“It was in” – screams rang out in the home hall of the Calgary Flames when the goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff the number was frozen last season. The same had also happened before, when another club legend was suspended Jarome Iginlan number.
The shout (translated as “it was a goal”) says that Calgary supporters are still convinced of stealing the Stanley Cup victory exactly 20 years ago, on June 5, 2004.
At the beginning of summer 2004, Calgary Flames and Tampa Bay Lightning played in the final series. In the sixth game, the series was interrupted for Calgary.
In the third period, the Flames were able to attack when there were about seven minutes left in the game and the situation was tied. Martin Gelinas rush to the goal, and the puck deflected off his skate. Tampa goalkeeper Nikolai Habibul got his mattress in front, but the mattress was on the worse side of the finish line.
The puck hit the goalkeeper’s mattress and bounced away. But which side? There was no perfect answer to that with the paint cameras of the time.
“We looked at numerous camera angles, from which the puck was only visible in one. Based on the angle and the fact that the puck was in the air and upright, we did not get enough evidence that the puck crossed the goal line as a whole”; argued the NHL’s director of hockey operations Colin Campbell solution after the game According to ESPN.
In the end, the game went to overtime in a tie. Playing with their backs against the wall, Tampa Bay turned the game around and took the seventh game as well. Calgary was left licking its fingers and wounds.
Kiprusoff in addition, a defender also played from Finns in the team Toni Lydman and the attacker Ville Nieminen.
“Still, that goal comes up at regular intervals in the so-called smoking area discussions,” says Nieminen.
Gelinas himself has spoken about the situation several times. The last time was at the beginning of June in the New York Timeswhere the situation was reviewed.
Gelinas says that he judged the situation above all in terms of his own reaction. The game continued to roll for twenty seconds. Gelinas thought that by airing the hit, he would have ensured that the situation would be watched on video.
“If I could live that moment over again, I would raise my hand. As if to say, ‘Hey, that was a goal,'” Gelinas reflected.
When the next timeout came, the referees dropped the puck into play without consulting the video referees. Nieminen recalls that the players did not particularly demand that the situation be checked.
“There was such a group that there were no questions asked for mercy,” says Nieminen.
If one thing is certain, and that is that Gelinas’ goal will continue to be talked about in Calgary as surely as it is in Finnish SM league circles about whether Jokerien made Otakar Janecky with the high stick of the 1994 championship goal.
Calgary hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1989, with a finals berth in 2004 still the last time the team was the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.
Gelinas’ goal quickly became the talk of the town. According to the New York Times, ABC created a graphic representation of the hit in the seventh final with its production technology, based on which the puck would not have crossed the goal line.
The currently used coaches’ challenge was not introduced in the NHL until the 2015–16 season. Similarly, cameras inside the goal were only added later.
With today’s technology, mythical and story-evoking unclear goals are becoming less common, as cameras reach more. Nieminen stands by technological development, albeit with a small reservation.
“I’m a supporter of modern technology, but there should be an understanding of talc feeding. At least mix it as talc so it doesn’t stick in the throat. When you rewind offsides that have been half a minute back with a minute hand, it’s completely pointless,” says Nieminen.
Great Miikka Kiprusoff, who played in Calgary’s goal this spring, refused to be interviewed for this story, but the goalkeeper commented on the situation in connection with his shirt suspension last season.
“I would have to say it was a goal. Because it was a goal,” Kiprusoff said.
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