The Final Call (36 page)

The Rangers won the seventh game and advanced to the Stanley Cup final against Vancouver on the strength of Stéphane Matteau’s goal in double overtime. But my season was about to come to an abrupt end. Even though I was rated the league’s number-one referee under its evaluation process, I had been very active as a member of the executive of the NHL Officials’ Association during our strike against the league that season. Among other media support for our group, I had garnered headlines in a piece that went across the AP wire where I accused Commissioner Bettman of placing a gag order on players and coaches which restricted them from voicing displeasure for the work of the replacement officials. Immediately following this I was invited to appear on ABC News with Peter Jennings. The officials strike was coincidentally settled in a secret meeting that was held just as I was putting on my tie to drive to New York to meet with Jennings. I advised the producer of the show that we had reached a tentative agreement with the league and I would be unable to go on the air that evening. He extended an invitation for me to be part of their show to do a nice post-strike follow-up once we returned to the ice. When ABC contacted the league and requested permission for me to appear,
the NHL denied access to me but suggested Terry Gregson instead. The producer called me and said they were cancelling the nice piece they planned to do because ABC would not be told by the NHL or anyone else who they could use on air. All of this obviously did not endear me to the commissioner. I fully understand that some form of retaliation can arise following labour disputes like the one that we were embroiled in with the NHL. I believe I was perceived as the enemy. While I might suggest that I was a “casualty of the war” and that practices of this sort aren’t appropriate, I don’t hold a grudge against the commissioner. He has tremendous power within the game and he isn’t opposed to wielding it.

At the end of the conference finals, I received a telephone call from the assistant director of officiating, Wally Harris, advising me that I was done for the year. He told me I should be proud of the fact that I had done such a good job for the NHLOA during the strike—too good a job, as he put it. The order had come down from Commissioner Bettman that under no circumstance was Kerry Fraser to work the Stanley Cup final. It was just one example of the politics that can be found in all forms of business. You can’t fight city hall, although it wouldn’t be the last time I tried.

As I sat at home with the final about to begin, the names of the officials working the series were announced. I received a call of support from an unusual source: my old “landlord,” Mike Keenan, who was now coach of the New York Rangers. He told me that he and “Collie” (Colin Campbell, his assistant coach at the time and present-day senior VP of hockey operations, my ultimate boss) wished to express their upset over the league’s decision not to use me to work in the final and that Mark Messier was also very upset with the decision. According to Mike, Mess had told him that “Kerry Fraser is the best referee in the National Hockey League, bar none, and that it was an injustice to the game that he wasn’t chosen for the finals!” I took some consolation in these
sentiments while watching from the sidelines with the rest of the hockey world as the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in one of the most exciting finals of the modern day.

The mutual respect that I was so privileged to develop and share with Mark Messier, Wayne Gretzky, Ray Bourque, and so many other of the game’s greatest players is something I will hold on to long after my final call has been made. When I took to the ice to work games involving legends such as these, I always received a friendly tap as they took their very first turn around the ice during the warm-up. It seemed as though they would seek me out in these moments to let me know they were confident that a fair game would be called and they were glad to see me.

The National Hockey League recognizes milestones for officials as well as players. The standard that every referee aspired to reach was 1,000 games. If you lasted that long, there was no doubt you’d had a great career. (Over the years, the benchmark for linesmen increased to 1,500 games, since they start their career directly in the NHL and do not log the time in the minor-pro ranks that referees put in.) Some thought and consultation go into where these milestone games will take place, as well as the choice of officials who will work alongside the one being honoured. In a pre-game on-ice ceremony, with family members assembled on the red carpet, a league vice-president or member of the officiating department management team presents the official with an Inuit soapstone carving when he reaches 1,000 games. In my case, an extra-long red carpet was required to accommodate Kathy, our seven kids, and my mother and father as they joined me to mark my 1,000th game on Friday, December 6, 1996.

Working with me on that special night were Pierre Champoux and Gerard Gauthier. I chose two “Original Six” teams (the Toronto
Maple Leafs and New York Rangers) at Madison Square Garden. It was extra special for me that the NHL’s supervisor of officials, and my friend and former colleague Dave Newell (also a member of the 1,000-game club), was the one who presented me with the carving. A week later, I returned to Madison Square Garden for another game, and afterward there was a knock at the dressing-room door. Tommy Horvath, a dear friend who works the Rangers’ home games as an equipment and room attendant, walked in and said, “Gretz asked me to give you this.” It was one of Wayne’s Easton silver-tip sticks, with this inscription on the blade:
TO KERRY, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR 1000TH GAME, WAYNE GRETZKY 99
.

On Saturday, March 30, 2003, in Chicago, I set a new record for the most NHL regular-season games worked by a referee (1,476), eclipsing the old mark set by Andy Van Hellemond. Eight months later, November 30, for my 1,500th game, Bill Daly, the deputy commissioner of the National Hockey League, presented me with a Tiffany crystal in a pre-game ceremony, again at Madison Square Garden and with the same two teams, Leafs and Rangers, looking on. We were now working under the two-referee system and I was honoured to share the chores with my son-in-law Harry Dumas, as well as linesmen Ray Scapinello and Pat Dapuzzo.

Unbeknownst to me, Kathy commissioned an outstanding local artist by the name of Phoebe Darlington to do a pencil sketch measuring four feet by three feet. I was at the centre of the piece, surrounded by legendary players with whom I’d shared the ice. Kathy had a very difficult time settling on which great players she wished to depict; there were so many, but she could only include four. She chose Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Wayne Gretzky (as an Edmonton Oiler), Guy Lafleur of the Montreal Canadiens, and Mark Messier (as a New York Ranger) to adorn each corner. In the centre, I appear in profile, with the 9/11 patch on the sleeve of my jersey, forever in remembrance. Also depicted
is my father, around the time he played in the International Hockey League, holding my hand as a little guy and teaching me to skate. My dad passed on September 2, 2001, just nine days before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and United Flight 93 was downed in a Pennsylvania field by heroes in the form of passengers. Sharing space beside Dad is my mentor and former boss, John McCauley. Touching my chin and shedding rays of light downward upon the deceased is the Holy Spirit. Various special game pucks are displayed, like the 1985 Stanley Cup final (my first), the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, and the 2000 All-Star Game in Toronto.

Kathy asked Mark Messier to present this beautiful piece of artwork to me on behalf of the Fraser family. Due to television time constraints, Kathy was told that Mark would have to present it at a post-game reception she was hosting in the Garden Club. When word got to Mark about Kathy’s special request, he insisted on presenting it on the ice before the game, and he did. Who would argue with the Moose? I was blown away when Mess skated toward us and directed me to one side of the draped artwork. As we unveiled it, I was brought to tears. At the end of the game, Mark further honoured me by asking if we could sign and exchange sweaters that we wore in the game that evening.

At the end of the 2003–04 season, I was assigned to the Rangers’ last game, at home against Buffalo. There was speculation that this might also be Mark Messier’s last game, even though he wouldn’t confirm it to the media. But when I saw the emotions that Mark displayed that night, I felt confident that the buzz was correct: this would be Messier’s final game in the National Hockey League. As he skated past and tapped me on the pants, there was something very different about him. Normally, in moments
like this, our eyes would meet momentarily and I could always see a boyishness in the man they called Moose. “The Look” that had instilled the fear of God in so many opponents would soften as he prepared to join in a kid’s game of shinny, and he’d flash a blazing smile that told it all. Mark Messier just loved to play the game. Tonight, his eyes were misty and that impish twinkle was harder to detect.

After the national anthem was sung and Mark and I stood alone at centre ice awaiting the Buffalo centreman, Mess held that famous pose with his stick across the top of his shin pads, looked over to where his family was sitting, and fixed a gaze upon them for as long as his ragged emotions would allow. This gladiator then turned his tear-filled eyes upward toward me and uttered a sentence I will never forget: “Kerry, I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else here but you!” The ultimate compliment that this great ice general paid to me before his final game will be etched in my heart and mind forever. It was
my
honour to be there.

Mark’s family was seated along the glass near the penalty box, and a new “assistant coach,” Mark’s 17-year-old son Lyon, stood behind the bench. Dressed meticulously in a suit, Lyon stood as stiff as a statue for fear of being noticed and removed from the bench by the referee. He didn’t have to worry: there was no way that was going to happen—although, during a TV timeout, I went over to Rangers coach Tom Renney and said that if this “new assistant coach” of his opened his mouth one more time, I was giving them a bench penalty. Poor Lyon just about had a heart attack, until the bench broke out laughing. Mess gave me a smile and a wink, and mouthed the words “thank you.”

During the game, Mark scored the 694th and final goal of his career. The Rangers fans, in appreciation of all that he had done for them, especially for ending the 54-year Stanley Cup drought, rose to their feet and chanted, “God bless Mess!”

On April 7, 2010, I entered my dressing room at Madison Square Garden an hour and a half before game time. A parting gift had been placed on my chair. It was a bag from Tiffany & Company, which held a sterling silver apple. Engraved on one side was the New York Rangers emblem; on the other side, below my name, was the inscription:

I was touched by the words and generosity of Rangers general manager Glen Sather, special assistant Mark Messier, and their staff in my last visit to the Garden. As I read this inscription, the faces of all the great Rangers players, coaches, and staff flashed in my mind’s eye, reminding me of the memories we shared during the years that are etched on the gift I now hold in my hand.