VICE Sports Q&A: Legendary NHL Referee Kerry Fraser

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Since an ugly Jan. 27 incident that saw Dennis Wideman of the Calgary Flames cross check linesman Don Henderson moments after suffering a concussion, the safety of NHL officials and the relationship between players and officials has been a hot topic. The NHL faced a difficult decision when trying to weigh the effect of the concussion that Wideman sustained and how much that could have led to the Flames defenceman's uncharacteristic actions against the importance of being seen as standing up for its officials.

As a former referee who spent 30 years as an NHL official, Kerry Fraser has seen it all. In fact, Fraser refereed over 1,900 regular-season games, giving him the record for the most games served as an NHL referee.

We recently caught up with the legendary ref to get his thoughts on the fallout from the Wideman incident, the relationship between officials and players, his favourite coaches to deal with and the one referee versus two-referee system. And, of course, we asked him about his hair. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

VICE Sports: Were you satisfied as a former official with the NHL issuing and upholding Wideman's 20-game suspension?

Kerry Fraser: Absolutely, I think the current crop of officials would have been pleased that the league demonstrated strong support and protection of the officials with not just the suspension of 20 games but also that Commissioner Gary Bettman, in a 23-page finding, upheld the suspension. That again was a demonstration to all of the players in the league that in the best interests of the game and in the protection of the officials, they are off limits from a physical perspective.

If the NHL had been perceived as soft in dealing with the Wideman incident—by handing him a short, inconsequential suspension—what could the fallout have been amongst NHL officials?

There was a time in our history of the officials' association where it wasn't written into the collective bargaining agreement that we could not perform a wildcat strike. If that was the case now where officials walked out, they would be subject to termination due to a violation of the CBA. However, there would be some form of retaliation. They wouldn't compromise their integrity or the integrity of the game but they would likely, as we did in 1982, work to rule. That involved a very rigid and strict enforcement of the rules, very little communication with players or coaches; it was a tight-lipped approach. In 1982, our lawyer at the time, after meetings with John Ziegler—the president of the NHL—informed us the league failed to provide the protection that we believed we needed. Our lawyer issued a letter to Mr. Ziegler and the media and stated that on a certain date, the officials would work to rule and stated what that meant. If a fight broke out, the officials would gather at the penalty box, they would not break up fights or intervene for fear of personal injury since the league was not willing to protect us. At that point, a committee was assembled to come up with a solution for official safety. Alan Eagleson served as the chair. It was determined that a 20-game suspension would be imposed by the referee, it was not a league-imposed suspension, and at that time there was no right of appeal for the player. The reason for that is because Eagleson said, if you make it 20 games, it will never happen, a player will never physically abuse an official.

Should the NHL alter the appeals process to allow players to play until a decision has been rendered on their appeal? Similar to how MLB conducts its appeals process.

Absolutely not where it concerns physical abuse of an official. I think any legality or dragging out of an appeal process that could allow a player to participate after having been penalized and a suspension issued would be in the disinterest of the game. In the interest of the protection of the officials, I doubt very much if it would be accepted by the officials.

Paul Maurice was recently ejected from a game for yelling at the refs. What was your threshold before you would eject a coach?

How I would have handled that situation is if I'm a distance away and I'm not going to the bench to have a discussion with the coach, if something is thrown or a stick is broken over the boards, something visible like that, there would be very little tolerance that any referee would have other than to impose a bench penalty and likely an ejection. I didn't eject a lot of coaches over my 30-year career. I can count it on one hand. One was Orval Tessier just before he got fired in Chicago in 1984-85. He opened and slammed the bench door several times in disgust. He got a bench penalty for that and then he took a hockey stick out of the stick rack and broke it over the boards at which point I ejected him. In direct reference to Paul Maurice's situation, when I went to a bench to have a discussion of my own volition, I felt the need to bring the temperature down. By going to the bench, I knew that I could very possibly have to eat some of the vitriol that could be coming my way. I wouldn't be quick on the trigger. I went to the coach, he didn't call me, and therefore I'm going to listen and try to calm the situation. If it gets to the point where it's not going anywhere in a positive direction, I would use body language, open palms, I wouldn't cut him off.

The NHL added a coach's challenge system this season, allowing coaches to request that the officials review goaltender interference and offside calls through a tablet video monitor at the penalty box. Specific to goalie interference, do you feel the system has worked as well as possible, and, as a former official, would you mind having your subjective calls eligible for further review?

I've advocated for referees to have the ability to review goalie interference, I've done it for the last five years. I believe the referees have to make that call—it's their call to make. The more that is passed off to the situation room in Toronto, the less capable I feel the referees become in making decisions on the ice in the moment. It's too easy just to move it elsewhere and not actually make a decision. The problem that needs to be corrected is the referees need to be given the best opportunity technologically to render a decision properly and quickly. To be looking at a nine-inch tablet and not getting feeds in the moment is just not appropriate and it almost looked to me like it was being set up to fail from the beginning. So that needs to be corrected, that's number one, getting the right technology. If it is determined that it has to go to the situation room in Toronto to make the decision, they need to hire former officials and put them in that room like Major League Baseball does with umpires to work out of their situation room in New York, to make the decision in communication with the umpires on the field. These are former officials who are making the decisions on officiating decisions; I think that's very important moving forward.

What is your relationship with Doug Gilmour like today? How many times have you spoken with him since "The (Non) call" in 1993?

I have an excellent relationship with Doug Gilmour. He's a class guy. He was such a hard worker, he was a leader, he understood mistakes were made. Players make mistakes and so do referees. He never brought it up on the ice after the incident. Even to the point when it happened and there was so much uncertainty as to what took place from my end. We didn't see it. I went to Doug and he was dabbing blood on his chin and I said, 'Tell me what happened' and he said, 'Well, Wayne (Gretzky) took a shot and his follow through hit me in the chin.' That's what he thought happened. And I said, 'Well, if that's the case, Doug, a follow through of a shot is not a high-sticking penalty,' and he said, 'OK.' But then it just didn't feel right to me so that's when I pulled the two linesmen over in the corner and we had a discussion. I said, 'Please help me, did anybody see a high stick?' But it would have been a guess, and we couldn't do it.

Which NHL coach did you have the best in-game working relationship with during your career?

Oh my gosh, so many really. But it was out of mutual respect. Each guy had a different personality. Glen Sather, for instance, was extremely witty. One time in the Northlands Coliseum, I'd called a penalty and had my back to the bench and I heard Slats' squeaky unmistakable voice calling my name and saying what a lousy call it was. I just turned my head and put my finger to my lips like 'hush' and Slats immediately put his hands up like 'I surrender' kind of thing and said, 'Kerry, it wasn't me, it was the photographer,' as he pointed to the photographer standing between the two benches. So I laughed because I knew it was Slats. All the players laughed because they knew it was Slats. And there's the photographer standing there with a dumb look on his face. So the next night, I had the Oilers playing in Vancouver so I thought I'd set the table here, I was going to get Slats back. He was always the last guy, after the anthems were sung and the players were on the bench, Sather would come out from under the stands and assume his position behind the bench. So I was waiting at centre ice with the puck in my hands ready for the faceoff. All of a sudden Slats appears behind the bench, so I said, 'Boys, hold on a second please.' I skated over to his bench and said, 'Hey, Slats, we're not going to have any problem with that photographer tonight, are we?' Without skipping a beat, he said, 'No, Kerry, we left the son of a bitch at home, he couldn't keep his mouth shut.'

Now Al Arbour, he was like a father figure. He was so well respected. I had a game in Chicago and the thing about the Islanders was that they were an extremely disciplined team. They could play tough but they were really disciplined and that came from the guy behind the bench, Al Arbour. Al never yelled but if he did, I knew that I had probably screwed up. So this game in Chicago, I started slow, I was brutal. I had them with three penalties right off the bat. After the third penalty, Al opened the bench door, had his hands on his hips, looked at me and yelled, 'Kerry, get over here.' I had my head down, I knew I was stinking the joint out. So I skated over to him, stood in front of him at the door and said, 'Yes, Al?' He said, 'What the hell are you doing out here today?' I just kind of peaked up and said, 'I don't know, Al, I'm really struggling.' He had his lips pursed, hands on his hips, thought for a minute like he didn't know what to say and all of a sudden he said, 'Get out there and try harder,' and pointed out to where the faceoff should be. All I could do was say, 'OK, Al, I will,' and skated away like a little boy who'd just been lectured by his dad.

Which NHL coach gave you the hardest time during your career?

Pat Quinn was that way. Pat hated the referees. Brian Burke told me one time when he was the assistant GM with the Vancouver Canucks under Pat, he said, 'Kerry, you can't win with Pat. It doesn't matter if you do a great job, it just doesn't matter. He hates referees.' Do referees hold grudges against certain players?

There will be players who will tell you that referees held a grudge against them. Chris Nilan, who is a dear friend now, but is a guy who had such disdain for me, even to the point of hatred when he played. I gave Chris a lot of penalties that he deserved and he didn't think he deserved any of them, that I was picking on him. I caught him in Boston when he was playing for the Canadiens with a butt end to the mouth of Rick Middleton. And I say I caught him because it was kind of like entrapment. Middleton and Nilan was a bad combination. Middleton was a slick player, non-aggressive. Nilan, you just had to keep an eye on.

They collided by the net, both fell to the ice and the puck moved in the opposite direction. I looked across from the other side of the ice and looked at Nilan. More importantly, he saw me looking at him. I turned to follow the play and as I made one stride, I immediately snapped my head back in the direction of Nilan and saw him butt-ending Middleton in the mouth and knocking his teeth out. I assessed a match penalty. We had to go to the hearing which was just before the playoffs in front of Brian O'Neill (NHL executive VP in charge of discipline at the time). Serge Savard was the GM of the Canadiens. As I walked into that board room, Nilan and Savard were there and if looks could kill, I would have been dead. We sat down, Mr. O'Neill read my report and said, 'Chris, do you have anything to say for yourself?' And Nilan, in his Boston accent, says, 'Yeah, Mr. O'Neill, I've got something to say. Referee Fraser, he picks on me more than any other ref in the league. He's always giving me penalties; he's always watching me, every second I'm on the ice. And just to prove my point, if he had have been watching what he should have been watching, which was the puck going up the other way, he wouldn't have seen me butt end Middleton in the mouth!' Well, Serge Savard spit his coffee on the table, grabbed Chris and said, 'Mr. O'Neill, Chris did not mean to say that.' I'll never forget what Brian O'Neill said. He looked Nilan right in the eye and said, 'Chris, there wouldn't be a referee worth a pound of salt in this league if he didn't watch you every second you're on the ice given your reputation. Now would you like to see a replay of the incident?' Both Nilan and Savard declined to watch it and Chris got an eight-game suspension just before the playoffs.

You've had experience working under the one-referee system and the two-referee system throughout your career. I'm wondering if you think with the speed of the game today, would it be possible to officiate the game effectively with just one referee on the ice?

No, I don't. Since we took the red line out of the equation for a two-line pass, one referee can't possibly chase the puck as fast as it moves. The other aspect is, at the insistence of commissioner Gary Bettman, almost pleading, begging us to call obstruction and to extricate the restraining tactics from the game and let the skilled players perform, to do that—if you think of broadcasting a game and you have one camera angle, one only following the play from behind, if a player puts his stick in front of another player, you can't tell from that back angle if it made contact, restrained him, if the player grabbed the stick and pulled it into himself and took a dive, usually the front view is the most telling view. So to have the ability to have both ends of the ice being officiated with a trailing referee to take care of cheap shots behind the play and the lead referee watching as play approaches him is critical. I think it can be much more effective, though. There needs to be more understanding with the referees on the ice from a positional standpoint so there are not gaps in coverage. The other aspect is you have to trust your partner as a referee. If he's standing eight or ten feet from a play and has a good view and doesn't consider it a penalty, it used to drive me crazy when a guy over a hundred feet away would raise his arm and come flying in and blowing his whistle.

Jaromir Jagr is 44 years old and continues to perform at a level that would be impressive for someone 20 years his junior. You were active as an official during 17 of Jagr's seasons. Do you have a favourite story involving Jagr that comes to mind?

I mean he was a free spirit. He was always highly, highly skilled but I didn't know if he had much of a commitment as he does now when he was a younger player. It came easy for him and then he realized he had to work, and boy does he work hard. Two incidents with him that come to mind. One time he just decided he was going to leave the ice during play. He knocked on the door in the corner where the players went on and off to the dressing room. Play is going on and there's an attendant standing there, a kid, and Jagr decided he wanted to go off the ice. So he knocked on the door, the kid opened the door, he stepped off the ice and now the Penguins were playing a man short. You can't make a substitution from anywhere other than the players' bench. He was hurt. He got hit and he was hurt and rather than lay down or go to the bench, he decided he was closer to the dressing room so he'd go off.

The other time that really stands out in my mind, and it was in Pittsburgh again—he was ready for a line change on the fly and he sat on the dasher boards with both feet dangling over the boards and the puck happened to come right between his skates and rested against the boards. He had his stick and just reached down and passed the puck sitting on top of the boards. Well, you can't do that, so that's an interference penalty. So I had to give him a penalty for not understanding that you can't do that.

Your chance to earn an endorsement deal here. What was the name of the product you used for your hair during your career?

Paul Mitchell, Freeze and Shine! I'll tell you a story—in the Buffalo Auditorium, the Sabres were playing the Bruins in the playoffs, a 1-0 game that Buffalo lost. In the old Aud, we had a little cubby hole of a dressing room and at the end of the game, fans could linger around there and wait, and I carried my bag out of the dressing room and a lady gets right in my face. She said, 'Kerry, I've got a question for you!' I thought, 'Oh, man, here it comes.' I didn't think I'd done anything wrong in the game but she looks obviously ticked off so I set my bag down and said, 'Yes, ma'am, what can I help you with?' She said, 'I've got real problem hair and your hair never moves out there! What's your secret?' So I said, 'Paul Mitchell, Freeze and Shine.' She said, 'Thank you so much, I'm going to go buy a case of it.'