North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper calls New Jersey Devils "dirty"

The New Jersey Devils lost to the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night. It came 24 hours after the Devils took two points from their division rivals at the Prudential Center. It was the rare "home-and-home" back-to-back where the two teams played on consecutive nights in different arenas. It's honestly fun to see this happen with rivals like the Devils and Hurricanes, but certain situations made this game less fun.

Mostly, it was the referees. It was a dreadfully officiated game, but one call in particular was brutal. The referees called Timo Meier for a game misconduct and major penalty for the hit below on Martin Necas. His knee does hit Necas' knee, so we're fine with calling a two-minute penalty there. Meier is responsible for the positioning of his body, even if the only reason he would get called at all is the fact that Necas made a last-minute adjustment to his body that caused their knees to collide.

We hate knee-to-knee collisions. Those who do them purposefully should be penalized in the highest regard and also suspended. We want all dangerous plays out of hockey. However, it can't be clearer that this was incidental contact.

It has everyone giving their opinion on the hit, including us. However, there was a surprising name that put his opinion out there, and it's not one the Devils fanbase will be happy about.

For those who don't know, that's North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. He's an avid hockey fan and has been a staunch supporter of the Carolina Hurricanes. We love that. We want politicians across the U.S. to focus on hockey because it brings more opportunities overall. He even said if the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup, he wants a day with the Cup. Not sure that's how this works, but we all have dreams.

The Devils and Hurricanes have played their last regular season game of the season, a surprising fact since the calendar hasn't even turned to 2025 yet. However, Cooper's remarks that the Devils didn't need this "dirty play" were incredibly unnecessary and, honestly, incorrect. We get it. This is a team that likes attention. They don't need to do it by treating the game like soccer.

Meier's hit didn't even cause an injury. Because, again, it wasn't bad. It was incidental, and that's why Necas was able to play three and a half minutes of the ensuring 4v4 and power play it caused.

We're sure Cooper is just playing favorites and talking to his constituents. However, he might want to stick to politics for the last few weeks of his term. We sure hope Josh Stein is a little nicer to visitors from the Garden State.