Controversy at the World Juniors Championship: Horrible Officiating Has Fans Furious
Today the 2025 World Junior Championships have kicked off and already the tournament has caused controversy with several questionable calls by the referees.
The United States and Germany began their 2025 World Juniors today against one another in a matchup expected to be dominated by the United States.
Early in the game Team USA took control 1-0 with a goal seemingly scored by 2025 top prospect James Hagens.
Shortly after the Americans began celebrating the referees went over to the timekeepers box to review the play for potential goaltender interference.
On the play moments before Hagens scores American defenseman Cole Hutson makes contact with the German goaltender.
After a lengthy review from the referees the contact was determined to not be significant enough and a 1-0 lead was the result for the United States.
The Americans would use the momentum of this goal to jump out to a 3-1 lead before the Germans would score a controversial goal of their own from David Lewandowski.
Although this was less clearly a questionable play a German skater can be seen changing in the offensive zone as Lewandowski comes over the blue line.
Generally, this would be called offsides and many fans expected the goal to be called back by the referees.
However, the goal would stand with the referees saying that the German player's skate was on the bench by the time Lewandowski made it into the offensive zone.
This would be the last moment that the German squad would be able to keep the game close as a short time later Team USA would put a stranglehold on the outcome.
Late in the contest with the result out of the question yet another moment surfaced where the referees were called upon to deliberate on a questionable goal this time from Buffalo Sabres prospect Brodie Ziemer.
Team USA in the end would take home the win 10-4 and will now move on with a ton of momentum heading into the rest of pool play.
Let's all hope that the amount of reviews and controversy in this game ends up being a thing of the past for the 2025 World Junior Championships and not a preview of things to come.
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Mark Scheifele | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Kyle Connor | 2 | 2 | 4 | |
| Sidney Crosby | 1 | 3 | 4 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | - | 4 | 4 | |
| Dylan Holloway | 3 | - | 3 | |
| Jack Hughes | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Jirí Kulich | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Jonathan Marchessault | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Brad Marchand | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Kirill Marchenko | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Rickard Rakell | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Filip Forsberg | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Sean Monahan | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Gabriel Vilardi | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Zachary Werenski | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Michael Bunting | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Elias Pettersson | 2 | - | 2 | |
| John Tavares | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Dmitry Voronkov | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Charlie Coyle | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Jets | 36 | 25 | 10 | 1 | 51 | |
Golden Knights | 34 | 23 | 8 | 3 | 49 | |
Devils | 37 | 23 | 11 | 3 | 49 | |
Capitals | 34 | 23 | 9 | 2 | 48 | |
Wild | 35 | 21 | 10 | 4 | 46 | |
Panthers | 36 | 22 | 12 | 2 | 46 | |
Oilers | 34 | 21 | 11 | 2 | 44 | |
Maple Leafs | 35 | 21 | 12 | 2 | 44 | |
Hurricanes | 34 | 21 | 12 | 1 | 43 | |
Kings | 34 | 19 | 10 | 5 | 43 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||