Follow Paul on Twitter: @paulstewart22
I'm sure you've heard this saying before: When you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. For me, whether it was playing, reffing or simply going out for a skate, being on the ice -- involved in the game or even just being in proximity to it hours before it started -- was the one place where I always truly felt happy. It gave me joy.
I am an emotional person. Exuberant. Aggressive. When I get out on the ice, I let my personality show. Some people expect officials to be robotic without understanding that one can still be professional, impartial and game-focused while delighting to the flow and emotion that are inherent to our sport.
Having experienced the NHL both from the playing and officiating sides, I will tell you that my appreciation for the spirit of the game was heightened, became purer and more deeply nuanced when I became a referee. When your duty is it serve the sport itself and don't care which team wins the game -- truly every team become your "favorite" -- it is very liberating in a way that is tough to describe verbally. I think only those of us who have both played and officiated can truly relate to that feeling.
When my critics would say "You are trying to be the show," they were 100 percent wrong. I never wanted to be anything more than a servant to the game. I felt that calling to my core, felt a spiritual bond on the ice to my grandfather and my dad even after they passed away. I could quite literally hear their voices, and the voice of my dearest mentor John McCauley, guiding me when I needed it. When the time came to make the call, I felt a confidence and a wave of energy soaring through me.
I suspect many readers cannot relate to what I am saying but I hope, whatever you do in life, you get to experience something similar. Perhaps those who have had a parent, grandparent, friend or mentor who is no longer with you in this world but whose spirit you are keenly aware of in certain times can attest to this phenomenon.
I apologize if this all seems too esoteric and meandering, but there's a point to it.
In the wee hours of this morning, a Twitter connection PMed me a video of Wes McCauley announcing the outcome of a video review in Monday's game between the San Jose Sharks and LA Kings, and asked my opinion of whether Wes had gone over the top or was "acting".
Hell no to both. I feel a kinship with Wes, and not just because of what his late dad did for me. I know he relates in a very deep and personal way to way to everything I wrote above.
He played the game, having been drafted by the Red Wings and playing at the minor league level. Wes has a naturally exuberant personality. He hustles. He feels and loves the game, is in tune with its ebbs, flows and emotion. Having been a collegiate and pro player until his mid-20s, Wes got a later start into officiating yet he had all the tools to do it. He just had to have the teaching. Today, he's one of the NHL's best.
Wherever Wes goes, he carries the presence and guidance of his dad with him, and that connection is felt keenly on the ice. To this day, Wes modestly wears number 4 because John wore number 8 and Wes' hope was to be half the referee that his father was. But Wes is a fine referee in his own right. I know John smiles down on him and guides him when he needs it.
What happened with the way Wes announced the good-goal ruling was simply the power and energy of the game -- a joyous appreciation of the rivalry and emotion and the drama of the moment -- soaring through him. There was nothing wrong whatsoever for showing some personality, and it had zero to do with the building or which team scored and sure as hell not about trying to be the show. What's wrong with loving the game?
WHY 😂 https://t.co/svqck4w1qQ
— Greg Balloch (@GregBalloch) March 29, 2016
Players, of course, live in the moment, too. So, as an official, where do I draw the line between what's spontaneous emotion and what is showboating.
When I was a young referee just starting out my officiating career, I got a great piece of advice from Hockey Hall of Fame referee Frank Udvari.
He told me, "Stewy, remember yourself as a player, and how you felt during a game. Just feel the play.…
Frank, who was the AHL's chief of refereeing for many years and had also been supervisor of NHL officials, knew what he was talking about from decades of experience. As an active referee, he only missed two games (on a weekend where both his father and wife had taken seriously ill) in an NHL career that spanned from the early 1950s to mid 1960s.
Frank got a lot of the league's toughest assignments, getting assigned to Original Six era rivalry games that stood a good chance beforehand of getting pretty wild. That's how it came to pass that he was the referee of the game that ultimately led to the Richard Riot in Montreal. Incidentally, the riot was not triggered by anything Udvari did.
Richard got high-sticked by Boston's Hal Laycoe and Udvari called a delayed penalty. In retaliation, rather than fighting, Richard swung his stick into Laycoe's face and shoulders and then punched linesman Cliff Thompson twice in the face as Thompson tried to pull his away from Laycoe. It was the second time that season that Richard had physically attacked an official. The riots broke out a few days later after the NHL suspended Richard for the rest of the 1954-55 season.
At any rate, Udvari's advice to me was something that I never forgot during my career: I used the baseline of how I would have reacted to a situation as a player. I am someone who believes the game should be emotional and players should be spontaneous.
In drawing the line between a player showing exuberance and showboating, I applied the Udvari rule and looked at the time on the clock, the score of the game and the circumstances of the moment.
For example, when a kid scores his first NHL goal and jumps around, I get it. If the celebration is spontaneous and relatively brief, it's not unsportsmanlike in my view.
Remember a few years ago when Don Cherry and others made a big deal out of then-rookie Nail Yakupov's spontaneous "Theo Fleury slide" on his knees in a game between Edmonton and Los Angeles.
Well, personally, I had zero problem with it because it was a time, place, and score situation. Yakupov had just tied the game with about five seconds left on the third-period clock. On top of that, his team had just had a would-be tying goal (correctly) disallowed. So of course he's going to be joyful!
Had I been a player on the Kings, I'd have been far more upset that we'd just given up the tying goal so late in the game, and probably would not have even paid much attention to the goal scorer's celebration.
Now here's an example of something that DID bother me when I refereed. Kerry Clark, the brother of Wendel Clark, was a hard-nosed career minor league player who racked up a lot of penalty minutes and not a lot of goals. I could relate to that. However, something I did not like was the pre-planned goal celebration that he did whenever he scored a goal, regardless of the situation.
I was working an AHL goal one time where Kerry scored a relatively meaningless goal in an already-decided game. He proceeded to moonwalk on his skates all the way across the ice in celebration. Standing on the ice watching him, my face got red and I balled up my fist.
As a player, if he had done that against my team, I would have made a beeline for Clark with my stick and gloves dropped; it would have made zero difference to me that it was during a stoppage in play. I'd have been tossed from the game, and would not have regretted it.
As a referee, all I could do was watch him do it. Then I gave him a misconduct.
That was the "Udvari Rule" in action in a discretionary situation for a ref. Every official's threshold is different but I do think, as a former pro player, I had a pretty good feel for the difference between exuberance and showboating. I think Wes McCauley has that ability as well.
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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 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.