Referee Wes McCauley once again at the center of some controversy

The Athletic put together another poll for 2024 and a couple of questions focused on the officiating and which referees were appreciated by NHL players, and which ones were…

The players spoke and with an impressive 53 percent of the vote, they crowned Wes McCauley as the best referee in the league. In second place, Kelly Sutherland landed 18.2% (24 votes) in voting and it does not come as a surprise.

“He’ll talk to you if you get a penalty,” one player said of McCauley to The Athletic. “He’ll tell you what you did wrong. He’s not one of those selfish guys who will try to take over a game. He’s one of the honest guys.”

However, McCauley also found himself in the second voting category, which was set up to determine who was the worst official in the NHL by the players.

While Justin St-Pierre was awarded the Worst Referee of the league with 27 votes, representing 29.4% of voting, he hasn’t worked all season due to a long-term injury.

McCauley comes in not far behind with 7.6% of voting, seven votes, as the worst referee of the NHL.

Apparently, when it comes to McCauley, you either love or hate, and the pool from the Athletic certainly makes that clear. Here are a few explanations from the article on why McCauley also landed in the worst referee voting:

“If McCauley and Sutherland got praised for their communication, the opposite was true for votes on worst ref, where commentary focused mainly on not giving players respect, being arrogant and being closed off to conversation.

“And, of course, the votes go with the calls. One player who voted for McCauley as the worst ref said it was nothing personal or about communication. It was just that “when I know he’s the ref, I (get called for a penalty) all the time.”

As always, McCauley knows how to find himself in controversy!

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