The Final Call (33 page)

In the meantime, a second fight had started in the middle of the ice, between Adam Burt of the Whalers and Brian Noonan of the Hawks. It was a real dandy; they traded punches until they finally ended up over near the side boards at the blue line. An enraged Chelios charged his way across the ice toward the Burt–Noonan fight, dragging Bernie DeGrace along for the ride. Chelios was able to get a right hand free and smoke Burt with a sucker punch right in the eye that really left a mark. Burt, now receiving punches from both sides, was staggering. Chris Chelios was beyond just being out of control and his best defence in a future hearing should be to plead temporary insanity. Linesman DeGrace had to exert what some might deem excessive force (but in this case necessary) to hog-tie Chelios and get him the heck out of there and off the ice. Mitton had hold of Adam Burt, so I stepped in and bear-hugged Brian Noonan just as he was about to throw a wild right that would have caught me by mistake. Muscle memory kicking in from my scrapping days as a player, I restrained Noonan long enough to talk him down from trying to maul Burt while also staying fully intact myself.

With the fight now over, Chris Chelios had the distinction of setting two Hawks records for penalties that night: 51 minutes for the game and 37 in the one altercation. I gave Chris a total of eight penalties that evening, including a double game misconduct. Brian Propp didn’t even get a penalty in the aftermath of the
brawl; there was nothing I could give him for being on the receiving end. When it was all over, Chris Pronger, the 18-year-old rookie, looked for some wisdom from the veteran Brad McCrimmon. “What the hell was that?” he asked. “I couldn’t believe Chelios was bouncing around, suckering guys. Does this happen often?” The Beast could only reply, “Welcome to the NHL, kid.”

After the game, we officials filed our reports with the league and I spoke with Brian Burke by telephone. He had seen the game from his home in Hartford, so he had a pretty accurate sense of what had transpired. Chelios received a suspension for his tirade, and obviously wasn’t all that happy about it.

I was back in Chicago for a New York Islanders game not too long afterward—November 4, to be exact. Before the game, I stopped up the hall to see the Blackhawks’ equipment trainer, Randy Lacey, about getting my skates sharpened. Randy, a great guy, was from Barrie, Ontario, and did an excellent job sharpening skates. As I was talking to him, Chelios stepped out of his dressing room into the trainers’ area and gave me a dirty look. He returned a moment later and said, menacingly, “You will get yours someday, Kerry.” I ignored this threat and continued my conversation with Randy. As stated in the Official’s Report to League President that I filed:

While the quotes I attributed to Chris in the report were accurate, there was one that I left out for his own good. He told me he was going to shoot a puck at my head if he got the chance that night. Before I walked away, I said, “You better not finish getting dressed, because you might not be playing.” It was then that I summoned league supervisor Will Norris and had him bring Hawks coach Darryl Sutter to our room. When Suds learned what Chris had said he was going to do to me, he rolled his eyes, uttered a profanity, and asked me what I wanted to do. I left the decision up to Sutter, but told him if he dressed Cheli and a puck came within five feet of me, he was going to miss 20 games. Darryl thanked me and said he would talk to him. Chelios dressed, and didn’t even look at me throughout the entire game. He never even passed the puck near me, let alone shoot it in my direction. As far as I was concerned, the incident was over. As a matter of fact, beyond that year I developed an excellent working relationship with the Iron Man. Chris has had an amazing career, and his longevity was a tribute to his work ethic and skill.

I did actually take a puck in the head in Chicago, but not until four years later, and it was off the stick of Tony Amonte. I’m sure it was purely coincidental that Chris Chelios was still on the team. Brian Sutter, the eldest of the famous brothers, was behind the Blackhawks bench this time.

It was during a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and it was televised on ESPN. The Hawks were on a power play and Tony had set up in his own end, along the wall at the top of the faceoff circle, after the Pens had dumped the puck in. Since there was no forechecker on the play, I stopped five feet up ice from Tony, near the blue line. Both of us, I assumed, were anticipating
the Chicago defenceman making a clean pass to Tony to start the play up ice. As the hard pass was fired to Amonte, his intentions obviously changed at the very last second, from taking the pass to angling his stick and deflecting the puck upward into my face! My elbow came up a fraction of a second too late to defend against the incoming projectile, and the puck broke my nose, fractured my front tooth, and cut my lip for seven stitches. Since there was no Blackhawk player up ice to take Tony’s offering, I always found his decision to deflect the puck at the last second an unusual one.

It was midway through the third period and the Hawks were down by a goal. I couldn’t continue because when I blew the whistle, blood sprayed out the whistle hole. I went over to Brian Sutter and said we would have to stop the game until I got sewn up. In keeping with the Sutter family tradition, Brian shook his head in disgust and said, “Fuck, Kerry, hurry up and get back. We’re pressing!” After a quick stitch-up job in the medical room, I was back out for the end of the game but had to blow the whistle out of the side of my mouth.

I’d love to work a game between a whole team of Sutters (six brothers played over 5,000 games in the NHL and collectively won six Stanley Cups) against the Hunter boys (three brothers who accumulated four Stanley Cups). These guys would do anything to win and even fought each other when playing on opposing teams. I’d declare the last man standing the winner. I absolutely love those guys—each and every one of them.

When I arrived in the NHL, the Chicago Blackhawks were a proud franchise with a fan base that extended well beyond the limits of the Windy City. Arthur Wirtz and James E. Norris bought the Blackhawks in 1952 and set about rebuilding the team. Throughout the decade, they added Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita,
Pierre Pilote, goalie Glenn Hall, and Ted Lindsay, and won the Stanley Cup in 1961. They reached the finals again in 1962, 1965, 1971, 1973, and 1992. Arthur Wirtz’s son Bill took over as president of the team in 1966 and held that position until his death in 2007. For 18 years, Mr. Wirtz was chairman of the NHL’s board of governors and oversaw the merger with the World Hockey Association.

Bill Wirtz was often known as “Dollar Bill” because of the popular belief that he took a miserly approach to player salaries. Bill also alienated fans by refusing to televise the Hawks’ home games—he felt it would negatively impact attendance if fans could watch the game on TV. In 1998, the Blackhawks’ string of 28 consecutive playoff appearances came to an end, and they missed the post-season in nine of the next 10 seasons. At the lowest point, the team played to a half-full arena, and ESPN named the Blackhawks the worst franchise in all of professional sports. The mood was so ugly that, after Wirtz’s death, while general manager Dale Tallon delivered a pre-game eulogy at the United Center, fans jeered him. But the fact remains that Chicago would not have even had the team if not for the Wirtz family’s ownership. And on at least two occasions, I was in the company of Mr. Wirtz in his capacity as chairman of the board, and saw him both as a shrewd businessman as well as someone who really loved and cared about the game.

In my second year in the league, there was more than a growing concern that player violence and disrespect against on-ice officials had escalated beyond anything that could be tolerated by the members of the NHL Officials’ Association. Referee Andy Van Hellemond was the most high-profile target of player abuse, having been crosschecked in the back by Barclay Plager of the
St. Louis Blues and then punched in the chest by Paul Holmgren of the Philadelphia Flyers. Van Hellemond, along with Dave Newell, president of the NHLOA, and legal counsel Jim Beatty, pulled NHL president John Ziegler away from the annual office Christmas party in Montreal on December 23, 1981, in an attempt to convey how serious our concerns were. It was felt that if stronger suspensions were imposed, players would refrain from what had been taking place. The league seemed to prefer the status quo.

So, Beatty wrote a letter to the NHL, which he released to the media, advising that, because the officials feared that their safety was not being adequately provided for—as the league was obligated to do under the collective bargaining agreement—we would begin “working to rule.” The letter clarified what that meant: if a fight broke out, the referee and two linesmen would retreat to the safety of the officials’ crease by the penalty box. When the combatants had finished fighting, they were to make their way to the penalty box and take their respective seats, at which time the referee would assess the appropriate penalties. I had a game in Winnipeg on the weekend the work-to-rule campaign began, and Jets tough guy Bryan Maxwell got into a fight behind the Winnipeg net. I immediately blew my whistle to stop play, and my colleagues and I went to the officials’ crease and waited. As the two players continued to trade punches, we could see them both looking for the officials to step in. When that didn’t happen, they stopped fighting, picked up their gloves and sticks, and, obeying the commands of my waving arm and whistle, took their places in the penalty box for five minutes.

By the time that weekend was over, the NHL agreed to act, and, to the satisfaction of the NHLOA, and through the courageous efforts of President Dave Newell, a “blue-ribbon committee” was created to discuss and implement changes. The panel consisted of team general managers, coaches, referees, NHL executives, and Alan Eagleson, executive director of the NHL Players’ Association.
This group was given the task of fashioning a rule change to take effect, subject to the board of governors’ approval, at the beginning of the 1982–83 season. Before the current season finished and the panel got to craft the new rule, Van Hellemond was punched again. This time, Terry O’Reilly of the Boston Bruins hit him with a wicked right cross to the side of his head during a playoff game against the Quebec Nordiques on April 25. O’Reilly was suspended by the NHL for the first 10 games of the next season and fined $500.

After its deliberations, the blue-ribbon committee put forward a tough policy known as Rule 67. This rule called for an automatic 20-game suspension for any player who “deliberately strikes, or who deliberately applies physical force in any manner against an official.” It also specified an automatic three-game suspension for any player who “physically demeans” an official or who “deliberately applies physical force” to an official while being restrained during a fight with an opposing player. In both of these cases, the penalty and automatic suspension were to be imposed by the referee immediately after the game, and the player had
no right of appeal!
The thinking must have been that, with consequences as dire as these, there would never be another case of physical abuse against an official. That, however, was very wishful thinking.

The night before Halloween 1983, Tom Lysiak was playing for Chicago against Hartford. Linesman Ron Foyt had waved him out of the faceoff circle several times that night and, frustrated, he deliberately tripped Foyt after the puck was dropped. Dave Newell happened to be the referee of that game, and, under the rule he helped draft, suspended Lysiak for 20 games. All hell broke loose. Lysiak went to court and got a temporary injunction and scored a goal in the Hawks’ next game in Detroit. Ultimately, the suspension stuck. Lysiak was never the same player. Unfortunately, Ron Foyt was terminated at the end of the following season, in what many of us considered a case of retribution over the Lysiak affair. The band of brothers, the underpaid and underappreciated officials, had
stood firm. While the league saw us as becoming militant, we sought protection against player abuse that was getting out of control. It would not be the last time that Dave Newell and the officials’ association would have to stand strong against the courts and the league.