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Tadpoles, Teachers and the (S)hero Sandwich

May 3, 2018, 12:05 PM ET [1 Comments]
Paul Stewart
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Follow Paul on Twitter: @paulstewart22

While there are many aspects of my job that I love, there is one that I utterly dread. I hate it when I have to let an official go. I know that I am squashing someone's livelihood and dreams. I do it when necessary, but it is a rotten feeling. Inevitably, I think of something that Gen. George Patton is alleged to have said upon seeing the rows and rows of white crosses marking the final resting place of our fallen troops.

"If I were a better general there wouldn't be so many of these men here," Patton said.

As an executive, a supervisor and teacher, it is your responsibility to provide the people under your leadership with the best possible chance at success. While I always give that pursuit my absolute best effort, there is always a bit of self-critique when someone falls short. Was there more I could have done? Was there something different I could do? Did I make the expectations clear enough?

As a teacher, a coach or an administrator, I try to borrow from "the Shero Sandwich" method of providing feedback. Too often, there is either just generic praise or criticism of something a person does wrong.

Legendary coach Fred Shero, while he was a man of few words and almost never raised his voice in anger, had a tried-and-true method of communicating when he called players into his office. It was usually brief, by design.

He'd start with something positive, and specific. Then he got to the meat -- the specific topic he wanted to address, of which he could be quite blunt, although calm in demeanor. Then he'd close with something else that was positive.

It worked. Shero's players would have skated through a wall if he asked them to. They learned something about what they needed to improve and how he expected they go about it. The players also left feeling valued and appreciated for something of which he'd clearly taken notice even though they may have previously thought he hadn't paid attention.

I was very lucky to come along into the officiating ranks when I did. I had an incredible group of mentors, each with their own methods.

When I made the transition from playing to coaching, I started back down at the junior hockey level, working games all across North America, then considerable time in the American Hockey League before coming up to the NHL. I got plenty of tough-love coaching -- there was nothing gentle about how I was coached, but it was always constructive and done for the right reason.

Each and every one of my mentors was devoted to helping me succeed. They were going to make an NHL referee out of me or make me drop from exhaustion; whichever came first.

In my particular case, John McCauley spent considerable time and energy teaching me the importance of a referee thinking before reacting. He used to say to me, "Paul, by the time you leave the arena, I want you to have a headache from all the thinking you do. Think about the play. Think about who is on the ice, and who you should be watching. Think about the game situation. Think about why each rule exists the Rule Book. Think about your positioning. Always be thinking."

It was great advice, and I spent an entire active career trying to live up it. There were plenty of slip ups, believe me. But I worked 1,010 games in the NHL -- not because of who my grandfather and father were, although they were my first and greatest teachers -- and then have continued into the supervisory and administrate sides because I had the best mentors and the personal dedication to see it through.

I do not necessarily disagree with the broadcasters and print journalists when they criticize a certain call or even the state of hockey officiating as a whole. However, I will say that it is much harder to be proactive than reactive. It very easy to point out flaws and criticize officials or players after the fact, and quite another to be on the front end to come up with workable solutions.

It is very hard to teach and to lead, and who can are to be greatly admired. I don't know if I am a great teacher or leader, but I can say that I learned from many of the best and I try to take something from each and then channel my own ideas through a personal prism.

Rather than shredding our officials, we need to go to the source. We need to teach and guide them. Again, this does not mean we should coddle everyone, tell them how terrific they are and give everyone a participation award. It means we need to teach. We need to correct things as needed, with clear and concise instruction. We need to communicate expectations. Then we need to trust our people to exercise their judgement.

Simplicity, repetition and evoking easy-to-grasp visual images are crucial to communications by a teacher or supervisor, whether it is hockey officials, employees in an office or factory workers.

For example, I've found in teaching positioning techniques to officials on both sides of the ocean, regardless of their native tongue or cultural background, that they can visualize these concepts (each of which I've discussed individually in past blogs): telescope, funnel, banana, accordion.

Simple words, simple visuals, right? Now let's put one of these visuals into action: the telescope. In order to have the best view of a play at the net, the official should "telescope in" -- a very direct line -- and then "telescope out" again as play moves away. Getting caught in the corner means things get missed because the official lacks the best possible angle.

Simple little mantras help, too. Regular readers know I repeat these often, just as John McCauley hammered "think, think, thing" into me and I can still hear Frank Udvari telling me "If this made you mad as a player, it's usually a penalty that you should call."

For me, these are central: "The money is at the net." "Positioning sells calls." "Great conditioning leads to great positioning." "Skate where you need to skate to see what you need to see."

Another great general, Douglas MacArthur was famed for the mantra, "preparation is the key to victory." You can be the greatest battlefield tactician in the world but unless you've laid all the preparatory work, including supply chains and the logistics of moving your forces and supplies, none of that will matter.

The very best hockey coaches of all time -- the Scotty Bowmans, Fred Sheros, Bob Johnsons, Anatoli Tarasovs, etc. -- may or may not have been great verbal communicators. But they all understood that getting the best out of their players and putting them in position to succeed was every bit as important as being proficient on x-and-o strategic planning and adjustment side.

What are the characteristics of a good team? They have a clear focus, a united identity. Why are All-Star Games, which feature the very best individual players in the world, so typically sloppy and disorganized? It's because there's no time to coach them to become a team, so everyone freelances.Everyone swims around like so many tadpoles, doing their own thing even as they try their best to function as teammates.

That's what I see in officiating; not just in the NHL but in many leagues at all levels across the world. We don't have enough leader, enough teachers, enough know-how in collective team-building. Nevertheless, there are still many, many fine individual officials and strong functioning crews that figure it out together from night to night, using their knowledge, experience and communication to function as a team. These are small victories -- winning the battle -- but we need better preparation for the ultimate victory of raising the state of officiating.

Sadly, when the leadership isn't there, there's too much catch-all haranguing criticism or meaningless generic praise ("Good job out there." With what?) that is the antithesis of the Shero Sandwich. The effects are damaging. Too much reliance on replay. Too much training of the public to mistrust officials. Worst of all, too much self-doubt planted in our young officials to either mistrust their own judgement or, even worse, underdevelop their ability to judge.

We need leaders, and doers. The hockey world, and the world outside hockey have more than enough critics.


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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.
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