Empire-Advance

    In 25 plus years of officiating, I never had a player punch me or hit me with a stick intentionally. On faceoffs sometimes I got hit with sticks and along the boards sometimes a puck would hit me. Others were not as fortunate as myself, here are some stories.

    I did get spit on by a player. I served him a match penalty which means hockey Manitoba and the league would have to deal with it. He received a one-year suspension for that.

    Joe fan seemed to think if you were getting paid you had to take that crap. What a bunch of B.S. that is. You cannot make a living out of officiating in local arenas.

    Two officials including our MLA Greg Nesbitt and his fellow official Bob White got punched both in the same game. The game was called off. The suspension was the team was kicked out of the league for failing to control their players. The team returned years later to the league. Both officials quit shortly after that.

    Another referee was followed home by a player. The player had been kicked out of the game and obviously was mad about it. In the end the official and family who were upset at that time were fine, still unsettling. The player was banned from ever playing in that league again.

    A referee doing a game was cross checked by a player in the face. The official did not get hurt. The player was given a one year suspension. The official hung them up at the end of the season.

    A player, the North Central Hockey League had a great offensive season and also was voted as the winner of the Most Gentlemen trophy award. In game 3 in the next season, he punched an official. He was suspended for one year. I knew the player and asked him why he hit an official? His answer, his teammates had pestered him about being soft.

    Another referee was threatened to be taken to court because a penalty he called was not a 5-minute penalty as the team thought. There was a 2-minute penalty issued on the play in question. The player did miss one game but was back playing after that.

    An official is sitting with his family at a Wheat King game. His cell phone rings. A team executive representative is calling and is drunk. He was using abusive language because of a game the official called the night before. He in fact called him several more times. The result was a 18 game suspension to this man.

    An official is working a game where the home team loses 15-2. He comes out after the game to find all 4 tires on his car slashed. That would take a lot of games to pay for that. The result was that the official quit

    The Question is why would anyone want to officiate with B.S. like this? You certainly are not getting paid enough or have the security to make sure you are safe. This all happened in Westman rinks in your area. Really makes you want to get out there and referee. If there are no officials there are NO games.

    In all these incidents players, fans and team executive members were the culprits. I have heard recently fans that were kicked out of an arena for bad behaviour this winter. Maybe it is just time to stand up for the officials and ban these idiots for a couple of years or maybe they should just be banned forever from going into a local arena! Fans, parents and team representatives if you can not control yourself, do us all a favour and stay away from the arena! Stay home!