Paul Thompson blasted the match officials and a female goal judge after Sheffield Steelers were beaten 3-2 at Cardiff Devils on Sunday.

Thompson hit out at the officials after seeing Guillaume Desbiens thrown out of the game for disputing the Devils’ first goal and vented his fury at the goal judge who he says caused his team to have a goal wiped off with the score at 1-1.

“It’s been a tough week – one of my players gets a blindside hit and the player who did it will miss less games than the guy that took the hit,” he told Steelers’ media after the game.

“Valdix gets a two hand slash and breaks his hand – it’s not even called and nothing is said about that so we lose two very good players there. That’s frustrating. Then tonight, where do you want me to start?

“We’re on the PK, Dessie is the centre-man and he’s trying to get out to the point man – he’s being interfered with and can’t get out there, he’s trying to drive through but nothing.

“Their ‘D’ walks in and takes a shot and scores. It should have been a penalty for that – I don’t know what the referee isn’t looking at, at that point.

“Frustration gets to Dessie – we know that and he gets thrown out of the game, so we’re three centre-men down now.

“We score a goal, the referee is right there then some woman comes running round the plexi-glass, has a little chat with him and he wipes it off.

“I’m like, okay, that’s another new one. Levi Nelson then gets cross-checked, five or six stitches in his lip and he’s left in a bundle in the corner and they get a six on five and score from that but that’s not called.

“We think it’s not going to be our day but we’re still in there, we’re still battling.

“Then we take a stupid penalty at the end of the game, and then he gets cross-checked and nothing gets called on him because his name’s Zack Fitzgerald and they end up getting the powerplay winner.

“Cardiff are a good enough team anyway, they don’t need a leg up. They don’t need any opportunity to aid them, but they got that tonight.

“It was a great game, it was tense. One of their top players at the end of the game comes up to me and says he’s never seen anything like it.

“I’m pretty annoyed – I can accept losing games, especially when we play like that. I was proud of the group tonight.

“When people listen to this and go ‘Oh, here he goes again’, people don’t like people who tell the truth. I’m telling the truth today – Cardiff had every opportunity to win the game today, we didn’t.

“Ryan Finnerty said to me in the week ‘good luck going there’ and I had another coach today saying ‘good luck going to Cardiff’, so they’re getting the breaks right now.”

(Image permission: Karl Denham)