Reviewing a review: WHL admits call was blown during Blades’ loss

The WHL has apologized for a botched video review during the Saskatoon Blades’ game Wednesday, but an apology won’t change anything in the East Division standings.

In a media release Friday, the league said it had reviewed the situation that arose in the second period of Saskatoon’s 5-4 overtime loss to the visiting Brandon Wheat Kings.

Ben Thornton put Brandon up 2-1 with a power-play goal 5:55 into the second, but as he and his teammates celebrated, Blades head coach Brennan Sonne challenged the play, saying there should have been an offside call at the blue line.

After a video review that took about 10 minutes, the video goal judge allowed the call to stand.

On Friday, the league admitted it was a blown call.

“Due to technical issues in the video review booth, the video goal judge did not receive a video feed providing all of the angles and slow motion replay required,” the WHL said in its statement. “Subsequently, the video goal judge determined the play at the blue line to be inconclusive and, as a result, the goal remained as called on the ice.

“After this determination was made by the video goal judge, the videoboard in-venue showed a video feed of the play different than what was available to the video goal judge and which showed that the play was offside. The challenge by Saskatoon should have resulted in the Brandon goal being disallowed.”

The league apologized for the technical issues and said it was “working diligently to ensure similar problems do not occur in the future.”