Beer League Refs Tell Us Their Greatest Horror Stories

Human emotions are farts, uncomfortable and smelly, and most of us desperately try to keep them in. But when the pressure finally becomes too much, out they come. It is at once painful and joyful, horrifying and captivating, noxious and tantalizing.

Beer league hockey refs, protected only by a scant rulebook and their optional visor, bear witness to more messy emotions than most of Canada's busiest therapists.

Actuaries, plumbers, teachers, chefs, real estate dudes, visual artists, engineers, yoga instructors: they are almost, without exception, "the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet off the ice." Yet, no one is immune to being an asshole on the ice.

When they step on the ice on a Tuesday night, every once in awhile, they emotionally shit themselves—grown men screaming at other grown men about icing and hooks, slamming doors, banging on the penalty box glass.

This leads to Beer League Hockey Shame, forcing guys to skulk out of the rink with their reputation in tatters, driving home with "Fast Cars" playing in the background, promising themselves to never behave like that again.

The refs though, they don't judge; they understand. But they shake it off and move on to the next game. By the time they've turned the ignition in their cars to drive home for the night, all is forgotten.

But they've seen some crazy shit, so I asked beer league refs around Canada to drudge up some of their worst memories.

I refereed with a fella, Bob, and we were driving up to a league that played out of an arena called Doublerink. It was the only league going in those days. We would go up there for the evening three times a week and take turns doing the driving. So, we're driving up there in his car and I am looking around from the passenger's seat and I notice something in the centre console. It is a little toy gun, his kid was young at the time and my kid was young at the time so you had toys all over the place I looked at him and said, "You know what, this gun, this gun looks really real." Not much was made of it. We drive up, get out of the car and go into the rink. In those days, we'd do six games, we'd time two and ref four. We'd rotate. So, anyways, I'm in the time box. Now Bob, who was a funny guy, not a joke teller but just a dry sense of humour, he gives this guy a penalty and as he's taking him to the penalty box, the guy is all over him, complaining away. All of a sudden, Bob pulls this gun out of his pocket and says to the guy, "Get in the goddamned box!" The guy didn't know what to do and gets in the penalty box. The game was clean as clean could be after that.

I just completed my 35th year of wearing a whistle, so I have seen a few things. A number of years ago, I was reffing at a local arena where there never used to be glass all the way around the rink, just at the end of the rink and short glass on the sides. It was the last game of the night and I was skating off the ice when, out of the corner of my eye, I see the goalie leaning over the boards talking to a couple of women in the stands. Then all of a sudden, he just took his goalie stick and cracked the one lady across the side of the head with a Joe Carter homerun cut. He split her fucking wide open. His own team came out on the ice and beat the shit out of this guy. Two ambulances came to the rink that night, one for the lady and one for the goalie.

Another story. My partner calls a penalty and the guy getting the call just turns and fires the puck hitting my partner in the neck while he is standing near the end of their bench. Thankfully, my partner was standing against the glass so the puck hit his neck and glass at the same time. My partner doesn't go down. After shooting the puck, the guy races towards him—I mean full throttle. My partner extends both arms into his chest and drops him onto his shoulder blades. Right away he gets up thinking he is going to pummel my partner. I grab ahold of him—and believe me when I say this, when I grab hold of you, you aren't doing shit. I grab onto him, now, when I grab a guy, what I do is I always grab onto both shoulders of the sweater so I can control him if he tries to come underneath or if he tries to come over the top. If he gets really stupid, I come down right down the middle and give him a CCM kiss.

So I grab onto this guy's sweater and start backing towards the gate to get him off the ice. Somebody off the ice opens the gate and as I release him, he swings his stick at me. I just shut the door before he can reload his stick.

So my partner is down in the corner getting ready to drop the puck. I skate by the timekeeper and make the call. I come along in front of the bench to take my spot on the blue line and some guy, wearing a full cage, who apparently is playing with the team for the first time, says to me, "Yeah you are fucking tough, I should come on the ice and dummy you."

He jumps over the boards so I start backing towards the gate because I want to get him off the ice, no matter what happens. As I back towards the gate, out of the corner of my eye, I see the guy I just threw out opening the gate to try to tag me from the other side. So now I got one coming from my left and one from my right. I grab both of their sweaters and cross my arms so they are virtually trying to kiss each other. I dive through the doorway and I land on top of the two of them. I let go of both them, get up and go back through the door to the ice. The league just kicked them both out. The guy who shot the puck was leaving for Vancouver the next week; I think his whole intention was to go crazy.

The strangest thing that has ever happened to me, I was kinda the aggressor. My son refs too and one time I used him as my partner. I was doing a Sunday night league, it is C/D-level men's hockey. The games are way too long for these guys but so be it. So I bring him out and the goalie on one of these teams is a constant bitcher, "There's guys in my crease, there's guys in my crease." So, I said to my son, "OK, you watch the play and I'll watch in front of the net when it's in your end." And this guy is endlessly bitching. Why is he bitching? Because he's a shitty goalie and he wants to blame anybody but himself.

Next thing you know, a guy goes down and scores on him from just inside the blue line. The goalie picks the puck out of his net and he starts laying into my son as he's handing the puck to him. Just giving it to him with both barrels. And I am hearing this as I record the goal and I go over to the guy—now I have never ever done this before, but this was the second week in a row with this idiot goalie—and I said, "You son of a bitch, this is the problem with fucking idiots like you, this is why young officials don't referee." At the time my son was 22 and I was introducing him to men's hockey.

I grabbed this goalie's facemask—which I should have never done—but I did, and I gave his facemask a twist and I was bopping him up and down and I said, "You son of a bitch, you say one more word to this kid and I will take you outside and beat the shit out you." He never said another word, not another word.

I was doing a 40-plus game. We had just started and I called an offside. This guy goes ballistic on me, absolutely nuts, just started berating me. I say, "OK, you have had your say, it was just an offside. Let's drop the puck and we can get going again." But he won't quit so I kick him out of the game. You could hear the guy all over the arena losing it. Now, this is summer hockey when guys are normally more laid back. The weather is nice so after the game, I am about to step outside to get a breath of fresh air. As I'm walking outside, I hear this lady yelling, "Ref, ref, ref!" And I'm thinking, "Here we go, now I'm going to hear it from his wife." So I tried to ignore her but after about the 35th "Ref!" I figured I gotta turn around and at least be nice to the person.

So I turn around and start walking towards her and she has the guy by his ear. Baby in the carriage and kid about five years old by her side and as she is tugging on his ear she says, "Now you apologize to him, that was no way to talk to him on the ice. No wonder we are having problems with our son in school not respecting authority!" I felt so embarrassed for the guy. I am trying to tell her it is OK and it is just a part of hockey but she is not having any of it. She says, "No, it is not OK, it was just a simple call. He should have never said that to you. All he should have done is kept on playing." She turned to her husband and said, "If I ever hear you say something like that again, you are never playing hockey for the rest of your life." She was furious, red in the face, screaming and yelling. I had the same guy a few weeks later and I said to him, "Listen, I'm sorry for that incident with your wife." He said, "No, it was me, we were having trouble with my son and after watching me play hockey, my wife decided it was my influence. She was right. It will never happen again."

I had two guys on the same team fight. They were on the ice, playing defense together. The one guy was pissed off, he was saying, 'Why did you do that, why didn't you pass it here, you fucking idiot. I keep telling you and you never listen.' The other guy goes, 'Shut the fuck up, who the hell do you think you are? Fuck right off, you're an ass.' The puck goes up ice and I am following the play but I hear the goalie behind me yelling, 'Easy, easy!' I am thinking, 'What easy? There is no one behind me.' The two teammates are still going at it behind the play. Next thing you know, the one slashes the other's pants and then they just went at it, toe to toe. I blew the whistle, broke it up and gave them both fighting majors. I told the one to stay in the box so the other could shower and change and go home. Then I let the guy out of the box at the end of the period for his turn to hit the showers.

There was a goalie in a rec game that was drunk and stoned. A player on the other team was on a breakaway and when he looked up he saw the goalie was turned around facing the net and having a piss. The player on the breakaway and the officials had no idea what to do. Everyone just stopped awestruck.