The Final Call (18 page)

I was living in Sarnia, Ontario, back then, so I was better prepared for the harsh Canadian winter with fashionably warm attire. I had a wolf-skin coat made by a Toronto furrier to handle the most severe weather that places like Quebec City, Montreal, Winnipeg, and Edmonton could dish out. Given my vertical deficiency, however, the bulky coat made me look like a cross
between an Ewok and Chewbacca’s infant son! On this trip, the weather forecast (minus-30 in Edmonton and minus-65 in Winnipeg) made the decision to bring along the wolf an easy one, even though it filled the most generous of airplane overhead bins.

Back in those years, the Oilers, like most teams, flew on commercial flights. Hockey players were not yet being treated to the pampering of today’s super athletes. Since I was going to see the “Oil” in back-to-back games on consecutive nights, both home and away, odds were that we would be on the same flight to Winnipeg the next morning. In situations like this, an official could only hope for the first game to go smoothly. No matter how good your luck, there was usually one player or coach who was ticked over something. It was also part of the culture that we were perceived as the enemy; one of two teams they would have to defeat on any given night. Sure enough, the Oiler team boarded first and were comfortably seated when the rest of the passengers were allowed to board. Stepping onto the aircraft, clad in my “pet wolf,” I could sense the snickers and sneers that were emanating from the peach-fuzzed faces of the players.

Dave Semenko was a giant of a man at a time when there weren’t that many large players. The fate of the franchise rested squarely upon his broad shoulders (or should I say fists?). He was assigned the nightly task of protecting Wayne Gretzky. Not many who got the task of shadowing the Great One dared incur Semenko’s wrath. I don’t know how Barrie Stafford, the Oiler equipment manager, even found a helmet big enough to fit Dave’s oversized head. Scanning the rows to find my seat, I identified his big pumpkin head, his face in a toothy grin, sticking up well above the crowd. To my surprise, he adopted a feminine-sounding voice and said, with a wink, “Nice coat!” I didn’t have a comeback, and if I did I would have thought better of it. I just crammed the wolf into the overhead bin and sank into my seat for the ride to Winnipeg. I dared not fall asleep with these pranksters on board.

The Winnipeg weather report, it turned out, was way off—no mention of the wind chill. The captain advised us that the air felt like minus-90. When we arrived at the gate the team was, once again, allowed to go first. It was now my turn to grin as I watched big Semenk put on a light leather jacket as his only protection against the extreme temperature. My chance would come that night to give him a shot for being so unprepared for the elements of nature.

Local radio stations warned that exposed skin would be affected by frostbite in just five seconds. It was no exaggeration. I stepped out of the hotel lobby after lunch to catch a breath of fresh air, and immediately there was an audible cracking sound as the hair in my nose froze solid. Within two seconds I felt the harsh bite of Jack Frost on my face and promptly returned to the safety of the lobby, all the while wondering how Dave Semenko was faring.

On the ice that night, I kept an eye out for Semenko. As he skated out for his first twirl around the rink, I approached him. Feeling the need to project my voice upward so that he would catch all of my sarcasm, I said, “Hey, Semenk, I bet you wish you had a warm coat like mine instead of that leather jacket you were sporting.” Looking down his nose at me without so much as a grin, the big man dealt me a real zinger: “Fraser, I’d wear a fuckin’ coat that size for a collar!” Once again, I had no comeback. As I looked skyward at him, I believed he just might be right!

The Oiler team I would be seeing on the ice in January 2010 was a far cry from the dynasty of the 1980s, or even the one that, just a couple of years ago, excited their fans with a gallop through the playoffs to the final, where they narrowly missed the chance to raise the Stanley Cup once more. After 50 games, this group was dead last with 38 points (and just 16 wins), and perhaps their
brightest hope was of winning the lottery for the first-overall draft pick. I couldn’t imagine how the coaching staff headed by Pat Quinn was suffering through this. Pat returned to the bench this season after a three-year exile. In the meantime, he had taken a group of talented Canadian kids to a gold-medal victory in the World Junior Championships, and I think it warmed him up to the idea of returning to the NHL.

Pat and I have had our disagreements over the years, and I’m not alone in that category. Brian Burke once told me not to take it personally—that Pat just hates all officials! My hope was that, like a fine wine, the old coot would mellow with age or that his memory was failing and he had forgotten our history.

When Pat was coaching the Leafs, I worked Game One of their playoff series in Pittsburgh. It was 1999, and at that time, the video-replay official in the arena was authorized to review goals and make decisions—a responsibility that later shifted to the league’s war room in Toronto. The series supervisor, Charlie Banfield, sat in the video-replay booth. Charlie is a good friend and was an excellent NHL referee before he took early retirement in 1979 to become a firefighter in his hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Chuck’s son David is following in his dad’s footsteps and is a fine young NHL referee with whom I had the pleasure to work several games during my last couple of seasons.)

In the second period, the video-review process (in particular, the placement of the overhead camera) failed both Charlie and me. I can still see the play as clearly as though it just happened. I was in perfect position, a half-step ahead of the goal line on the opposite side to where the players’ benches were located. At my back was the door where the visiting team exited the ice to get to their dressing room, located right beside ours. From this vantage point, my sightline was never obstructed by the goalpost or the mesh of the netting. The Leafs bench, where Quinn stood, was more than 100 feet away, so it was impossible for Pat to see what
I am about to describe. A Penguin fired a rocket and hit the goal post nearest to me. After striking the post, the puck hit the ice flat and slid along the goal line. Less than halfway across the six-foot span between posts, the puck jumped up on its edge and curled along in an upright position. In a split second, I saw the puck cross the inside edge of the goal line, leaving an inch of white ice between the black of the puck and the red of the goal line. I thrust my arm forward, pointing like an Irish setter, to signal the goal. The puck then fell back to flat, once again
on
the line as it continued to curl and exit the other side of the goal area. No goal light came on—nor should have, as the goal judge’s perspective would have prevented him from determining that the puck had completely, if narrowly, crossed the goal line. I had to blow my whistle to halt play, as I was the only one in the entire building who had seen that a goal had been scored. At least, that is, until the next day.

After I described the play to Charlie over the phone at the timekeeper’s bench, and after extensive review of the videotape, the verdict came back: inconclusive. Charlie apologized and said the overhead camera was positioned so that all he could see was the crossbar. He couldn’t see the goal line. It was my call to make on the ice, and I ruled the goal would stand. The Mighty Quinn roared loudly that I had cheated his team that night. The next day, footage shot by an ESPN handheld camera that had been positioned in the corner—behind me and over my shoulder—was broadcast on
SportsCenter
, and it revealed clearly that the puck had crossed the line exactly as I said it had. Even so, Pat would have none of it. He claimed the footage had been doctored.

Fast-forwarding to the season prior to Pat’s last as coach in Toronto, I was excited to work a Leafs–Canadiens game in Montreal on a Saturday night. I was working with two Montreal-based linesmen that evening, so after a lengthy walk I arrived back at the Marriott Château Champlain for lunch a little later than normal.
The restaurant was empty and Benito, the waiter who had been there forever, greeted me as old friends do and sat me at a table close to the buffet. Shortly thereafter, Pat Quinn entered the restaurant. Benito brought him over to the table beside mine. Without sitting, Pat looked at me, then looked at our friendly waiter and growled, “Benito, the whole restaurant is empty and you are going to sit me down beside the goddamned referee?” Benito thought Pat was kidding; I knew he wasn’t. Nonetheless, Pat sat and began reading his paper. Following that brief period of discomfort, I thought I would attempt some conversation beyond the subject of the weather. I turned to the lawyer in Pat and asked about U.S. immigration and citizenship applications that I had recently filed for Kathy, the kids, and me. The pro bono legal advice Pat offered advanced our conversation from forced to pleasant. After lunch I said it had been nice talking with him and wished him luck in the game that night.

Pat’s Leafs won, 2–1, and as he crossed the ice to his dressing room, I said with a smile, “See? All you had to do was have lunch with the ‘GD’ referee.” Pat immediately quipped back with a grin, “If that’s all it takes, I would have done it a long time ago.”

Pat was behind the Leafs bench at Madison Square Garden on November 30, 2004, when Bill Daly, deputy commissioner of the NHL, presented me with a Tiffany crystal in a special pre-game ceremony in honour of my becoming the first referee in history to work 1,500 regular-season games. As I was being applauded by the crowd and players on both benches, linesman Ray Scapinello skated over to Pat and said, “Come on, Pat, this is Fraser’s 1,500th game and you’re the only one in the building that isn’t applauding him.” Scamp said Pat gave a feeble clap and responded with a grin, “One thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine too many, as far as I’m concerned!”

On this day in Edmonton, I was actually looking forward to seeing Pat behind the bench once again. While some aspects of his demeanour hadn’t changed, others obviously had. On the very first play that crossed his team’s blue line, Pat’s familiar voice boomed across the ice at the linesman who he thought had missed an offside. Play quickly stopped when Oiler goalie Jeff Deslauriers was forced to make a good save. I was the back referee on the play and immediately rushed to the Edmonton bench. There, with the same smile I’d left Pat with a few years earlier in Montreal, I said in a very audible and demonstrative voice: “Pat, I’m so happy you returned to the bench, because it’s been boring as hell around here with you gone. As a matter of fact, I heard you came back to coaching just in honour of my retirement at the end of this season.” Pat’s initial smile erupted into laughter, something I had never had the pleasure of witnessing before this moment, and I really liked it. The ice had clearly been broken, and Pat’s offside protest was forgotten in the moment of levity.

The Oilers were completely dominated by the superior skill and speed of the youthful Chicago Blackhawks in a way that the 4–2 score didn’t reflect.

Pat is really a loyal guy and a good hockey man whom, in spite of any differences we may have had, I respect tremendously. After the game, I visited with Kevin Lowe, as well as Pat and his coaching staff—Tom Renney, Kelly Buchberger, and Wayne Fleming—to thank each of them for their co-operation over the many years of our association. Pat invited me to share a beer with them as we reminisced. In that moment, for the one and only time, it seemed as though we were on the same team—or, at the very least, the same page.