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Disputes with Players and Coaches:Relationships, Timing & Message Matter

February 18, 2020, 12:11 PM ET [6 Comments]
Paul Stewart
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Seemingly a million years ago, back when I was a player for the WHA's Cincinnati Stingers, we had a teenaged rookie forward on the team by the name of Mark Messier. We became fast friends, and the friendship has endured over the years, even though we may not regularly get the chance to speak nowadays.

Years later, when I was an NHL referee and Messier the captain of the New York Rangers, I worked a game where seemingly everyone on the Rangers bench had something to say about every call or non-call that night.

Finally, I pointed my finger directly at Mess and said, "Hey, you! Sit down and shut up!"

Colin Campbell, then the Rangers coach, shouted, "Hey, you can't say that him!"

"Why not?" I replied. "I was the one who bought him his first beer."

Messier knew it was nothing personal. I was delivering a message to the entire bench through him. I don't know what he said to his teammates, but I didn't hear another peep from the Rangers the rest of the night.

Same thing with Pat Burns. We really got into it a few times. He'd use berating me as a way of sending a message to his team that he had their backs, and he'd take the heat if need be. I respected that. Never gave Pat a bench minor. Ditto Mike Keenan, with whom I once had an unprintable verbal exchange that had Brett Hull and the rest of the Blues bench dissolve into laughter.

Relationships matter in hockey. When there was friction, which has always been part of the game in the dynamic with officials as well opponents, there were things I could say to some people that I couldn't say to others.

Timing matters, too. One time, in the final minute of a game, Denis Savard let loose on me. I let slide in that moment, and then informed him that I was refereeing his game the next night, too. It was a good opportunity for Denis to let it go.

Instead, Savard started right in again on me the next night before the first words of the Star Spangled Banner began. Oh say, can you see a misconduct prior to the drop of the opening faceoff? Denis saw one that night.

Referees have bad nights or missed calls, the same as players have bad nights and the same as coaches. Sometimes you're more prone that other nights to blowing up.

Dean Morton is an experienced official. He's seen the game from every angle. Morton played the game professionally -- including one game in the NHL -- and then reffed for a number of years.

Full disclosure here: Dean and I get along well. I helped break him into the league on the officiating side. I have a particularly fond memory of spending New Years Eve 2002 with Dean in New York. We went to Smith and Wollensky's for dinner and then to a bar on 8th avenue that was a favorite hangout for NYC cops.

Even if I didn't personally like Dean, though, I'd likely defend him in the current controversy over him being caught swearing at Montreal Canadiens' forward Brendan Gallagher, telling him to "go f- yourself" near the end of a verbal confrontation in which the audio was caught on camera.

Unless I know the full context, which I don't, it's hard for me comment beyond generalities. In general, this appears to be much ado about nothing.

Should Morton have been above it as a professional? Yes. Do we know what dialogue had gone on, both ways, earlier in this game? No. Did Dean have one of his better nights of work that game? I didn't see the game, but it's entirely possible that he had a tough, frustrating night and lost his temper. Should there be any lingering effect? No.

Did Morton penalize Gallagher here? No. It was a moment in time, where heated words were exchanged. Friction is part of the game.

One of the cardinal rules in the referee-player and referee-coach relationship is to keep what's said on the ice right there. Don't air the dirty laundry in public. In today's society, that would exclude something like ethnic slurs. But a generic f-bomb beratement was hardly worth making public.

Because officials are not allowed (by NHL directive) to speak for themselves to the media, the exchange in return is that players and coaches cannot criticize officials. Personally, when I was reffing, I didn't mind speaking to the media nor did I mind criticism of my work as long as it didn't cross the boundary line. Hence, the fine that Montreal Canadiens coach Claude Julien received.

Again, though, I think Julien was willing to take the fine to send a message to his struggling team that he will defend his players. I would think that Morton understands that, and now what's been said is over and done.

Gordie Howe once said that all hockey players have to be bilingual: English and profanity. There's something about our sport that elicits sentence enhancers. Even "I'm going to get a [bleeping] cup of [bleeping] coffee" as a form of a good morning greeting at the start of the day of the rink is something at which no one in the game blinks an eye.

In the context of our sport, being told to f-off or returning serve over the net is hardly anything unusual. As a professional official, however, you are supposed to emphasize defusing a heated situation rather than potentially escalating one. That's more along the lines of what a supervisor would say to an official in Morton's situation.

I would be a hypocrite if I stood on a high horse here. There's a lot of emotion out there on the ice and I wasn't perfect in how I handled every situation. But I issued very few bench minors in my career, never tossed a coach from a game at any level, and no player to whom I gave an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty or a misconduct could truthfully say they were unaware of the line in the sand.

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A 2018 inductee into 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.

Visit Paul's official websites, YaWannaGo.com and Officiating by Stewart.

Follow Paul on Twitter: @PaulStewart22
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