Accusation of cheating involving the Canadiens: a sequence captured on television that is causing a lot of talk for absolutely no reason

During the match between the Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning, we possibly witnessed the strangest goal of 2023, courtesy of Jonathan Kovacevic.

Review the sequence:


The video was all over the web in recent days, in all corners of the NHL, and let's just say we don't see that every day.


Anyway, the Tampa Bay Lightning fans were not happy, and in some cases, it went way too far. (and not only from Bolts fans)

Some even went so far as to outright accuse the referees of cheating in favor of the Habs, which makes no sense.

See one of the posts that really went viral (and the comments and shares that come with it). It has been viewed nearly 700,000 times. Incredible:


Following this post and this video, in which we simply see the referee make a small gesture to tell Kovacevic (and Montembeault) that the play continues and he has not whistled, articles surfaced accusing the referees of cheating.

Publications of this kind, you have sent us dozens.

However, it should be known that there is absolutely nothing strange about it.

The referee did absolutely nothing wrong, and he cheated even less.

A referee telling a goalie or a player that he hasn't whistled and that play continues is absolutely normal, harmless, and frequent. We see it practically in every game.

We are surprised to see that many fans and sites think it was a suspicious gesture and we wanted to correct the record.

The only people to blame in this sequence are the players and the goalie of the Lightning, who simply stopped playing while the referee hadn't even whistled. That's all. (and maybe the employee who played the music in the arena) End of story.

As seen on HouseOfHockey.net