The Final Call (5 page)

I owe so much to men like Art Skov, Wally Harris, and many others who helped in my development and ultimate success as an official. There are none, however, who had a greater impact on my growth as a referee and as a person than Dave Newell. While there was a brief period in the middle of our relationship when we didn’t necessarily see eye to eye, I always admired the unparalleled courage and integrity that Dave displayed, both as a referee on the ice and as president of the NHL Officials’ Association for many years.

One night, I watched a Flyers–Leafs playoff game on TV from Maple Leaf Gardens that turned into a war. One of the Flyers was even accused of clubbing an usherette behind the bench. As the Flyers ganged up on Darryl Sittler and Borje Salming, there was Dave in the middle of it all, trying to help protect the players and restore order. In the aftermath, Dave was seen holding a clipboard in his blood-drenched hands, transcribing the penalties for timekeeper “Banana Joe” Lamantia. I recently did a radio show with Bill Clement, the former Flyer who is now an outstanding broadcaster. Years after the fact, his eyes widened as he told me he once saw Bob Clarke spear Dave in the groin during a scrum. Those were intimidating times, and Dave never wavered.

On that night, I learned as much or more about Dave the man as I did about how to referee. In 1973, he had a night off in Minneapolis prior to a North Stars game. I had a game in the Midwest Junior league that night, an hour-and-a-half drive from the city. Dave asked if he could come and watch me work the game and critique my performance. Later, when I was in the same position that Dave had been in, I reflected on the personal sacrifice he made that night for a young referee. That’s the kind of guy Dave Newell is.

Once he retired from the ice in 1990, Dave took a management position with the league under the various titles of supervisor,
officiating manager, and assistant director of officiating—always with the aim of helping make an official the best he could be. His ability to communicate the vast officiating knowledge he acquired has launched many a career. Several past and current officials will admit that Dave Newell was the very best officiating coach they ever had.

And that list would include the guy who fired him. Unfortunately for the game and the development of young officials, Dave Newell was fired by Stephen Walkom in August of 2006, one year after Walkom took over as the NHL’s senior vice-president of officiating. While Walkom has since returned to the ice, much damage was inflicted during his short tenure.

I
t’s always rewarding when the final buzzer sounds to bring another long grind of a hockey season to an end.

My beaten-down body is usually a good indicator as to just how many miles I have travelled and how demanding the 73 games or more that I officiated over the course of the season were.

While the regular season usually begins the first week of October, hockey season in the Fraser household really starts around the end of July, the first week of August at the latest. That’s historically when I, Papa Bear, come out of hibernation with a gnawing hunger that won’t be satisfied until I’ve successfully completed the demanding fitness test and weigh-in administered by Dave Smith, the fitness and medical director at the NHL officials’ training camp, sometime after Labour Day.

It has taken tremendous dedication and sacrifice to excel as an NHL official for all these years. Unfortunately, far too often my family’s sacrifice has been, at the very least, equal to mine. While July and August are supposed to be our off-season vacation time, spent at the Jersey Shore, Kathy and the kids have reluctantly accepted that Dad spends that time obsessing over weight, body fat, and cardio conditioning.

Sometimes, I’ve tried to combine family activities with training. In late August of 1989, our first summer in New Jersey after our move from Sarnia, Kathy rented a house in Avalon, by the Shore, for a week. We bought one of those big storage pods that strapped to the top of the minivan. I felt like Jimmy Stewart in the classic movie
Mr. Hobbs Goes on Vacation
. I had that sucker loaded with lawn chairs, boogie boards, and even a portable gas grill. The van was jammed so tight with kids (we “only” had six then—Kara was born in 1990) and luggage that we almost had to leave the family dog, Tinker, at home. I ran along the beach all week, chasing kids and fishing them out of the surf when it got rough. I would inline-skate at least 10 miles a day before everyone got up or after the gang went to bed.

Being close to the water is something my family enjoys very much. I grew up playing in the clear, blue water of Lake Huron. My hometown of Sarnia, known primarily for its petrochemical industry and shipping, is near the mouth of the lake, where it joins the St. Clair River, which flows 60 miles south to Detroit. Across the river is Port Huron, Michigan. The entire region is known as Bluewater Land, and the cities (and countries) are connected by the Bluewater Bridge.

After training camp in 1988, Kathy and I loaded the kids and Tinker into the minivan and drove 600 miles to our new home in southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia. Two hours into the drive, just past Toledo, everyone’s initial excitement for the move gave way to every kid’s number-one question: “Are we there yet?” At that point, we only had 10 more hours of drive time ahead of us.

Finally, we reached Philadelphia and were crossing into New Jersey over the Walt Whitman Bridge. Looking down at the water below, our daughter Jaime, who was six years old and was then
the baby of the family, asked with total innocence if this bridge was named the Greenwater Bridge.

Quality of family time has always been a priority for Kathy and me, in spite of this little bump in the calendar caused by my obsessive training-camp preparations. In fact, my goal of cutting down on travel and having more family time at home during the season was at the top of the list of reasons we moved from Sarnia. We were looking for an NHL market that was easy to travel to and from, and with five teams within 150 miles of Philadelphia, I could work a game in that region and be home before midnight. Just ask any player who has been traded to the Flyers from the Western Conference, and they will tell you how much easier their travel became. In Sarnia, the only venue where I could work the game and be guaranteed to sleep in my own bed afterward was Detroit, 60 miles away. One can never depend on the winter weather in southern Ontario, so Toronto and Buffalo games often resulted in a hotel stay.

Our research told us that former players who had been traded away from Philadelphia often returned to the area when their careers were done, while players who retired as Flyers tended to stay there. It was a great endorsement of the way the local fan base has embraced the hockey community, which in turn is a by-product of the passion and class the organization has demonstrated, from owner Ed Snider on down. Joe Kadlec, the team’s travelling secretary and one of the finest men I had the good fortune to know within the game, was extremely helpful with all kinds of information about the area.

Once we decided on Philadelphia, the question became where, exactly, to put down stakes. The majority of the Flyers lived in Voorhees, New Jersey, not far from the team’s practice facility. The public school system there was ranked in the top 10 in the nation, and there was easy access to major highways, turnpikes, and the airport.

There happened to be a great two-story house on the market that was perfect for our needs, and the seller was very highly motivated. Mike Keenan had been let go as coach of the Flyers at the end of a disappointing season. He would not be out of work for long, as the Chicago Blackhawks quickly snapped him up. Iron Mike had already purchased a home in Chicago, and wasn’t excited about owning homes in two cities. When you think about it, if he’d held onto property in every NHL city where he has coached, he might have been the wealthiest real estate baron in the league!

Kathy and I fell in love with the house as soon as we walked into the foyer. We went back to the hotel that evening, determined to do whatever we could to eliminate the obstacles that stood between us and owning the house.

But buying a home anywhere would have been a risky proposition that summer. The NHL Officials Association was involved in protracted contract negotiations with the league. We faced the prospect of being locked out or on strike as of September 1. For the sake of the children, we wanted to be settled into a new house (and country, for that matter) before the school year started, but because Kathy would be unable to work in the U.S., the financial burden rested entirely on my shoulders. Until the new contract was ratified, we weren’t certain whether we’d be able to afford the payments. We didn’t even know how much I was going to be paid under a new contract.

It was a pretty gutsy move, but we were able to negotiate a tricky lease-to-purchase agreement through Mike’s real estate agent. Even then, it wasn’t until a few days before training camp that a new collective bargaining agreement was reached and we could load up the moving van. In the meantime, there were many details to attend to. After all, we weren’t just moving around the corner. We had a home and a rental property to dispose of, as well as immigration paperwork, and the kids’ school year was drawing closer. Fortunately, Kathy was a top sales agent with ReMax. She
was a champ at listing and selling the two properties, and negotiated closing dates that coincided with our move to the United States.

When I got to training camp and saw the terms of the new contract, I started to doubt our ability to keep up with the mortgage payments on the $42,000 base pay I was due to receive that season. But a bizarre wrinkle took some of the pressure off. The new collective bargaining agreement contained language the league insisted on, called a discretionary bonus clause or “C-clause.” Basically, the league put money into a fund, which each official could negotiate individually with the NHL for a share of. This contravenes the whole premise of collective bargaining.

It was called “discretionary” because it was totally up to the league’s discretion as to how much of it each official would get. It could have also been called the Kerry Fraser Clause, since it was, in reality, an equalization fund to compensate those who were paid less based upon their years of service, yet were outperforming—in the league’s view—others at the top of the pay scale. As an example, I worked the Stanley Cup final in 1985, becoming the youngest referee to do so at the time. My base pay was $32,500, while the top of the scale was $65,000. Some of those earning the top salary had not been selected by the officiating department to work in the playoffs.

During training camp, each of us had to meet with John McCauley, a.k.a. “The Master,” to discuss how much of a bonus we’d get. The league’s senior VP of hockey operations, Jim Gregory (the former GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs) would sit in.

My respect and affection for both of these fine men is unparalleled. Not only did I lose a great friend and mentor when John passed after the 1989 Stanley Cup final, but the officiating department has not yet fully recovered from this loss. The NHL will also lose one of the most respected hockey minds and historians when Uncle Jim, as some of the officials affectionately call him, leaves his post.

I knew what I needed to bring in for our home purchase, and I sold The Master on the difference between my value and my years of service. My position boiled down to this: “John, look what I’ve done for you lately—comparatively speaking, of course.” I threw a ridiculous figure at him—$15,000—that seemed to catch him off guard. He countered with $5,500. I dropped to $12,000. The numbers started flying back and forth at such a rapid pace that I felt like a contestant on
Let’s Make a Deal
with Monty Hall. When John fired back a counter-offer of $8,800, I shouted, “Done! We got a deal.” Jim Gregory looked at The Master and said, “John, I think you’ve just been had.”

Without batting an eye or losing momentum, I said I needed a $10,000 loan—interest free—from the league to help with the down payment on Mike’s house. I promised to pay it back at the end of the season from my playoff money.