Long before he became Don Van Massenhoven the National Hockey League referee, Don Van Massenhoven was an Ontario Provincial Police officer. As he relived some of his most memorable calls on Saturday afternoon, driving home from Detroit after working his 1,277th and final game of his 23-year career, one of the calls that still resonates wasn’t a hooking, holding or interference call.
It was a 10-45 that came across the police radio on a warm, June evening: Car Accident Fatality.
“A car blew through a stop sign and hit another car. It killed a mother and two kids, 10 and eight-years old. I investigated the accident, and had to go tell the father,” he said. “It was Father’s Day.”
It’s the kind of tale only a cop can tell, one that clearly left a mark on this nearly 54-year-old.
“They were going into town to get a pizza, and they never came back. That one stuck with me for a long time,” he said. “I got to know the father. He was (suicidal), and he would call me late at night. I would drive over and spend some time with him. Kind of do what I could for him personally. It seemed like the right thing to do.”
That father made it through his grief and later remarried, Van Massenhoven reports. The cop moved on too, taking his John Cleese moustache and penchant for law and order to the NHL, where the collisions don’t cut so deep.
Van Massenhoven is a strapping Strathroy, ON kid who started as a referee when his sisters’ team — coached by his Dad — needed to provide a referee for games. It led to an NHL career that encompassed an Olympics, a World Cup, a Winter Classic, but somehow never a Stanley Cup Final.
He was working at Joe Louis Arena the night Jiri Fischer nearly died on Detroit’s bench after a heart episode.
“It was pretty much like what happened in Dallas (with Rich Peverley), where the players were trying to get our attention. Finally Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan jumped out on the ice and skated right into the play — to get our attention.”
Van Massenhoven saw the Detroit doctor already working to save Fisher, and his police training told him to be useful elsewhere. So, astutely, he took Fisher’s skates off. “I knew it would help Fisher’s circulation, and it sounds weird, but I could do it a lot quicker than the doctors trying to cut them off.”
Shaken, he boarded a plane for Florida and the next assignment, where two days later he had his own brush with mortality. Van Massenhoven was standing in the corner monitoring a power play, when a shot from the point got tipped at the top of the circle.
“You get taught not to get puck focused. Especially down low,” he said. But when the puck never arrived at the net, Van Massenhoven instinctively looked back to find it.
“When I turned, I felt an explosion. Never saw it coming. Hit me right between the eyes.”
He laughs out loud. Who laughs when they nearly get killed by a puck?
“That was a scary moment,” said referee Marc Joanette, an old friend whom Van Massenhoven chose to work alongside in his 1,000th game, as well as Friday’s finale. “It could happen to any of us. We all prayed for him.”
In surgery, the doctor found Van Massenhoven’s septum bone pressing against his brain. The concern was that the bone could puncture his brain. Van Massenhoven had a fellow official tell his wife back home that he “was going in for a nose job, which was partially true,” and the doctor installed a plate with screws. He was in intensive care for a week, but got back on the ice that season in time to fulfill his Olympic assignment in Turin.
They’re not unlike players, these officials. They’ll play hurt, and yes, they make mistakes.
Like one night in Pittsburgh on Mario Lemieux’s second game back from cancer. Van Massenhoven blew a quick whistle, negating a Lemieux goal. The crowd in Pittsburgh was apoplectic, littering the ice.
“Mario skated up beside me and said, ‘What happened?’ I said, ‘I blew my whistle too quick,’” he recalls. “Mario says, ‘OK — I’ll just stand here next to you and they’ll probably stop throwing stuff.’ He stood there right next to me, not complaining, just talking, so the crowd would stop. And they did. He was a real gentleman.’”
And Van Massenhoven as well. Through the tough times was born a ref who got it. A guy who read people well, and called the game the right way.
“Being a cop for 10 years with the OPP, Don gained a lot of experience in dealing with people, and dealing with people in crisis,” Joanette said. “That’s what Donnie is best at, why he’s so well respected.”
On Friday in Detroit, it was a steady parade of Red Wings and Sabres players skating by with a tap on the shin pads. Detroit coach Mike Babcock called him over to pay respect at one TV timeout, and on another they acknowledged him on the scoreboard at Joe Louis Arena.
It was a man bites dog story, as 20,000 hockey fans rose to cheer for a referee.
“Got a standing ovation,” he laughed. “It was awesome.”
That’s one in a row. Time to retire.