With less than two minutes to play in their 4-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night, Washington Capitals center Mike Ribeiro received a 10-minute misconduct, as well as an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty, which resulted in an early exit from the game.
The veteran center was unhappy after taking a stick to the face off of a draw in the third period and said he was simply attempting to get an explanation from the referees as to why no penalty was called.
After he could not get one he "said a few things my kids might not like" and found himself taking an early shower as the Capitals fell to 0-2 on the young season.
More from Ribeiro, via Stephen Whyno of the Washington Times (who also passed along the word that Ribeiro had stitches under his right eye after the game):
"You're not allowed to talk to them. It's like the first one, I get high-sticked on the draw and there's no rule saying that you're not allowed to be lower than 3 feet or there's no rule saying you're not allowed to be low. So I get high-sticked and I go see him between the whistle, I'm like, 'What's your take on the high stick on the draw? The puck's not even dropped.' He's like, 'Well, I don't want to talk to you.' So I'm trying to figure [it] out. I kind of stopped, I looked around, like, 'No one called it?' I was like, 'OK, are you just allowed high-stick people before the puck's dropped?' So I went to ask him, he didn't answer me and that just got me frustrated a bit to not have an answer. Just tell me. I don't know, I guess he didn't know what to do."
Throughout his postgame media session (which you can read here) he continued to go back to the fact that the referees didn't want to talk to him about the stick to the face.
He also added: "I just feel like you're not allowed to talk to them anymore about situations that happen in a game. They believe they're like above us or like more power, they feel power, I don't know."
(Well, to be fair, they kind of do have the power on the ice.)
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