Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

Dough-Ray-Me: How NHL Officials Get Paid

September 22, 2014, 1:03 PM ET [2 Comments]
Paul Stewart
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Follow Paul on Twitter: @paulstewart22

The members of the National Hockey League Officials Association (NHLOA) are currently working without a contract. I am no longer involved in these matters, as I have been retired from the NHL for 11 years.

However, I was glad to read that my brethren in stripes expect to keep working without any interruptions. Having been through the 17-day strike in 1993 -- after which several NHL owners told us privately they would have been fine with the modest raises we were asking had they known beforehand -- I can tell you that work stoppages are bad for everyone.

The 1993 strike was also the beginning of the NHL trying to systematically take away the individuality and decision-making discretion of its officials on the ice. One example, I was not in favor of names being taken off the back of officials' sweaters or as a second example, the move toward not allowing active officials to speak to the media. 1 Pool reporter could talk to the Supervisor if one was present Other wise, there would be no explanation regarding a call or a rule that happened in a particular game.

This had nothing to do with self-aggrandizement, no matter what any of my critics may think. It had everything to do with professionalism and accountability. If you can't take the heat, the officiating profession isn't for you.

At any rate, it occurred to me the other day that most people do not know how NHL officials actually get paid. This is how it works.

An NHL official's pay scale is based on his length of service. I first signed a contract in 1985 and got slotted in year one, minor league "level one" on the pay scale. Any NHL game was paid at a slightly higher rate than the AHL rate I was getting bi weekly. The pay incrementally increased each year. A Referee had to work 57 games at the NHL level to get a full-time NHL contract. I got to that milestone in 1988-89. My pay bumped up to the NHL "full time # " or about $45,000 at that time.

When I hit the magic number, I reminded John McCauley that it was my 57th NHL game.

John responded, "Paul, don't you think I can count?"

I smiled. I was now an "official official" in the NHL. That year, I also worked my first Stanley Cup playoff game: Detroit at Chicago. I called 1 minor for tripping. Keenan and Demers were the coaches. I remember it well and fondly.

After the 1993 strike, my pay almost doubled. By the end of my NHL career, I finished up at a salary of about $240K. My severance was two years salary paid out over four. However, because of health issues, my bout with cancer and assorted other items of wear and tear, I had to find my own life insurance after a long search. I was not covered by the same policy the others Officials were covered under. When I left the NHL, it was virtually impossible for me to get any insurance including life and health because of "pre exisitng conditions." Gary Bettman and Bill Daly did assist me and I finally did get my severance insurance. But it was a grind that others did not have to face. So much for equal protection under collective bargaining.

During my career, every NHL official was contracted to work 72 games. In my 17 years of working for the NHL -- 11 with Bryan Lewis as the head of officiating -- I did not work a full 72 games. One year, however, I did work 73 (which amounted to about a $3,000 bonus). Randy Hall, the person in charge of officials' assignments in my final year of refereeing, asked me if I'd had missed a lot of time with injuries during my career because I was only nearing 1,000 career games at that point. Well, no, I didn't miss time with injuries. I routinely worked through the few injuries that I had. The fact is that my assignments were given to others in a plan that only a chosen few were privy to know.

Here's what happened: Colin Campbell said off the cuff as he is want to do-- he didn't know he'd be quoted on it these many years later-- that he was fine with giving bonuses to some NHL officials but he refused to give an extra nickel to others. I was among the others.

With Then NHLOA President Terry Gregson, wink, wink, well aware of this scheme, Campbell did an end-around on the compensation system: some officials got their regular games and the added"bonus" games over and above the contracted number. Thus, they cashed in by receiving an individualized per-game fee for those many extra games.

An official's salary divided by the number of contracted games equals his per-game fee. Any games above the 72 # are a paid bonus at an individual per-game rate. For example, if a veteran ref was making $300,000, divide that by 72 and multiply it by the number of extra games. It's like another $4,000 per game which when multiplied by 10 or 15 extra games for someone who also works four rounds of playoffs, can add up to a pile of dough near or above $50,000 + for that year. You could go buy a nice car, cash, with all that extra dough being tossed your way. It would even make you think warmly of the boss when you got your year end check or badly if you were one of those not on "the preferred list."

I was hardly the only NHL official in the boat that never left the pier to cash cow heaven.

This is going to ruffle some feathers, but if you know anything about me, you know I speak my mind. This is my opinion: At the point the NHL set up the arbitrary bonuses the arrangement totally destroyed what a UNION is supposed to be.

It became an every man for himself scenario, currying favor instead of what a UNION represents. The president of our Union at that time, should have blown the whistle on this arbitrary discrimination. Neither the President nor any of the Executive raised this as an issue. Thus, a handful of "most favored nation" officials benefited from this arrangement. The rest of the rank-and-file saw zero benefit from it.

Listen, we all have families to feed. I don't begrudge any of the guys who got extra money. As such, I won't name names about which officials got bonuses. That's not the point. On the other hand, it was interesting that our UNION president saw to it that no one said, " Wait a minute" and blew the whistle to stop this practice. The chosen few were well taken care of in this Campbell bonus arrangement. They were all senior guys. When issues arose before our group, they could sway the rank and file with their seniority and thus any vote.

Well, good for them. Not so goood for the dues-paying members who got left behind. As for myself, well, I was no favorite of the NHL officiating director, and there was nothing I could really do about it. You can't fight City Hall. The whole system used the most base of human weakness -- greed. Simply, I tagged it as getting Campbelled.

Another blunder that was made back then was trying to rush a number of linesmen into making the transition to NHL referees. That didn't work, either, except in one case. The rest of the guys needed more experience at calling penalties instead of watching them called. Many just weren't ready for the switch.

There were other guys with lots of raw potential working their way up from the minors who couldn't get the games they needed to master the craft because of the system set up and described above. Remember, my mentors made me into an NHL referee because they kept me working, working and working some more in various leagues, learning my trade. Ultimately, the system was doomed to failure, some guys lost their jobs and others went back to working the lines in the NHL.

These are not happy memories. However, they are the truth of my experiences. For those that don't like this truth coming out, take it up with City Hall.

************

Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.

Today, Stewart is an officiating and league discipline consultant for the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and serves as director of hockey officiating for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).

The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials, while also maintaining a busy schedule as a public speaker, fund raiser and master-of-ceremonies for a host of private, corporate and public events. As a non-hockey venture, he is the owner of Lest We Forget.

Stewart is currently working with a co-author on an autobiography.
Join the Discussion: » 2 Comments » Post New Comment
More from Paul Stewart
» The Stew: Kevin Pollack, We Nearly Missed, Thank You Fans
» Officiating: Reasonable Doubt vs Miscarriages of Justice
» My Advice to Matt Rempe
» Greig, Rielly and "The Code"
» Chirping Zebras Podcast