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thegerkin

Ex-NHL Referee Paul Stewart Blog

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Shortly after my retirement from the NHL as an active referee, the Hockey News asked me to name the five biggest whiners I had to deal with on the ice. In descending order from one to five, the players were Chris Gratton, Tyson Nash, Craig Janney, Steve Yzerman and Keith Tkachuk. I'll share stories about the other players some other time but for now, I talk about Gratton.

Pretty interesting read, especially the story about Lindros. I just find it weird that Stevie Y would be in Paul Stewart's Top 5 "whiner" list. He was the Captain, so he obviously talks to the ref all game, but I never pegged him as a whiner.

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Guest DeGraa55

Actually it's pretty well known he was one of the biggest whiners. Some people just get caught drinking te cool aid of their team and don't always see things like this.

Ask penguins fans about Crosby sometime LOL.

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I was never a huge fan of Stewart when he was a ref and things like this affirm it. Not as bad as McGeough but Stewart seemed to have a big ego and it affected how he managed games.

Regarding Lindros, if those stories are true it sounds like Lindros was being a hothead rookie, but never talking to the guy again and admitting that it affected how you called penalties on him for the rest of his career??

I did NOT go out of my way to "invent" penalties on Lindros -- or any player -- but I wasn't going to give that guy a break on anything borderline that I might have let slide with a player who had gained acceptability with me.

And then he has another grudge with Ferraro? He basically admits to playing favorites. It sounds like he took it all way too personally for an NHL ref.

As for Yzerman being a whiner, I don't remember him doing much of it early in his career but as he got into the later years he definitely didn't hesitate to give refs an earful.

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I was never a huge fan of Stewart when he was a ref and things like this affirm it. Not as bad as McGeough but Stewart seemed to have a big ego and it affected how he managed games.

Regarding Lindros, if those stories are true it sounds like Lindros was being a hothead rookie, but never talking to the guy again and admitting that it affected how you called penalties on him for the rest of his career??

And then he has another grudge with Ferraro? He basically admits to playing favorites. It sounds like he took it all way too personally for an NHL ref.

As for Yzerman being a whiner, I don't remember him doing much of it early in his career but as he got into the later years he definitely didn't hesitate to give refs an earful.

Talk about an ego. I was reading other bits of his blog and he comes off like he has an ego bigger than Yzerman or Crosby.

Edited by number9

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Very interested to see what this guy has to say about Yzerman. The Captain lost his cool a few times, but for the most part he seemed like he was cool headed. I never pegged Yzerman for a whiner. When you're as respected as Yzerman, you're allowed to talk to the refs are you not? I guess Sakic was a whiner too then... He always had the exact same demeanour as Yzerman.

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I've heard it before from other former officials. You don't need to be obvious to whine a lot, but a lot of top players complain a lot. It's not like Yzerman was the only one. Remember Lemieux's I'm taking my stick and going home complaints about the trap and hooks and hold?

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It's one thing to whine to the ref and another to whine publicly, I think. Yzerman never did the latter. I remember him talking to refs a lot but I don't remember him being whining, unless it was a rivalry game and passions were high.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

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It's one thing to whine to the ref and another to whine publicly, I think. Yzerman never did the latter. I remember him talking to refs a lot but I don't remember him being whining, unless it was a rivalry game and passions were high.

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

Unless you heard the conversations you can't speak to the whine or lack thereof.

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I was never a huge fan of Stewart when he was a ref and things like this affirm it. Not as bad as McGeough but Stewart seemed to have a big ego and it affected how he managed games.

Regarding Lindros, if those stories are true it sounds like Lindros was being a hothead rookie, but never talking to the guy again and admitting that it affected how you called penalties on him for the rest of his career??

And then he has another grudge with Ferraro? He basically admits to playing favorites. It sounds like he took it all way too personally for an NHL ref.

Dan O'Halloran obviously had the same type of feud with Homer over the years. I wonder how many goals and games it ended up costing the Wings. I wonder what triggered that.

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Dan O'Halloran obviously had the same type of feud with Homer over the years. I wonder how many goals and games it ended up costing the Wings. I wonder what triggered that.

Should have been on his good graces that way the ref would look past everything he did

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