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I am as bored and tired of hearing about "Deflategate" by now as most of the rest of you are. The whole thing has become an embarrassment.

In the NHL, all matters of internal dispute related to suspensions and discipline maters must be handled by internal arbitration. There's no going to court to seek an overturn of a league ruling the way Brady did. It has been that way since the league changed the rules following the 1988 playoffs.

That was the year of the infamous "have another doughnut" confrontation between Devils coach Jim Schoenfeld and referee Don Koharski. The NHL suspended Schoenfeld, but Lou Lamoriello and a friend of his named John Conte -- a local judge and Devils season ticket holder-- arranged for a quick hearing with a New Jersey Superior Court justice to get a restraining order against the NHL. As a result of the injunction, the NHL was temporarily blocked from suspending Schoenfeld.

In protest, the officiating crew of referee Dave Newell and linesmen Ray Scapinello and Gord Broseker refused to work the game, as did standby referee Denis Morel (I'd have done exactly the same thing). After a long delay, the game was played with scab stand-in "officials" who were neither trained nor properly uniformed.

After that fiasco, the NHL changed its rules to require binding arbitration in the event a similar dispute arose in the future.


At any rate, the take-home lesson of Deflategate, to me, is that is shows one again that the sports world has all sorts of shades of gray in the line between "gaining an edge" and blatant cheating.

In baseball, for instance, there was almost a certain lore attached to whether Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry was throwing spitballs; and Perry himself didn't mind it a bit. It got to the point where he had a psychological advantage because hitters were always so concerned about pitches with unpredictable movement on them that he could often sneak one straight past them without loading up the ball.

We can all agree that throwing spitballs is directly against the rules, and therefore is cheating. So is doctoring a bat. Now, what about a batter deliberately erasing the back chalk line of the batter's box to get a fraction of a second extra look at a pitch? Pete Rose always did it when he led off the top of the first inning. What about a pitcher with a pickoff move that straddles the rulebook distinction between a balk and a legal pickoff attempt? Steve Carlton used to pick off a half-dozen or more runners a year that way. He'd get called for several balks, too.

In hockey, I have seen plenty of "gain an edge" ploys used over the years.

It could be as simple as a goalie sweeping a small pile of snow in front of his crease from around his net. Mike Vernon made an art form out of it and once did it successfully to help thwart a penalty shot. There was no rule against it and snow naturally forms on the ice surface during the game, so was it cheating? It wasn't like Mike was swiping armloads of snow from the Zamboni pit. Even so, when the NHL adopted the shootout, they also brought in a regulation about a Zamboni once-over down the middle of the ice. Early last season, the NHL briefly did a dry scrape to clear out snow piles before overtime began -- until it proved too time consuming and was ditched.

Illegal stick curves (and stick widths) fall in the category of "cheating" because the rules specify limits. But when was the last time we saw a coach call for a stick measurement on the other side?

Yes, I know the maximum curve was increased some years ago and too much curve makes stickhandling and shooting off the backhand tougher. However, I guarantee you there are players who love to shoot one-timers on power plays who bring out illegal sticks for that express purpose. Is it cheating if no one cares to enforce it? Meanwhile, the rules prohibit retroactively disallowing a goal scored with an illegal stick. The player is penalized -- and fined -- but the goal counts. Also, teams cannot challenge a stick after an overtime goal is scored.

What about centers who "cheat with the feet" on faceoffs? People get upset if linesmen spend too much time telling both players to keep their feet north and sticks in the proper position, then one side gets hot if their best faceoff guy gets dumped. Meanwhile, Fred Shero innovated a tactic of sending out two centers for a faceoff and trying to goad the other team's top center into getting tossed from the circle, along with his own guy. Then center number two would come in and take the draw against someone (usually a natural winger) who did not take many draws.

When the late Ned Harkness coached RPI to a national championship, he only had 10 players on his roster. Harkness was very inventive about creating stalling tactics so that his players could a little extra breather. Most folks probably wouldn't call that cheating.

Ah, but what about ploys such as putting down a fine layer of sand or sawdust in the visitors' dressing room? Having the Zamboni conveniently stall out on the ice before the visitors' warmup? Messing with the thermostat? Turning off the vistors' hot water? The skate sharpener or glove drier conveniently malfunction? Slashing a tire on the team bus? Placing 3 a.m. phone calls to the other teams' hotel rooms during a playoff series?

I've seen all of the above happen over the years.

I've also seen the rink dimensions doctored. Having played in the NHL as a member of the Quebec Nordiques and skated on the ice Le Colisee many, many times, I once took to the ice during my refereeing career and instantly realized that something seemed off. Sure enough, the faceoff circle circumference in one of the ice was regulation size but the other side -- the end the Nordiques attacked in the first and third periods -- was non-regulation. This gave the opposing team the disadvantage of being further away from the net in offensive zone faceoffs for two-thirds of the game.

I confronted Michel Bergeron about it, and "Le Tigre" refused to admit to anything but the look in his eye and a barely suppressed smirk gave him away even as he said in this thick Quebecois accent, "Really? And 'ow dee [bleep] do you know dis, Stewy?"

"Where do you think I played?" I said. "We're going to have to switch sides mid-period so it's 30-30 at each end."

"You can't just do dat," he said, his smirk quickly turning to a glower.

"I can and I will," I said.

After the game, with the help of an RCMP friend, we went back and carefully measured the circumference of the circles. It wasn't even close to equal dimensions on both sides!

A similar thing happened when the Verizon Center in Washington first opened: the lines were wrong. As I took to the ice, Caps head coach Ron Wilson quipped to me, "How do you like the new building, Stewy? It's so nice and bright in here that even you should be able to see just fine."

"It is," I said. "In fact, I can already see that the lines were done wrong."

In this case, the visiting team was satisfied that there was no significant difference -- not enough for the Capitals to gain an advantage -- and the game was played with normal changes.


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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 ECAC.

The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials. Stewart also maintains 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.