THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO — Former NHL referee Kerry Fraser isn’t shy about discussing a moment that, for many hockey fans, defines his career.
"The Call," as he describes it, came in overtime of Game 6 of the 1993 Campbell Conference final between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Los Angeles Kings.
"It was at this moment that I came to understand clearly that in hockey officiating, it’s not always black and white," Fraser writes in his autobiography, "The Final Call: Hockey Stories from a Legend in Stripes."
With the Leafs a goal away from an all-Canadian Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens, L.A.’s Wayne Gretzky high-sticked Doug Gilmour. Despite the blood dripping from the Toronto captain’s chin, Fraser had his view obstructed and didn’t see the infraction. Neither did his linesmen.
"And now that aching in the pit of my stomach only intensified, and my mouth went dry," Fraser continues. "It’s the most helpless feeling that I’ve ever felt in any of the 2,165 NHL games that I refereed."
The rest, as they say, is history.
Shortly after the non-call, Gretzky scored the winner to tie the series and went on to bury the Leafs with a hat trick in Game 7, denying Canadian hockey fans a dream matchup.
"The Final Call" is the 58-year-old Fraser’s first-person reflection of his time as a referee. He weaves stories from his 30-year NHL career with his final tour around the league in the 2009-10 season.
The book gets intensely personal at times, as Fraser — a deeply religious and family man — describes the toll his three decades took, both on and off the ice.
Many fans remember Fraser as the league’s only superstar referee, a pint-sized, brash official with a hair never out of place. But he started out as a gifted player with big dreams in his hometown of Sarnia, Ont.
Once his size caught up to him, the five-foot-seven Fraser realized the only way he’d make it in the game was by calling it and he enrolled in referees school at 22.
While he candidly talks about his faults, and pokes fun at his coif, Fraser comes across as an official who really cared about the game and its players.
He tells of separate instances when Claude Lemieux and the troubled Theo Fleury complained of personal attacks on the ice from opponents. Both times, Fraser made the offending players apologize.
He also details intimate conversations with stars, including the night he admonished a young Mario Lemieux for not acting like a leader. Fraser had similar words for another superstar years later, concerned with how Sidney Crosby was behaving on the ice.
"You are the face of the new NHL," he told Crosby after the young Penguins captain had complained about a call one too many times. "And I say that with the utmost respect for your skill and ability. With that comes huge responsibility, and I’d just like you to be aware of the impression you leave on youngsters who are watching your every move, and that they will turn around and emulate everything you do.
"So I recommend that you use that responsibility wisely."
One thing "Final Call" is not, is a tell-all. Fraser has glowing words for just about everyone he came across in his 30 years as a referee, from rink attendants to tough guys to coaches who used to scream at him. It’s clear the man who readily admits to having a "type-A personality" doesn’t want to burn any bridges.
There is, however, an underlying sense of bitterness at how Fraser was shown the door in the twilight of his career. He alludes to his outspoken nature and involvement in the referees’ union as playing a part in not getting the chance to officiate in the playoffs.
His harshest words are for Stephen Walkom, the referee who briefly took over as the league’s senior vice-president of officiating.
"While Walkom has since returned to the ice, much damage was inflicted during his short tenure," Fraser writes, without going into any greater detail. It’s unfortunate he doesn’t go deeper because he no doubt has plenty more to say.
In the book’s final pages, Fraser asks himself almost rhetorically after his final game "Who is Kerry Fraser?"
Although he’s the only one who can ever truly answer that, hockey fans now have a much clearer picture.
