The Final Call (41 page)

Watching him fall from my vantage point a considerable distance away, I am reminded of the conversation Rangers coach John Tortorella initiated with me when I first stepped onto the ice prior to the start of the game. “I don’t want you to think this is gamesmanship,” Torts said, “but I want you to be aware that Carcillo falls down very easy for them, and he tried to draw fouls the other night in our building.” I said that I had seen that game, and my colleagues and I had addressed the subject in a meeting earlier. “Okay,” John said, “I just wanted you to be aware.” That must be why I see him now, behind his bench, ready to pull the hairs out of his beard. In honour of my final game, all of the onice officials are wearing number two, so Torts must be wondering which “Fraser” to yell at. The Rangers kill the penalty, but not before Lundqvist makes a great save on a one-timer from the stick of Chris Pronger.

Pronger really comes up big when the game is on the line. He was an even more intimidating presence a few years ago, when the
rules still allowed for stickwork in front of the net. When Chris arrived in the NHL, we applied a liberal standard when a team was killing a penalty. A player almost had to put his stick clean through an opponent before we would put his team two men short. When Chris played in St. Louis, he came to learn that I didn’t subscribe to that approach to a degree that satisfied him. But he came around to my way of thinking, and as an intelligent player, he understood what he could get away with—and with whom. Now, with 23.9 seconds left in this second period, the puck is cleared along the side boards from behind the Rangers’ net by Michal Rozsíval. High up the boards, Jody Shelley turns to receive the puck. Just as he touches it, Pronger steps up from his blue line position and levels Shelley with a monster hit. While Jody may not be seeing as many stars as I did after Richie Dunn’s slapshot, I believe a couple of little birdies tweeted around his head for a moment.

In the dressing room during the second intermission, my colleagues and I review and update our mental checklist once again. I have always maintained that a referee’s latest game is the one everyone remembers most. And, when asked which game was the most important one I’ve ever worked, I have always answered, “My next one.” Since there won’t be a next one for me, how I finish this game could make the difference as to how I will ultimately be remembered. My 30 years could come down to the next 20 minutes. I exit the dressing room with the burning desire to give my personal best one last time to a game that I love.

Stepping onto the blank sheet of ice, I’m transported across the parking lot once again to an empty building that awaits the wrecking ball. Those were the days of the “Philadelphia flu,” when every player who wore the distinctive black-and-orange crest on their sweater automatically became a little bigger and more menacing. The personnel changed over the years, but the face, the team, and the organization had not changed since 1969,
the Flyers’ third year in the NHL. That distinction belonged to their captain, Bobby Clarke, who was as fearless as he was toothless. His team could be as tough on referees as they were on their opponents, and Clarkie could chew up (and chew out) many an official with the few teeth that remained.

As a cocky young referee with my name on my back rather than a number, my objective was to quickly establish throughout the league that I was a referee who could be counted on to be fair and would not be intimidated. I also realized early on that I would need to develop relationships within the game, opening lines of communication and letting players know exactly how far they could go. The best place to start with every team is with their leader, and there was no doubt that in Philadelphia, that player was Bobby Clarke. While there were times that I had to bare my own fangs in dealings with Bob, I always did my best to communicate in a professional manner and counter disrespect, when it came my way, with respect. Sometimes, this was a tall order. Although I dealt with Clarke in the last four years of his career, I don’t think it can be said that he had mellowed with age. You would be hard pressed to find a tougher competitor anywhere, right up to the last time he broke his stick over someone’s ankle. Bobby Clarke was an intelligent hockey man; he knew the game and he knew how to win. I like to think that, during our time on the ice together, we established mutual respect rather quickly. When I’m working in Philadelphia, I can’t help but think of Bobby Clarke. To this day, his face is as recognizable as any in the history of the game—with or without his teeth.

I skate one more lap around the ice before the teams arrive for the start of the third period. I join my fellow officials at centre ice, where Kelly Sutherland offers me the puck to drop at centre ice
one last time. I decline his kind offering, not as a rejection of his respect and friendship, but rather as a sign of my own. I step back and paraphrase the memorable and meaningful words from Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s 1915 poem “In Flanders Fields,” which adorned the Montreal Canadiens’ dressing room in the old Forum (and now the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto): “To you from failing hands I throw the torch; be yours to hold it high.” It’s my turn to pass the torch to this fine young man whom I first met when he was a 17-year-old boy in the mid-1980s at the Western Hockey League School of Officiating in Calgary.

I watched him work throughout the week at that camp, and in the subsequent years that he continued to attend and learn. At the time, Kelly had obviously patterned some of his officiating mannerisms after mine. Heck, he even styled his hair like mine, though not quite as well! The other students even teased him that first year, because Kelly carried my hockey card in his wallet. The first time I saw Kelly work, I told Richard Doerksen, a vice-president of the WHL, that this Sutherland kid was a star, a can’t-miss NHL prospect. He has long since arrived. I am so proud to be standing here today with Kelly, Darren Gibbs, and Don Henderson, all former students of mine at the WHL School of Officiating.

We assume our positions, and Kelly drops the puck as the third period gets under way. Although there is more desperation evident in the Flyers’ attack right from the start of the period, they still can’t find a weakness to exploit in Lundqvist’s game—until, that is, Ranger rookie P.A. Parenteau takes a penalty for interference, for something he might have gotten away with in the American Hockey League. On the penalty kill, the Rangers turn over the puck in the neutral zone. Jeff Carter grabs it and leads a speedy attack that results in a direct shot on goal from in close. Lundqvist makes the first save, then gets caught off balance as Matt Carle jumps in from his defence position and taps the puck past the fallen Rangers’ goalie to tie the game at 13:06.

Carter’s determination on the play reminds me of Eric Lindros, who always drove hard to the net and would not be denied a goal when one was needed. There was much fanfare throughout the hockey world when Lindros finally agreed to play in the NHL, after the Quebec Nordiques made the deal that landed Eric in Philadelphia.

I was assigned to Lindros’s very first game as a Philadelphia Flyer. There was so much interest surrounding him that my father flew in from Canada just to watch this new superstar play in his first game. I could see that he was a superior talent in that very first game. Rather than make a move to go around a player, he took the “bull in the china shop” approach, preferring to go over or through an opponent. I knew it would take its toll. He had some wonderful years, and was a joy to watch. In the end, Eric Lindros was truly a great talent that, unfortunately was unable to reach maturity before injury claimed him.

As the centre on the famed Legion of Doom Line with John LeClair and Mikael Renberg, Lindros was part of one of the most prolific scoring units of the time. Given their size, speed, and skill, this trio was very aptly named. Teams trying to find a way to neutralize them found it impossible. Lyle Odelein of the Canadiens thought he had the answer one night in Montreal in 1995, when he challenged the Big E to a fight. Things didn’t go too well for Odie, though, after the game, he threatened to get Lindros in the rematch game back in Philadelphia a couple of nights later. Brian Burke was the VP of hockey operations and had me reassigned to that game. Burkie and his assistant, Dave Nonis, attended the game in case Odelein made good on his threat. I was prepared to bring the hammer down if necessary to keep the game safe and under control.

For the opening faceoff, I fired the puck down so hard that it scooted through my feet and just behind me. I rotated my upper body, both to find the puck and to move away from it, when LeClair came racing out of his starting blocks from the wing position to get the loose puck, hammering me right in the middle of my back. Two of the discs in my back were herniated upon impact. I was doubled over and could not straighten up. I backed up toward the penalty box, and one of the linesmen blew the whistle to stop play. Still bent in half (I measured about two and a half feet tall in this position), I was guided off the ice by Jim McCrossin, the Flyers’ trainer. The game, one to which I had been assigned for a specific purpose, was only a dozen seconds old and I was being dragged off the ice, unable to stand up.

The doctors were waiting for me in the medical room. They got me partially undressed, and Michael Wienik, a doctor of osteopathy from Temple University, manipulated me to the point where I was able to stand erect. The problem was that now I couldn’t bend over! Burkie and Nonis, both of whom are outstanding people as well as great hockey minds, were in the room and very concerned. Burkie asked me what I wanted to do. I said we didn’t have an alternative; I was going out to finish what he brought me here to do. But first, I needed their help to get dressed. Since I couldn’t sit or bend over, I had to stand while they dressed me. I wish I had had a camera as Brian Burke hitched up my pants.

Brian and Dave then bent down and each laced up one of my skates. Burkie commented that the size of my feet reminded him of lacing up his boys’ skates the week before. I couldn’t resist giving Brian Burke a little tap on the top of his head while he was down there tying my skates. He said, “Kerry, if you ever tell anybody about this, I’ll fire you.” (I guess retirement beats “fire-ment.”) I was helped to the ice, and the game continued. At every stoppage for a commercial, I went to the referee’s crease, lay on the ice, and stretched my back every way I could. Between periods, I was unable to sit, and Dr. Wienik continued to work on me.

Fortunately, Lyle Odelein never made good on the threat he issued. I finished the game and shuffled my feet like a 90-year-old man as I left the arena that night. I ended up flat on my back on the floor for two nights, unable to sleep. It was definitely the worst sustained pain that I ever felt. After four weeks of therapy that wasn’t helping, I got a spinal block that had me moving and back on the ice just in time for the playoffs. The Legion of Doom certainly inflicted some pain that night.

Interestingly enough, as I arrived at the Wachovia Center this afternoon, I received a congratulatory text message from John LeClair that was very much appreciated. LeClair is one of the all-time nice guys in this business and a real class act. I know one thing: I can always count on him to have my back, a fact that I’m reminded of every time I pick up one of my grandkids.