The Final Call (16 page)

Fortunately, players who demonstrate this sort of hostility are more the exception than the rule. The current captain of the Flames, Jarome Iginla, is a fine example of the other side of the coin. Jarome is the complete player who leads by example whether his team needs a goal, a big hit, or even a fight to ignite their competitive fires. While Iginla takes losses as hard as anyone who has played the game, there were many occasions when I was on the receiving end of the class that he exemplifies.

In a game on Easter Sunday in Chicago, the Flames desperately needed to win to keep their slim playoff hopes alive, they were about to fall to defeat. This was the last time that I was to work a Flames game. Iginla approached me during his last shift and extended his sincerest congratulations on my retirement. He said that he had watched me work games in the NHL as a kid growing up, and that it had been his honour to share the ice with me. This ultimate compliment, coming from such a great competitor and superstar, will always be a cherished memory.

T
he ringing of the alarm at 5:45 a.m. sent shockwaves through me. Whenever I worked back-to-back games in different cities, the alarm always seemed to go off just as I had fallen into the first deep sleep of the night. In 34 years, my fear of missing a wake-up call—and then my flight—never eased.

After a few moments of disorientation, the fog lifted enough to process which city I had called “home” the night before, and where I was heading for the next game.

My restless night had nothing to do with the minor controversy surrounding my ruling that disallowed a Buffalo goal late in the second period of their 3–2 loss to the Canucks. While the call might have disturbed Sabres coach Lindy Ruff’s sleep, it seemed fairly academic to me. Every official likes to have some confirmation that his decision was the correct one, and there is no better vehicle than to review the game DVD provided to each referee by the home club. Viewed in the privacy and quiet of my hotel room, a second, third, or fourth look at a play can be both educational and affirming. In some cases, the video evidence can be cause for
a future apology. None of these were forthcoming the previous night since, unfortunately, my NHL-issued laptop would not open the DVD. That left me with the old-fashioned form of post-game analysis: replaying it in my mind and hoping that
SportsCenter
would provide me with a good look at the play before I turned out the lights.

In fairness to Lindy, he developed an acute sensitivity to video replay and controversial goals back in 1999, when he was behind the Sabres bench as Brett Hull snatched a championship from him and his team. In the third overtime period of Game Six of the Stanley Cup final, the Golden Brett, a pure goal scorer with a big gun of a shot, this time stood in front of the Buffalo goal with his back to Dominik Hasek and deflected an incoming shot that Hasek stopped with his stick. Hull’s tree-trunk-like legs were clearly planted in the goal crease long enough to take root as he dragged his own rebound out of the crease to his forehand and put it in the net. The ensuing mayhem created by the jubilant celebration and the on-ice presentation of the Cup by Commissioner Gary Bettman made it virtually impossible to give, at the very least, the impression that a thorough video replay had taken place. So many goals had been disallowed in that year’s playoffs for players having a mere “toe in the crease” that this play was a bitter pill for the Sabres to swallow. I can’t ever recall a more absurd rule or standard of enforcement than the toe in the crease. It wasn’t the prettiest goal of the 844 Brett scored in regular-season and playoff action during his Hall of Fame career, but it just may be his most famous.

Lindy is a darn good coach (as well as a good guy), and I found myself hoping he slept well the night before in spite of the outcome. When I disallowed the goal, I thought for sure he was going to blow a gasket. On the play, with Buffalo a man short by virtue of Henrik Tallinder’s hooking penalty just 15 seconds earlier, Vancouver turned the puck over, allowing an odd-man rush. Paul
Gaustad, driving hard to the net without the puck, delivered a cross-check on the shoulder of Vancouver defender Christian Ehrhoff with enough force to knock him clean into the net. The net came off its moorings just as the puck entered from the opposite side to where I was positioned. It was a bang-bang play and I wasn’t able to even raise my hand to signal the infraction. Traffic obscured my view just as the puck entered the net, and the only thing I could do was wave off the goal to assess an interference penalty—but on which Buffalo player? I’d failed to catch the number of the Sabre who had committed the foul.

I quickly asked my colleagues on the ice which Buffalo player had knocked Ehrhoff into the net, but came up empty. I then asked our video replay guy to give me the name of the player, but he was already on the phone with Mike Murphy, the league’s VP of hockey operations, in Toronto. I told him to get the hell off the phone with Toronto, that we had no goal but we did have a penalty to call, and I needed the number of the Buffalo player immediately. During this delay, Lindy thought we were reviewing whether the puck crossed the line before the net was dislodged. That wasn’t the case: the puck clearly entered the net just before the net came off the moorings, but instead of a goal, Lindy’s team would be getting a penalty that would put them two men short for almost two minutes. The gasket had already blown, so there was no sense in trying to communicate that to him. It wasn’t pretty, but in the end I got the right player in the box.

And Lindy and the Sabres escaped the period unscathed. In our dressing room between periods, I said to my colleagues (Mike Leggo, Lonnie Cameron, and Scott Cherrey) that one of two things would happen when we went back out for the third period. Lindy’s initial demeanour would tell us what he thought of the replay. Either he would be in quiet agreement that his player had committed the infraction and deserved the penalty, or he’d still think I’d robbed him. If the latter scenario occurred and the Canucks scored
on the power play, I envisioned a bench penalty and perhaps an ejection from the game for Mr. Ruff.

When we returned to the ice, Lindy was very calm and did not display even a glimpse of repressed anger. As much as he can blow his top like a Mount St. Helens eruption, I also know Lindy to be fair.

Thirty-five seconds into the period, Vancouver’s Ryan Kesler was called for elbowing, which left Buffalo short just one man. They killed off both penalties, and converted the brief man advantage they enjoyed, tying the score 2–2. Unfortunately for the Sabres, journeyman defenceman Brad Lukowich scored his first goal in 111 games a couple of minutes later, and it turned out to be the game winner.

Around the time of this game, the media—broadcasters, writers, and bloggers alike—were abuzz with the allegations made by Vancouver forward Alexandre Burrows that referee Stéphane Auger had a vendetta against him. In Nashville on December 8, 2009, Jerred Smithson of the Predators levelled Burrows, and Auger gave Smithson a five-minute major for charging and a game misconduct. The NHL reviewed the play and concluded that the game misconduct was unwarranted because Burrows had embellished the hit.

A month later, on January 11, the teams met in Vancouver, and Auger was again assigned to the game. Burrows, who scored both of the Canucks’ goals in a 3–2 loss, received minors for diving, interference, and—with four seconds on the clock—unsportsmanlike conduct. The last one, incurred when he verbally unloaded on Auger, also earned him a 10-minute misconduct. Afterward, Burrows alleged that Auger had approached him prior to the game, told him he had made him look bad, and that he’d be
looking for retribution. It is true that Auger had words with Burrows before the game—videotape clearly shows that—but I don’t put any stock at all in Alex’s version of what was said.

Stéphane Auger is a professional. Can he get his back up like the rest of us? Sure. Whenever someone crossed the line and pissed me off, there could be no way of misunderstanding my body language, demeanour, and response. I think that’s called being human! But that sort of reaction comes in the heat of battle and does not lead to some premeditated plan for revenge. That would be unethical and just isn’t in the equation for us officials. Ask any player, past or present, and they will give you a list of those of us they felt picked on them and carried a grudge against them. Being the victim is a heavy cross to bear. I hope all parties move beyond it because it’s just not healthy. I also wish the media would take the time to send a pool reporter in to get their facts straight after they interview a player or coach. That, of course, would require that the league grant them access to the officials’ room.

One thing that is missing in this “New NHL” is the opportunity for players and officials to develop a professional relationship much beyond an adversarial one. When Gary Bettman took the officials’ names off our jerseys and replaced them with numbers, part of the identity and personality that each official brought to the game was lost. I can’t tell you how many times players would approach me on the ice and ask the name of one of the other officials so he could at least communicate with him by name. This state of affairs creates an impersonal environment.

Officials need to feel empowered to make decisions without being second-guessed by the “war room” in Toronto. Officials need to be able to develop a feel for the game, and to rely on their judgment rather than falling back on the safety net of saying, “Let’s go upstairs.” When game misconducts are assessed and the league rescinds them, or plays are deemed “a good hockey hit” by the keepers of the game, it causes confusion amongst the rank and
file. Decisions on the ice sometimes become a silent debate with oneself as to how a call will be perceived at “mission control.” In other words, as a result of feeling like the league is second-guessing him, the referee begins doing it to himself and does not react instinctively. Those who have never worn the stripes wouldn’t understand that. If the league had an objective of creating a more robotic, less personal style of officiating, then I guess it’s mission accomplished. If the thinking was that criticism against officials would be reduced, the league has failed.

Over my 30-plus years in this business, I’ve come to realize that refereeing is an art form. You are dealing with many personalities on the ice, from players to coaches to your fellow officials. You have to take in as much of the game as possible, at breakneck speed, staying in position while skating backwards ahead of the play, staying out of the way of players, and making decisions in a fraction of a second. You read the play and know instinctively where the players are going to go or who they are going to pass the puck to before it even happens. You truly develop a sixth sense, a feel for the game, all the while watching 10 players for any infractions they might commit when they think you’re not looking.

On several occasions, I’ve had to question whether these dedicated men who sit in the war room late into the night have any idea what it really takes to referee in the National Hockey League. Playing the game and refereeing it, although both are worthy of respect, quite honestly require distinctly different skill sets.

I was at home watching a Vancouver game on television one night when there was a disputed goal during a shootout. The referee went to the Toronto war room for a decision. It took
nine minutes
to decide it was a good goal! Watching the replay, I knew right away that it was a goal, but like the announcers, the fans at GM Place, and the viewers on television, I had to wait for the league to dissect the goal ad nauseam for nine excruciating minutes.
There has to be a better way. And there is: give those decisions back to the referee, who is in the arena at ice level. That’s where the responsibility belongs. These men have made a career out of making these kinds of decisions.

It is my contention that the very best person to review a goal is the referee on the ice who had to make a decision on the play in the first place. It works very well in the National Football League. The officials on the field know exactly what to look for when they review plays. This is what they do for a living. Give us the same respect by putting a monitor at ice level and trust us to make the decision on a goal that we actively saw develop. It would speed up our game and take away the decisions by committee.