an ineligible player not checking in, the erroneous explanation that only one ineligible player could check in, and the post-game explanation that Decker didn’t report when he clearly did — all add up to a controversy that the NFL should deal with front and center without hiding behind the usual cloak-and-dagger stuff to conceal their blunders.

That call shrouded the whole weekend for me, in my trusty recliner with my clicker in hand as I watched all sorts of other games, thrilling and disgusting.

Denfeld goalie Connor Doyle spots the puck on goal line as C-E-C's Niko Gentilini arrives, far right.

You want disgusting?

How about the Vikings playing quarterback roulette while Jason Love led the Green Bay Packers to an easy 33-10 romp? That leaves the Vikings still a possible playoff entry, but they are not close to worthy, and they could get blown out by four touchdowns against Detroit this final weekend.

But we can back off to Duluth’s Essentia Heritage Hockey Classic championship game, where Cloquet-Esko-Carlton has been on an upsurge, reaching the final game against Denfeld’s always-tenacious Hunters. I wrapped myself up in some heavy-warmth stuff to insulate my recent pneumonia from being noticeable, and grabbed my camera and headed out there.

It was a fast, ferocious game, where both teams played it physical. The Lumberjacks have reverted back to the day when their objective is to run into everything in an opposing jersey, and the Hunters simply will never be pushed around. The result was a penalty-fest, where the officials were hard-pressed to keep up with the rollerball hits.

Late in the game, the officials actually stopped play, called the captains over and had a lengthy discussion about how they were not going to stop calling penalties, and advised both sides to stop taking stupid penalties. It was 1-1 after one, 2-2 after two, and in the third period, Cory Backstrom, a winger on the potent first line, skated across the blue line and cut loose with a big shot.

From upstairs, I couldn’t tell if the puck went in or not, but my impulse was that it flew past the goal, possibly ticking the knob end of goaltender Logan Sickman’s stick and continuing on into the corner. I didn’t see any puck in the net. But one official pointed dramatically at the goal, signaling it had indeed gone in, for a 3-2 Denfeld lead at 6:10. Nobody argued, everybody looked puzzled. Play resumed.

With 3:06 left, and while penalties — stupid and otherwise — kept coming, the Lumberjacks kept pressing, while outshooting Denfeld 39-24, and Nikolas Gentilini pounced on a power-play rebound in the crease to tie the game 3-3. I thought that with the earlier questionable goal, overtime was fitting. Denfeld’s power play failed, but just after it ended, Cory Backstrom — the same kid — skated up the middle of the ice, got the puck and cut loose as he got to the blue line. His shot whizzed past Sickman and just inside the post for the game-winning goal at 3:00 of the overtime, and Denfeld skated away with the overtime victory.

A couple observers at that end of the rink assured me that the earlier goal was never in, but I have no conclusive evidence.

Back to football. The NCAA ignored Georgia in the final ratings, and I raved here last week that I thought Georgia deserved to be among the four finalists for the championship playoff, ahead of either Alabama or Texas. Turns out, Alabama was really good, but lost to Michigan 27-20, missing a chance to reach overtime when a final plunge saw the running back trip over his lineman’s leg and fall in a heap as time expired. Texas was really good, too, but Washington quarterback Michael Peniz, a tall, poised, left-handed gun, went 29-38 for 430 yards and two touchdowns in a precision show that boosted the Huskies to a 34-21 cushion. But the Huskies, unaccustomed as they are to such big-game challenges at the end of the season, made some absolute blunders — such as a lineman racing down on unit coverage and bumping the punt-catcher to add a vital 15-yards onto the final Texas chance.

The game evolved to Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers guiding the Longhorns down to fourth down and 11 at the Washington 13, with 0:01 showing. He got his receiver out in the right side of the end zone, but when he lobbed the potential game-tying pass, the Huskies defensive back went high and swatted the pass out of bounds to secure the 37-31 triumph. So Washington (14-0) faces Michigan (14-0) in Houston for the NCAA title.

Georgia? They humbled undefeated Florida State 63-3 in the Orange Bowl. My favorite, Oregon, hammered Liberty 45-6, as Bo Nix went 28-35 for 363 yards and five touchdowns, and a quarterback rating of 214.3. If the Washington Huskies win the NCAA title, they and the Ducks will have made a great final statement as the Pac-12 fades from view by next fall.  

The final return to officiating questions, when the Wild played home-and-home with Winnipeg, it was a spirited couple of games, and the Jets showed a great Duluth flair, with Alex Iafallo, Neal Pionk, Dylan Samberg and Dominic Toninato — all former UMD Bulldogs — playing solidly for the Jets.

But they also have a tough, nasty defenseman named Brenden Dillon. In his attempt to neutralize Minnesota’s offense, he started to deliver a series of nasty cross-checks to the rear and side of Kirill Kaprizov, every time the Wild star got near him in the congestion near the net or boards. None of about a dozen flagrant cross-checks was called, and finally we saw Kaprizov on the bench being tended by the trainer. Next day, Kaprizov was out of the lineup. Day after that, he’s gone onto the injured reserve list.

When officials allow such blatant cheap shots to go on, and they knock a league superstar out of the lineup the officials should be in line for a reprimand. But the NHL itself ruled that no further discipline was required! Happy New Year!