A reader sent along some photos from a meeting room in a Pittsburgh hotel, taken earlier this week, that appear to contain notes from the NHL officials’ meeting before Game 4 of the Rangers-Penguins series.


There’s no “Get Sidney his hat trick and make this go seven” anywhere (though conspiracy theorists will note the Rangers-colored markers), it’s still neat to see how the refs plan for these games, and how they have react to series trends every bit as actively as coaches.

There were three pages of notes sent to us. The first emphasizes protecting goalies, perhaps as a response to the Penguins taking some shots at Henrik Lundqvist in Game 3:


The second page advises about icing and faceoffs, and emphasizes keeping an eye on the increasingly scrappy meetings between Dominic Moore and Maxim Lapierre.

The third page talks about brooking no funny business, and is very heavy on exclamation points. “Grab the cowboy who’s trying to take the law into his own hands!!”


Refs on three! One, two, three, REFS!