Originally posted July 19, 2020.
Much has been made of the impact on teams and players since the Western Hockey League ceased operations in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Without question, the business side has taken a beating as revenue from ticket sales completely vanished. There was no post-season hockey during that crucial time frame between mid-March and early May that enables teams fortunate enough to survive a couple playoff rounds to actually generate profit.
The annual Memorial Cup was also cancelled, an expensive tournament to host, but also a potentially significant money-maker for the host community and indeed, the entire Canadian Hockey League.
But there is a group many have seemingly forgotten about.
Of course, it’s not surprising, given these important participants tend to simply go about their business amid anonymity. That is, until the self-righteous among us – you know, a media wag, broadcaster, coach, executive or “knowledgeable” fan – chooses to insinuate the supposed ineptitude of a referee or linesman should be the focus.
The cancellation of the past season and uncertainty associated with the 2020-2021 campaign has had an enormous impact on the officials, the arbiters who ply their trade all season long with some very prestigious opportunities in their crosshairs.
DUBNetwork spoke with WHL Director of Officiating Kevin Muench to ascertain how the on-ice officials are dealing with this unique off-season.
Muench knows very well what he speaks of when it comes to the commitment and development of officials. He spent 13 seasons on the ice as a WHL referee and earned assignments for the national Junior A Championship, CIS Championship and the Memorial Cup. In 1992, he skated at the 1992 Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France.
Muench has worked in his current role with the WHL since being hired in 2001.
While the players unquestionably are the show, the referees are also striving to improve and earn opportunities at higher levels. Muench, along with an experienced group of supervisors, play a key role in monitoring the performances of the officials as the league undergoes a season-long process to ensure the best of the best are on the ice when perhaps the most important hockey of the season is played.
Glen Erickson, DUBNetwork: There’s so much talk about the abrupt cancellation of the season. What about the impact on the officials? It all came to an end for them, too.
Kevin Muench, WHL: “Sure. When we look back to the second week of March, everybody was just getting geared up for that stretch run and looking forward to the playoffs. The best time of year, the best hockey there is and just like the players want to be playing at that time of the year, the officials certainly want to be on the ice at that time of year, too.
“So, it was a difficult way to end the season. Obviously it was out of everybody’s control, but yes, the officials felt the pinch just like the players did.”
GE: Obviously the guys are paid, but it’s not a primary source of income for the most part. I mean, their jobs away from hockey may have been affected at the same time this supplementary income was affected as well.
KM: “Well, sure. Obviously the compensation is important to them, but, oh boy, that time of the year. That’s just the time you want to be on the ice.
“It’s like the NHL players – they want to be on the ice at the end of the year, even though their salary comes in the regular season. Hey, the officials want to be on the ice when the best hockey is being played. It’s about pride more than just the compensation thing.”
GE: So, it’s pretty meaningful to earn the opportunity through the regular season to be there at crunch time?
KM: “Well, it’s a challenge. Within the officiating fraternity, they have to be teammates, they have to work together, they have to do everything together, but they also have to compete with each other, and they want to. They want to work at the end of the season.
“You see, in a normal year, we start the season with about 135 to 140 officials. That number, by the time we get to playoffs, is cut in half and we might have in the neighborhood of 65 officials that are going to work.
“Then when we get into the finals, we might have six or seven referees and linesman that are still working. That’s what they strive to do. And then from there, some of the referees and linesmen get to go on to the Memorial Cup as well.
“But certainly, it’s a huge competition and everybody competes, just like the teams have gone with a win/loss column. The officials want to be on the ice in the playoffs and working into the finals.”
GE: You start with a pretty healthy number of officials. What are some of the challenges you experience in terms of scheduling and availability?
KM: “One of the interesting things we get to deal with at the WHL level is the officials that are working for us are at a great age in their lives. They’re just maybe coming out of high school, maybe just starting University. Some of them are starting new careers. Some of them are getting married and they’re having children.
“When we take that group between the ages of 20 to maybe 30 or 35, in that neighborhood, they have other commitments outside of hockey. We work very closely with them to make sure they can get the right balance to be involved with us – family, work commitments, hockey commitments. We expect them to make a huge commitment to us, but we also make a commitment that will help them out with what they’re doing.
“We look at some of their careers. They’re police officers, firefighters, schoolteachers. It takes a lot of commitment to be involved with those careers, so we work around their schedules. We take their free days. They come to work for us in the WHL around their schedules.
“And there’s times where they’re able to take some holidays or whatever to free themselves up for a little bit of extra travel. But we work with the officials as much as we can to accommodate their careers and their families.”
GE: You must have an incredibly healthy knowledge of how to work with spreadsheet programs or scheduling software?
KM: “Well, it is interesting because there’s a lot of travel involved. Obviously it’s not just a matter of scheduling guys into games.
“When you take a look at a schoolteacher who’s working till 3:30 in the afternoon Monday to Friday, which centers can he get to by 5:30 in the afternoon? Can he work the game and still get home that night so he can be back in the school the next morning at 8:00am?
“So yes, we’ve got some challenges with the scheduling, but again that’s just part of what we have to do to make everything work.”
GE: We’ve talked about this a little in the past; injuries. This can derail these guys from being available to you. It’s going to have an impact on them in their daily lives too, but also potential scheduling challenges when those things occur.
KM: “Unfortunately injuries happen. Whether it’s a player, even coaches, or officials. The game is fast, it moves at a great tempo. It’s physical.
“Sometimes the officials get caught up in things. Sometimes they take a puck. Sometimes we twist an ankle or have problems with a knee. So it’s not unusual for there to be bumps and bangs just like there is with players.
“The bottom line with any injury regardless of who it is – let’s always look after the individual first. If they need some time to rest, then they rest. They don’t go back on to the ice until the doctor says they’re ready to perform again.”
GE: I saw a particularly serious injury occur in early December last season in Medicine Hat. A linesman, Curtis Funk, suffered a season-ending injury on what many people might suggest was an innocent looking fall. (Click here to load video clip: Curtis Funk Injury) How has he recovered?
KM: “Yeah, that was a very unfortunate accident. Just right off the face off he was dropping the puck and got bumped.
“He broke his leg, very close to his hip. It took some time in the hospital to get everything set in place. It took some time at home to try to get things to settle down a little bit and he’s improving.
“It’s an injury that does not heal very quickly. I spoke with him just a few weeks ago. It’s coming along. He’s still having some challenges with it but certainly has made some good progress. When I talked to him, he was able to get out to the lake and enjoy life there.
“But certainly, that’s one of those injuries we’re glad does not happen very often.”
GE: Yeah, no kidding. Can you tell us about your off-season communication, interactions this year based on how things have transpired. What kind of impact has this had on things you would normally schedule on the development side?
KM: “Well, there’s no question it’s had an impact on our officiating program. We had to make adjustments along the way just to find a new way to do things.
“Any kind of sessions or meetings where we couldn’t be bringing people together – they all had to be cancelled. So we had to look at different ways of doing things and we started fairly early with a lot of emails and conference calls, just to make sure everybody’s informed of the situation, what was going on, what we are going through, and how we’re looking after them.
“And then as we got to the point where we knew that there wasn’t going to be any more hockey, it became looking forward and planning for next season.
“We had to continue with the development stream that they were all on moving from season to season. We had a series of Zoom development calls, dealing with things, whether it was communication or awareness, fitness, those kinds of things.
“We were very lucky, too, a lot of the WHL alumni who went on to the National Hockey League were anxious to come back and help us out, so we had them involved as guest speakers on our Zoom calls. They were providing our officials with information, giving them ideas, you know, helping them with the thought-process and guiding them through communication techniques.”
GE: How about recruiting?
KM: “We had to be concerned about that. We always have to be looking for new officials. And so we had to come up with some kind of a unique way.
“We couldn’t have officials coming to us to our development camps. We had to find a way to go to them. So, we set up a Zoom seminar, it was a three-night series.
“We worked very closely with the four Western branches. We had a prospect list. We spoke about who they thought were their top prospects. We brought in about 65 officials from across western Canada and talked about the WHL program, our expectations, what we look for in officials.
“We gave them some challenges and they did some work on fitness. They were sending videos to us of their fitness regimen because we couldn’t see them in person. So we found a way to make sure that we are fully aware of all the prospects this year, even though we couldn’t bring them all together into Calgary.”
GE: Interesting. You had mentioned the playoffs and the importance to the officials. Early in the season and throughout the season, there are also a number of international opportunities that I think a lot of the officials probably look forward to. I guess, like the players, they are kind of victims of some of these events being cancelled.
KM: “Yeah. Well, first off, there’s a great success story this year from the World Junior Championship from an officiating perspective.
“We had three officials from the WHL – Mike Campbell, Fraser Lawrence and Chad Huseby – attend the WJC. They all performed extremely well and the three of them worked together in the bronze medal game. It’s highly unusual to have three officials from the same country working a medal game, let alone three officials from the same league.
“But yes, the cancellations hurt a few officials, just like it hurt some players. We had a couple of officials – referees Mike Langin and Brett Mackey – that were planning on being in attendance at the World U18 tournament. It’s just out of everybody’s control.”
GE: Any, recent NHL signings, you know from the WHL? Or has that been tricky, given the situation these days?
KM: “Well, the NHL is going to have some things to juggle this summer. Obviously we’re just getting ready to go into the two hub cities, Edmonton and Toronto. I think they’ll have to get through this season first.
“But, they would normally have a combine camp where they bring in prospects. That’s been cancelled. Obviously they work very closely with the American Hockey League, too, which is on pause and may not start up the next season until December.
“So their decisions on hiring, I’m not sure exactly what steps they’re going to go through or how they feel they need to approach it. Every year the NHL has positions that come open.”
GE: There’s a long history of WHL officials moving up to professional hockey.
KM: “We’ve been fortunate to have had some really talented officials come through the WHL. I think the NHL has hired, like, 11 officials in the past 11 years from the WHL. As a league, we’re really proud of the guys that go on to be pros, whether that’s players or officials. Most guys have that aspiration. We’ve had some really committed guys that have enjoyed that success.”
GE: Who are some of the alumni that came back for some of your Zoom sessions?
KM: “Some of the guys that will soon be on the ice, guys we’re going to see in the playoffs coming up here like, Brad Meyer was involved. And Kiel Murchison, Chris Schlenker and Trent Knorr. We also had some guys that are no longer on the ice – Brad Watson and Mike Leggo.
“They’re very experienced, well-respected guys and to have alumni from the WHL take the time to come back and assist is just such a tremendous thing.
“And Tommy Kowal, an NHL official for 20 years, now works for us full-time as an officiating development coach. The work he’s doing with our officials, his ability to connect with his peers in the NHL – it’s working so well.
“We call it the NHL mentorship program. We’ve got about 11 or 12 officials in the NHL or just recently retired that come to games in the WHL. They work with our officials before games and after the game, talking about the way things went, what they did well, things they could consider doing in a different way that might be more effective.
“So, right now we’ve got some real good ties with alumni from WHL that have spent time in or still are in the NHL.”
GE: The WHL has done a pretty good job recognizing officials with milestone awards. Last season it was Sean Raphael, Steve Papp, Sean Dufour and Adam Byblow.
KM: “I think those milestone awards are really important to recognize people that have had a long service to the WHL. We’ve got people, whether it’s billets, training staff, athletic therapists, referees and linesmen.
“For officiating, we’ve got two different awards. With the linesman who work much more regionally closer to their home centers, once they reach 400 games, they qualify. For the referees, the number is higher because we expect them to travel a little bit more, so they’re at 650 games.
“Last season, we recognized four officials. We’ve only had three prior to that – linesman Nathan Van Oosten and referees Reagan Vetter and Derek Zalaski.
“So, right now, we’ve only had seven officials that have ever achieved those points and you know that every year there’s a couple of guys that might be close to getting there. You know, in order to be that relevant for quite a while, boy, you have to be really good.”
GE: Sure. Staying healthy and productive and constantly learning. And some of these guys are maybe not just officiating in the WHL. They have to have knowledge of the different rulebooks if they’re maybe doing Junior A or IIHF?
KM: “Most of our guys do work in other leagues. Whether they’re working in junior age or maybe midget AAA, we have guys that work in the American Hockey League, too.
“One of the things about rules, they do deal with different rules going week to week, but it’s a controllable thing. We just expect officials, regardless of what league they’re working in, to know the rules, for sure.”
GE: Sometimes the officials are kind of the forgotten guys, but it’s a heck of a commitment.
KM: “Well, it is a commitment and you know what, when the game is on, we’re seen on the ice for two hours and 15 minutes. What isn’t seen is the time they’re spending with mental preparation, with the rulebook, watching video, following up on past games they worked, their physical preparation.
“We tell the referees we expect them to be in the same physical condition as the athletes. We know how much time the players spend in the gym and conditioning themselves. We expect the officials to do the same thing.
“There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes in order for them to prepare. It’s huge.”
GE: I always enjoy discussing this. I’d like to see more conversation about the positional nuances and that kind of thing; how the officials have to try to establish ice-level sight lines. I find it a lot more interesting than watching a guy run down to the glass and throw a box of popcorn on the ice.
KM: “Hey, our guys are targets. There’s always negative things that are said, but any time we can find a positive message to get out there, I think it’s important the officials get humanized a little bit so people can understand what they go through.”
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