The Final Call (3 page)

The players hunger for the black disc, but I don’t want to release it. If I drop the puck, it will bring me one second closer to the end. It remains in my hand; I am frozen in time.

I
learned to skate practically as soon as I was able to take my first steps. I was 15 months old and somehow my dad found a pair of skates the size of a baby shoe. He was playing minor professional hockey in the IHL at the time. The team trainer laced up my skates and I pushed a chair around the ice before the players practiced. I cut my teeth in hockey dressing rooms and I was seldom seen without a little hockey stick in my hands, slapping around a puck or a ball. My great-grandfather on my mom’s side, Rawcliffe, lived with us, and used his walking cane as a goal stick during our games played in the kitchen. When one got past him I raised my stick in the air and celebrated by shouting, “He scores!”

My father, Hilt, went on to coach me to a high level of amateur hockey and instilled in me a “never quit” attitude along with unwavering courage to fight the good fight. I am reminded of the countless hours spent skating on the backyard rink Dad made for my brother, Rick, and me. Many nights our game of shinny was halted and we were carried into the kitchen to wolf down the dinner that Mom had prepared. Our skates dripped melting snow onto the newspapers that were placed beneath our chairs. After dinner was hastily consumed, we were lifted back out to our
fantasy Maple Leaf Gardens, taking on the names of our favourite NHL players until the floodlights flickered. That was our signal that the game was over and bedtime was soon to follow. Fatigued from a long day of child’s play, I was lulled to sleep with the memorable sound already etched into my young mind of the nasal voice of legendary Leafs broadcaster Foster Hewitt, saying, “Goodnight, hockey fans across Canada and the United States from the gondola high above Maple Leaf Gardens.”

I even got to skate with the big kids once in a while. Pat “Whitey” Stapleton, who lived up the street before moving on to star with the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks, had a great rink which he would let my dad play on. In addition to high boards and chicken-wire fencing, to keep the pucks in play without having to dig them out of a snow bank, Whitey even had a shed with a pot-bellied stove that became a dressing room every winter. As a five-year-old, I felt like I had made it to the big time whenever I got to play on his rink! Pat Stapleton was, and still is, a hero of mine.

I would never have considered a career in officiating if it weren’t for Ted Garvin. Ted was a lifelong family friend who played in the International Hockey League with my dad and suggested to me that I should get into officiating following my final season playing junior hockey. Ted was coaching the Port Huron Flags of the IHL at the time, prior to moving on to coach the Detroit Red Wings for a brief period. He felt that the game needed officials who had played to at least the junior level and understood the game from a player’s perspective. Ted was a good judge of talent and knew that I would never play at the NHL level; rather than see me kick around in the minor pro leagues, he felt my best avenue to the NHL was as a referee.

Ted’s antics from behind the bench were legendary when it came to referee-baiting. He would throw a towel out onto the ice to protest a call and would be handed an automatic bench penalty under the rules for throwing articles on the ice. To circumvent the
rule Ted tied a string to the towel. At the opportune moment, the towel was fired high into the air and over the boards in view of the official. As the referee started to snap his arm up to signal a penalty, Ted would jerk on the string to retrieve the towel before it ever hit the ice, causing the ref to scratch his head. Legendary IHL referee and dear friend Sam Sisco finally put a stop to the fishing-line towel when he told Ted, “When I see that towel go up you better have the power to suspend it in the air, because if it comes down anywhere you are getting a bench penalty!”

“Terrible Ted” was responsible for more than one rule change in the book. One time, a penalty shot was called against his team; rather than have his goalie, Gaye Coolie, between the pipes for the free shot, Ted put monster defenceman Gerry “Kong” Korab in goal. Ted instructed Kong to charge the unsuspecting shooter as soon as he crossed the blue line and flatten him with a bodycheck. The move proved successful and quickly caught the attention of Roger Neilson. After Roger used the tactic in an NHL game, a rule was instituted that only a goalie could defend against a penalty shot.

Given these antics I thought Ted was just looking for a familiar face in stripes to play his tricks on, but nonetheless I filled out the application that Ted gave me and attended the Haliburton Referee School in late August of 1972. The camp administrator was Bill Beagan, commissioner of the IHL at the time, who had fined and suspended Garvin on multiple occasions. Bill’s instructors at the five-day camp included Vern Buffey, Bill Friday, Bruce Hood, Ron Wicks, John D’Amico, John McCauley, and other experienced professional officials. The World Hockey Association came into being that summer, and opportunity knocked when the NHL lost several officials to the upstart league.

On the evening of the second-to-last day of school, I was assigned to referee 10 minutes of a summer league game. The instructors would supervise our work and offer a critique. Also in
attendance was Frank Udvari, a retired referee (and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee) and assistant to the NHL’s referee-in-chief, Ian “Scotty” Morrison. After my 10-minute stint, Mr. Udvari met me in the officials’ room. He said he liked what he’d seen of my work and wanted to invite me to the NHL officials’ training camp in Toronto two days later. Since it was so soon, Frank said he would have to check with Scotty to make sure they could accommodate me.

“If I can bring you to camp,” he added, “there is one thing that I must ask of you.”

“Anything, Mr. Udvari. What is it?”

He looked at my then-stylish Beatle cut that hung to the bottom of my ears and quipped, “You’ve got to get a haircut!”

Even now it is hard for me to fathom how I could have embarked on this ambitious career path so quickly. I was only 20 years old and had virtually no officiating experience beyond helping my father drop pucks as a 12–14-year-old in an Industrial league just to get in some extra skating when I wasn’t playing a game. Here I was, after completing a five-day referee school, joining the regular NHL officials at their training camp. I was either in the right place at the right time, living a charmed life, or had a guardian angel sitting on my shoulder. Looking back, I believe it was all of the above. My wife Kathy often says that with my God-given talent for this job I was simply born to referee; the Wayne Gretzky of officiating!

I got home late Friday evening from Haliburton Referee School and was awakened early the next morning to a phone call from Mr. Udvari. Frank said he was pleased to confirm my invitation to the NHL officials’ training camp and told me to report to the Toronto Airport Hilton hotel by five the next day. He advised me
the camp would last a total of 10 days and told me what to bring. I was so excited I hardly heard anything he said—including the part about what time to report. I rushed off to get a haircut and tell my mom and dad the good news. Dad immediately pulled out one of his old scrapbooks and showed me an article from the 1948–49 season, when, as a tough defenceman for the Sarnia Sailors of the OHA Senior B loop, he was suspended for one game and fined $5 (at the time a loaf of bread cost five cents) for punching referee Frank Udvari during a game! I thought it prudent to keep that information filed away in my “scrapbook” until now!

The next day, I got up in the wee hours, leaving Sarnia at 2:00 a.m. so I could check in by the designated time. I sure didn’t want to be late. I approached the front desk at 4:45 a.m., gave my name and stated proudly that I was part of the NHL officials group. The clerk said, “Gee, you’re awful early, we don’t have a room ready. We were told you guys weren’t checking in until five o’clock this evening.” At least I had gotten the five o’clock part right. It was at that moment that I learned you’ll never get in trouble for being early—just for not listening properly! As soon as my room was ready, I caught up on some badly needed rest prior to a scheduled reception to kick off training camp.

It was at that reception where I first met Scotty Morrison, the NHL’s referee-in-chief. Mr. Morrison was small in stature (even shorter than I was) but carried himself like a giant. I remember noticing the presence he commanded just by walking into a room. While his demeanour could be intimidating, especially to a 20-year-old aspiring official, I also saw a warmth about him as he moved around the room, joking with his staff, particularly his veteran core of officials: Art Skov, Lloyd Gilmour, Wally Harris, Bruce Hood, Ron Wicks, John D’Amico, Matt Pavelich, and Neil Armstrong. I caught a glimpse of a “fatherly” side of Scotty as he greeted his next generation of “go-to” guys: Dave Newell, Bob Myers, John McCauley, Andy Van Hellemond, Bryan Lewis, Ron
Hoggarth, and Ray Scapinello, among others. It made me feel much more at ease, especially when, after Frank Udvari introduced me to the “boss,” I felt Mr. Morrison’s genuine warmth and sincerity as he welcomed me to camp for the very first time. I instantly felt more relaxed, even though I made a point of wiping my sweaty palm before shaking Scotty’s outstretched hand.

Once the meeting began, I sat at the back and off to the side with the other invitees and absorbed everything that was said as if I was a sponge trying to drain the ocean. That’s just how little I knew, compared to how much I hoped to learn.

I’ll acknowledge that I brought with me to camp an abundance of confidence, along with an aggressive nature that was, in part, a by-product of my Type-A personality and the Little Man Syndrome I had acquired. Both, on occasion, had served me relatively well as a player. If not held in check, however, I would quickly cross the line into cockiness and arrogance. But I recognized that God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason: to listen at least twice as much as we spoke. So much could be absorbed and learned just by listening to the experiences of officials who knew more. In my particular case, that was everyone!

Medical examinations took place the next morning, and we stood in line, military style, to fill out paperwork and receive our labelled urine-specimen bottles and blood vials. The urine bottle was easy to fill for most, as a large amount of liquid had been consumed during the reception the night before. Blood collection, on the other hand, was not always so easy. Dave Newell was the first guy I saw go down. I’m not talking about just knees buckling; he literally passed out and needed to be revived after the first prick of the needle. Newelly got somewhat better with it over the years, but the docs always stood by with a towel to absorb his sweat and smelling salts to revive him. (Today, Dave has to check his blood sugar throughout the day and has no problem with pinpricks, although he’s still not real fussy on needles.)

Once the medicals were out of the way, we could get down to the real business of training camp. The operative word in those days was “training,” as players and officials alike had to work for two weeks to get into the required physical shape after an extensive, largely idle, off-season. Training habits and methods would improve drastically after Team Canada faced the Soviet Union in the 1972 Summit Series, and NHLers got their first exposure to such finely conditioned athletes as the Russians.

While we worked hard in training camp, we played even harder. Each day, we trained at Centennial Park in Etobicoke, not far from Pearson International Airport. Aside from twin ice rinks, the complex had a soccer/football field surrounded by an all-weather track, a ski hill, and chalet that was used for lunch and classroom/meeting purposes. Two-a-day sessions on the ice were always followed by discussions about rules and administrative matters. One of those on-ice sessions would be spent playing hockey. I had just finished playing junior hockey a few months earlier, but some of these scrimmages were more brutal than any league game I had ever experienced. In one game, veteran referee Lloyd Gilmour chopped linesman Ron “Huck” Finn so hard with his stick I thought the benches would clear! All was forgotten that night, though, when the action was relived into the early-morning hours.