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Has there ever been a person in your life with whom you repeatedly cross paths by sheer coincidence? Has that person ever later become a very important figure in your life? Longtime NHL referee and supervisor Dave Newell, who passed away the other day at age 73, was such a person to me.
"Newelly" was a fine referee in the NHL for many years; one of the best of his era. He also became a mentor and a dear friend to many, especially to me. You never forget the people who showed you kindness, even when there was nothing in it for them. Dave was that type of person. He was never rich monetarily, but he was a very wealthy man indeed in character and generosity.
My father, Bill Stewart Jr., was the one who taught me the "11th Commandment": If you are in position to assist and show kindness to someone in need and fail to do so, the shame is yours. My dad lived by that. So did Dave, which is the highest compliment I can pay to a person.
When I look back, it seems like fate as to how many times my professional and off-ice life path crossed with Dave. He was the referee in Boston when I made my NHL regular season playing debut for the Quebec Nordiques. He was the referee, also in Boston, on the night when I made my NHL refereeing debut as his injury-related substitute. In between, I was on his team at my first NHL Officials camp.
All three of these stories are in my book, so I won't repeat the particulars. Instead, I thought I'd tell a couple of stories about Dave that I have not told before.
When I was a young referee working my way up to the NHL, I was broken in the old-fashioned way: I was sent to work games from junior hockey up to the minors and then to the pros. Traveling the circuit of the Western Hockey League, I was working games almost every night. I was learning on the job and that was vital because I had gotten a somewhat late start on the officiating side after my playing days were over.
I loved being back on the rink, especially since I was now out there the full 60 minutes. I also also greatly valued the feedback that I got from people such as Dave, John Ashley and John McCauley. What I didn't love was that I barely scraping by financially. If I had been paid in American dollars, it would have been a modest living. In Canadian funds, it was barely sustenance even with the very heavy volume of work I was doing.
By this point, Newelly had become a friend. He had taken me under his wing at my first NHL officials' camp, looked out for me and calmed me down a couple of times when I was being "tested" by others to see if they could break me or get me to snap. This time, I confided in him that I didn't know how much longer I could sustain what I was doing for so little money.
Right after that, John McCauley moved me up into better-paying assignments where I could at least make a living. That was how much faith McCauley had in me, and how compassionate Dave was to go to bat for me because there was nothing in it for him.
Newelly was in my corner again when I got my big break: the opportunity to officiate the championship series of the 1987 Canada Cup between Team Canada and the Soviet Union. There were people who were not happy that I had been selected. Dave helped me navigate through some treacherous waters, not only because he was my friend but also because he was one of the people who believed in my potential.
Beyond the ways he helped me out professionally, I was extremely fond of Dave as a person. He was a great guy, and I enjoyed talking with him. He was the type of man who could never say no to his kids and who would do anything for a friend. He had his vices and his flaws like any human being, but his heart was always in the right place and he was loyal as loyal could be to those he cared about.
One of my favorite memories of Newelly is that he admitted to me that he didn't really know how to properly knot a tie. So I helped him tie his ties. An old friend at Groton (who, as fate would have it, later became a Buddhist monk and an assistant to the Dalai Lama) made the most perfect Windsor knots and taught me how to do it. Newelly couldn't, so I pre-knotted all his ties for him before the season.
Dave had some hardships at the end of his NHL supervising tenure and in his later life, but the inner character he had always shined through. There's a Chinese proverb that goes, "A thousand pieces of gold are valuable but a true friend is priceless."
Dave Newell was priceless.
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This Thursday, Dec. 20, I will be at the Legacy Club of Boston for a Q&A session and a book signing for my autobiography. I'll be there from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. ET. Ya wanna go? I'd love to see you there. For more information,
click here.
A Class of 2018 inductee to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, 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 the director of hockey officiating for the ECAC.
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
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