Riga Ref Continues to Hound Hackett

[Renomitsu 934]

Riga, Latvia - Well, through 29 games, Apollo Hackett has 78 PIMs off of 89 hits. The discipline problem continues, but the league has ignored Hackett's pleas for lenience and safety from the potentially-psychopathic referee that follows the Reign around.

 

Fans have continued to collect footage of the stocky referee as he skates flawlessly backwards in Riga, staring at Hackett and whistling him for any tiny infraction he performs. When finally reached for comment, he responded in all capital letters because that's totally a thing that people can do in real life: "MUST ENSURE HACKETT IS RIGOROUSLY REGULATED. RULE BOOK WILL BE JUDGE OF HIM," with an oddly monotonous but imposing inflection to his voice, perhaps analogous to that of a killer robot. The ref was, on three occasions, seen pushing Hackett into opposing forwards and immediately whistling him for bad contact; the first time, Hackett protested and received another penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, and the defenseman has since accepted all penalties levied.

 

"I just want to be on the ice for my teammates; playing a penalty kill all the time would be awful for them. The last thing I want is for my team to be playing at a disadvantage all the time," the young defender was noted as saying.

 

"I'd like to point out, though, that our game against the Bears a few days ago did not have one particular ref, and that I didn't have any penalty minutes in that one," he stated, gesturing with his head to the stocky robot-ref.