The Final Call (25 page)

O
n March 27, 2010, I was scheduled to work my fifth game of the season at the Air Canada Centre, the centre of the hockey universe. This would also be the last appearance of my career on Toronto ice—try not to all cheer at once, Leafs Nation! For me it is an honour and a privilege every time I step onto the ice in that large cash register they call the ACC.

The Leafs could play on a slushy Toronto Harbour and draw a record crowd, but the only other hockey home that most of us can recall was Maple Leaf Gardens. The sound of that hallowed building still resonates in my head. On my final visit to Toronto for the game, I felt I must walk over to pay my respects to that historic building. It was a walk I would take by myself before teaming up with my associate referee for the game, Wes McCauley.

Unlike its cousins in Boston, Chicago, and Detroit, Maple Leaf Gardens is still standing, having been spared implosion or demolition. I circled the building and walked past the back door that NHL security representative and dear friend Al Wiseman,
long since deceased, snuck me and my family out of on April 9, 1988, after the Leafs lost 6–3 to Detroit in Game Four of the Norris Division semifinals. This exit had been engineered so that I could avoid Leafs general manager Gerry McNamara, who had gone on a tirade. John McCauley, with his two young sons Wes and Blaine by his side, tried to calm the out-of-control McNamara. The Leafs survived two more games in the series, but Gerry was replaced by Gord Stellick after their season ended.

There were many years in the 1980s, when Harold Ballard owned the team, that the Leafs were not very good. Even so, business was always good and the fans were very forgiving—at least in ways I have yet to experience. It would be a safe bet to assume that “Mike the Scalper” on Carlton Street made as much as some of the players in those days. If on-ice officials wanted to take a family member or friend to a game at the Gardens, we were given the privilege of purchasing a ticket through the “special ticket office” at Maple Leaf Gardens. What that meant is that we paid an extra five bucks over the ticket’s face value just to buy it and for the “special handling” that was involved by one of Mr. Ballard’s staff.

I approached the façade of Maple Leaf Gardens on my nostalgic stroll and tried to dream my way into the boarded-up building. I wanted to recall what it was like in those days on a game night, especially a Saturday night. It all came back to me in a flash. Transported back in time, I was suddenly approaching the brightly lit blue-on-white marquee from across the street:
SATURDAY NIGHT—MONTREAL CANADIENS 8:00 PM
. I was going to be the referee this night in Toronto. On Saturday nights, the game wasn’t just played on this corner; it was
Hockey Night in Canada
and the entire nation showed up. In English-speaking Canada in the days before NHL expansion into western Canada, the Toronto Maple Leafs were (and to some extent are still) regarded as Canada’s
team, with a profile akin to those of the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees in the United States. Hockey is the heart and soul of Canadian culture.

I had my father with me and my little three-year-old son Matthew in tow. While it was only a pre-season game, for me, at the infancy of my NHL officiating career, it was what I imagined a seventh game of the Stanley Cup final might be like. I held Matthew’s hand as we waited for a streetcar to pass by. That in itself was a new experience for both of us, since we don’t have any of those in Sarnia. The trolley was swollen with people as it approached the Gardens stop. With a clang of the bell it departed empty as all of its cargo swarmed the main entrance and Doug Laurie Sports to check out this season’s souvenirs. As we crossed the street, the scalper didn’t bother to ask if I needed tickets. While he didn’t know me from Adam, he recognized the bag I was carrying and simply said, “Have a good game.” I picked up the tickets for my dad and Matt, then we went around to the press gate to enter a building that was now completely foreign to me after having seen it thousands of times on TV from childhood. We passed Guy Lafleur and some other Montreal players lounging in the hall outside their dressing room. They also recognized me from the bag I was carrying and took little Matthew on a dressing room tour to meet some of the players. I wasn’t sure he would remember any of it, but I was thrilled to see these players up close for the first time. Dad and Matthew were seated while I went to prepare for my first game at Maple Leaf Gardens.

Our dressing room was small and located next door to the Leaf directors’ lounge. We sat on wooden benches that ran along either wall, and we could reach across and shake hands with the guy opposite. To access the ice, we turned left after passing through the dressing room door, then up a step, a quick right through the crowd a short distance, and finally through the penalty box. On
this night, I didn’t know whether to step on the ice or get down and kiss it. I wisely chose the former. I wanted to show everyone that I belonged.

On my first turn around the rink, I looked up at the gondola I had seen so many times on television, from which Foster Hewitt and his son Bill broadcast the games. Everything looked so much more immense and bright. Making the turn, I looked directly into Harold Ballard’s “bunker.” There he sat, with King Clancy beside him. It was then that I heard the familiar voice of an old friend: the distinctive monotone of Leafs PA announcer Paul Morris, who held that job for 38 years and worked 1,585 consecutive games before retiring, at age 61, in 1999. I froze in midstride and tried unsuccessfully to find the face that went with the voice.

The teams came onto the ice and paid little or no attention to me, but I studied each one of them. As I stood at centre ice to drop the puck between Darryl Sittler and Doug Jarvis, I wasn’t sure which was shaking more, my knees or my hands. I immediately thought,
Get your shit together, if you hope to be in charge of this game
. Once I got into the flow, everything went great. By the third period I felt like I really belonged, and nobody had even yelled at me yet—until I missed a penalty against the Leafs, or at least that’s what future Hall of Fame defenceman Guy Lapointe thought. The Leafs were winning by a goal with a couple of minutes to play, and Lapointe was quite animated in his protest of the non-call. Wanting to appear like a veteran, I thought it wise to call him by his first name, which I hoped would make him feel comfortable with me. I put my hands up with palms open and said, “Relax, Serge!” Well, Lapointe shot me a look of disgust and said, “My name is
Guy
, you fucking rookie!”

Other than that case of mistaken identity, my first experience in Maple Leaf Gardens was fairly successful. The three of us travelled back to Sarnia the next day. It didn’t take long to find out whether little Matthew had retained anything from his visit to the Canadiens’
dressing room. The next day, I heard him out on the front porch, telling his little buddy from next door about the players he had met. In Matthew’s words, Guy Lafleur became “Gooie Laflew,” while the goalie, Bunny Larocque, became “The Rabbit.” I couldn’t help but laugh and think that my three-year-old had the same difficulty with names as I did!

As a postscript, a few nights later, I was in Montreal for a game and I sent my skates in to Eddie Palchak of the Canadiens to be sharpened. I was all dressed and ready to go and was looking forward to hearing Roger Doucet sing the national anthem, but my skates had not yet been returned. I asked Raymond, our room attendant, to please hurry and get my skates. He hadn’t returned before the two-minute warning, so I told the linesmen to go on without me and I would join them as soon as I had my skates. Shortly thereafter, Raymond came running in with a smirk on his face and said, in broken English, “I am so sorry, Monsieur Fraser, they were very busy up the hall.” In a rush, I jammed my feet into the skates … and shaving cream came flying out of both of them. I had no choice but to quickly tie them up and rush to the ice, just as Roger was about to sing. As I stepped on the ice, my left skate went in one direction and the right in another.
Guy
Lapointe was standing beside
Serge
Savard on the Canadiens’ blue line with a big grin on his face. After the anthem, he skated over and asked, “How are your skates tonight,
rookie
?” I replied, “Perfect,
Guy—
just the way I like them.” We both laughed and the ice was broken. I think that was when I realized that acceptance would come if I didn’t force it. Though I did have to get my skates resharpened, since I think Guy had done the honours the first time.

My tour of the old Gardens was complete. While I couldn’t physically get inside, I most definitely
journeyed
there through the
inner recesses of my mind. I visited with ghosts of old acquaintances, such as great players Börje Salming, Darryl Sittler, and Ian Turnbull; my old teammate Bob Neely; captains Rick Vaive—I pointed to the net when he scored his 50th goal for the first time in 1982—Wendel Clark, and Doug Gilmour; coaches Pat Burns and Pat Quinn; general manager Cliff Fletcher; and so many more. We were all friends on this imaginary reunion, even though I could clearly see I was younger, cockier, and much less travelled in those days, when this Temple of Hockey allowed me to pass through her turnstiles. Looking at the old building, I would have to say that Maple Leaf Gardens is more weather-beaten than me, at least on the outside.

I hustled back to the Renaissance Hotel at the Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome), just up the street from the ACC, to pick up Wes. Later, I would try to mesh my memories of the old with the reality of the new at the morning skate. The New York Rangers would be the guests; while the Leafs were once again out of the playoffs, the Rangers were in a dogfight with Philadelphia and Boston for the final spot. They needed every point they could get.

I found Wes waiting for me in the lobby at 10:30 a.m. sharp, and it took us only five minutes to walk to the Air Canada Centre. There was a large crowd assembled in the lower bowl seats, watching coach Ron Wilson put the locals through their drills. Many school-age children were on hand to watch their heroes perform. It spoke to the depth of the hockey culture in this city and country, where the national game is revered. I can’t blame them. I love going to the rink to watch the morning skate. You get a chance to explore the vastness of the building when it’s less full, and the sounds of the pucks hitting the boards or the glass resonate throughout the upper level like the echo your voice makes while standing in a canyon.

Down in the hallway by the dressing rooms, Wes and I encountered the large contingent of newspaper scribes and radio
and television broadcasters who cover both teams. The atmosphere was like that of a family reunion. The press corps of both towns are extremely professional, and for the most part were very fair with me. I accommodated their questions as a scrum gathered, and of course one of the questions they asked—the subject of which would likely form the lead paragraph of their stories—pertained to the missed call in 1993. It probably didn’t help that Doug Gilmour was in town with the Kingston Frontenacs junior hockey team he was coaching. They had a game in Brampton, just 30 miles up the road.

Before reaching the room, I bumped into Leafs coach Ron Wilson as he exited the ice, as well as Glen Sather, president and GM of the Rangers. I had a brief but pleasant visit with each of them. Later, just as we were about to leave the building, Börje Salming walked out of the Leafs’ dressing room. They called him the King when he excited the fans for 16 years with his end-to-end rushes as a Leaf defenceman. It was wonderful to visit briefly with Börje before Wes and I headed out for our pre-game lunch. I left it to Wes to decide where he would like to eat. Of course, he chose Wayne Gretzky’s restaurant.

With all the walking I had done since early that morning, I was happy to shut it down for three solid hours of sleep during my standard pre-game nap. I woke up ready to go to work. Unfortunately for the New York Rangers, they appeared to be taking their naps during the third period, and they blew a two-goal lead and a glorious opportunity to pick up two points on Philadelphia and Boston. They ended up losing in overtime on a stinker of a wraparound goal by Nikolai Kulemin that would surely haunt goalie Henrik Lundqvist. The single point for the OT loss would ultimately haunt the Rangers.