Chicago Blackhawks forward Connor Bedard was hit with a misconduct penalty for abuse of officials during Thursday’s game against the San Jose Sharks.

Midway through the third period with the Blackhawks trailing by one, Bedard appeared to be tripped up in the attacking zone. He appealed to the trailing ref, Chris Rooney, for a call before rejoining the play. After he arrived at the bench, Bedard – still standing – again yelled to Rooney, who was now in the Chicago zone.

The veteran ref skated to the bench and assessed a misconduct penalty for abuse of officials under Rule 39 – Abuse of Officials:

A player, goalkeeper, Coach or non-playing person shall not challenge or dispute the rulings of an official before, during or after a game.

More specifically, the rule calls for escalating penalties, going from a minor, to a misconduct, to a game misconduct for players who persist in unsportsmanlike conduct directed towards the officials. 

In this case, Bedard was given a 10-minute misconduct, with no loss of manpower on the ice for his team.  His absence alone, though, was enough, with the Blackhawks’ leading scorer unavailable for the remainder of the game. 

“I didn’t think it was too crazy, but he’s the ref, so he gets to make that call and you’ve gotta live with it,” Bedard said after the game. “You don’t really expect that, but it happens.”

Bedard went on to claim that he couldn’t recall exactly what he said to Rooney.

Here’s Jomboy to break it all down:

 

The San Jose Sharks went on to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-2. Referees for the game were Chris Rooney (#5) and Morgan MacPhee (#43); linespersons were Ben O’Quinn (#91) and Travis Gawryletz (#67).

 

UPDATE:  Bedard has obviously crossed over to the wrong side of the law.  He picked up another misconduct penalty in his next game, a 6-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. Refs Justin Kea and Kendrick Nicholson issued matching misconducts to Chicago’s Bedard and Frank Nazar as well as Filip Hronek and Conor Garland. 

Bedard currently ranks second on the Blackhawks with 62 penalty minutes, trailing only Patrick Maroon.