Wild's Marcus Foligno explains why he erupted on refs

Foligno went from zero to 100 on a ref who tagged him for an extra penalty after a fight.
Wild's Marcus Foligno explains why he erupted on refs
Wild's Marcus Foligno explains why he erupted on refs /

Marcus Foligno says he felt disrespected by the referee who slapped him with a roughing penalty and then an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty following his fight with Arizona's Liam O'Brien on Sunday. 

First tagged with five minutes for fighting, Foligno was on his way to the penalty box when he found out one of the refs hit him with a two-minute roughing minor for giving O'Brien a shove after O'Brien came off the bench and skated directly at Foligno in an apparent attempt to escalate the situation into a fight. 

"Felt a little bit disrespected there. I don't know how you give a guy an extra two for something that, there's really nothing there. Just give each guy five minutes and move on. Sometimes these referees try to be bigger than the game," Foligno explained. 

But Foligno lost his cool after learning of the extra two-minute penalty. He slammed his helmet in an incensed moment, getting so angry that he was assessed a 10-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Do the math: That's 17 penalty minutes all because, in his mind, the ref had it out for him. 

"He's T's me up from the corner because I'm yelling at him from the penalty box. Just fired up a little it. It's tough. You don't want to put your team down, but there wasn't any need to be in that position in the first place," Foligno said. "I thought that was just a terrible call."

Wild head coach Dean Evason thought Foligno had every right to defend himself against O'Brien. 

“The guy comes off the bench and skates right to Moose and he gives him a push,” Evason said. “What are you supposed to do? Just stand there? You just don’t do that as a hockey player. He gave him a little push, like, ‘Get out of my face.’ I understand why Moose was rattled.”

The Wild killed off the Arizona power play and won the game 4-3. 


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Joe Nelson
JOE NELSON

Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen.  His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011.  Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play.  Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers.  Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.