The Flyers lost to the Atlanta Thrashers 6-5 on Friday night, however, this was a much different team in my opinion than what we saw on Monday's loss against the Lightning. The Flyers come back to play strong, physical hockey against not only Atlanta but also Pittsburgh on Wednesday night. All this after Tampa Bay basically kicked Philly around like a rag doll down in Florida on Monday. What seems to be an ever increasing issue in the NHL is consistency among referrees and Friday nights contest was pure evidence that maybe some "watchdogs" need to be put into place in the new NHL. I've noticed that many calls lately have been weak, some of the referees may be using the new NHL to call every little hook, check, slap, whatever. Prime example happened twice on Friday, one call against Donald Brasheer, the other against Derian Hatcher late in the game. Brasheer was called for interference (part of a double minor) on a devastating, legal open ice hit and Hatcher was called late in the game for a weak hooking penalty. If part of the new NHL is penalizing players for legal plays, than so be it, however, there must be consistency within the referees and that is just not happening. Hatcher's penalty late in the game eventually gave the Thrashers a 3 on 6 opporotunity and that help set up the tying goal. With Atlanta's goaltender pulled later in the game, Simon Gagne had an obvious breakaway opportunity only to be brought down in neutral ice, an obvious missed call that could have saved the game for the Flyers.Obviously there were more mistakes made, the game winning goal in overtime saw de Vries and Kovalchuk beat Mike Rathje out of position, the game against Pittsburgh on Wednesday had Sidney Crosby catch the Flyers defense "standing around" and he would go on to score the game winner in overtime. However, we have seen this situation in Major League Baseball, no matter what the situation, the officials CANNOT take it upon themselves to be involved in the outcome of games. We've seen it happen so many times in professional sports where the officials seem to want to be more involved in the outcome and end up making incorrect calls which have an influence on the outcome of games. The new NHL is great, the excitement level is up, and fans are coming back to the game and with all this comes a learning experience, but there must be enforcements in place to make sure the game is called evenly and fair for both sides. We'll talk more about this issue on the Flyers Weekly podcast this weekend.email: flyersweekly@gmail.comweb: http://philadelphiaflyersweekly.blogspot.com2005 Beyond Media East Broadcatingwww.philadelphiaflyersweekly.blogspot.comflyersweekly@gmail.com