refs - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Girls can talk trash, tooDepending on whatever echo chamber you’ve decided to inhabit on social media, the final of the Women’s college basketball tournament might sound very different than it does to someone else. I’m sure for all the genuine college basketball fans out there, and especially LSU fans, all there is is an ap...

We should be trying to find ways to extend, not shorten, college football gamesSince when did we start caring so much about the length of sporting events? MLB’s rush to shorten games seems like a direct response to society’s inability to be bored for any length of time. My favorite thing to do on the train in the morning is tally the people who aren’t looking at their phones a...

Again? Seriously?I’m tired. Of officials blowing big, important calls in the playoffs, mostly, but also of having to write blogs about them that try to say something more intelligent than well, it’s bad to get these calls wrong in such big moments, but also being an NHL official is a difficult job and even the best ...

What Happened To All The Interesting Refs?

One of the nerdier things a basketball fan can do at 9 a.m. Eastern Weirdo Time is to go to the NBA website and glom onto the identities of the officials who will work whatever game interests you True, NBA ref nerddom is an exceedingly small subset of Nerdvania, but let a thousand sets of hipster gl...

The Blues Got Screwed By Yet Another Officiating Disaster

Images the NHL wants to linger after an hard-fought overtime game: the jubilation of the goalscorer; his teammates erupting on the bench and spilling over to celebrate on the ice; the disappointment and hard-earned exhaustion of the losers, skating off in disbelief....

The NBA Got Out Of Basketball's Way

When Allie LaForce was dispatched to get a postgame interview from Tuesday’s Rockets-Warriors game, she or maybe her producer chose the sport’s third eye, Klay Thompson. Not bad, as these things go. Thompson is always a better choice than nearly anyone else for these say-little-and-then-go-inside se...

If This Is Rockets-Warriors, Let's Just Get It Over With As Soon As Possible

In case you ever decide to hate sports without the crutch of a rooting interest, financial, familial, or simply laundry-based, here’s your ticket. The pre–NBA Finals NBA Finals are already a drunken bar argument, and they’re only going to get worse. The Houston Rockets ... the Golden State Warriors ...

You're Not Supposed To Be Allowed To Do This

It’s not that points matter any more as the weather turns warmer—they count just as much in November as they do in March—but this is the part of the season where every blown, salvaged, earned, or gifted point comes with the attached hyperawareness. The Dallas Stars are in the thick of it, two points...