Follow Paul on Twitter: @paulstewart22

Folks who officiate at any level are all too familiar with this dilemma: If you are too quick to bang a complainer who crosses the line with you in the heat of battle with a deuce for unsportsmanlike conduct or a 10-minute misconduct for continuing to carry on, people say you are taking the game away from the players. If you swallow too much garbage, you look gutless and it opens the door to the other 39 games on the opposing teams to follow suit.

My method for dealing with such situations was to take control. I was a communicator: These are my ground rules, and you need to abide by them. If you choose not to -- and it is your choice -- there will be a consequence. I also do not care WHO you are; superstar, benchwarmer or what have you. I'm not impressed and I'm not intimidated.

Eye contact is important, and so is good posture. A confident posture that is neither confrontational nor cowering can preempt a lot of nonsense.

Within reason, I believed in letting players and coaches have their say. There was a line that could not be crossed -- and a time for the talk to end at my discretion -- but I was not one to say "You better not challenge a single call or else."

When situations dance on the borderline, it calls for the official to take charge without overreacting. No referee respected the players more than me or understood the pressure that coaches and GMs faced. Remember, my grandfather had been both an NHL (and U.S. national team) coach and NHL referee as well as a National League umpire, my dad coached and reffed/umpired in three different sports, and I was a former NHL/WHA player turned referee. I loved watching great players play, I respected the coaches and knew their job was to motivate players and win games.

If a player called me a piece of crap MFer -- which is a whole different thing than saying "That was a horsebleep MFing call"-- I would often turn to the other players standing around the campfire and make direct eye contact.

"Hey, Skeezix, do you think I'm a piece of crap MFer? How about you, Horatio?"

Inevitably, the answer was either a no or silence.

Then I would turn back to the main speaker -- now usually feeling isolated -- and ask him to repeat it because I wasn't quite certain I heard the whole comment. I was giving him a chance to get away.

If the player was smart, he got quiet fast and vacated. If he persisted, he sat in the penalty box instead of back on his bench. It was his own choosing.

The same basic concept worked with coaches, too. In 17 years of refereeing in the NHL, I issued only three bench minors to a coach. In 20 years of refereeing at all levels, I never once ejected a coach from a game. Think of the cast of characters i dealt with.....Quinn, Keenan, Bowman, Bergeron, Therrien, Wilson, Tortorella, Milbury, Burns, Bryan Murray, Terry Murray, Crisp, Hartley, O'Reilly, Campbell and others in other Leagues, too.

Once I set the ground rules, the players and coaches knew how far to go with me. We built relationships over time -- I had "grown up" as an official in a variety of junior leagues, the minors and up into the NHL right along with many of these guys. Some coaches were former opponents or teammates from my playing days and others I knew going back even before them.

By way of conclusion and summary, here's my best advice. Follow these five keys and you will find that you, the official, are being fair and staying in firm control:

1) Earn and give respect as you build relationships.

2) Communicate clear ground rules and stick by them, whether players or coaches like them or not.

3) Study the Rule book and know it more thoroughly than the players and coaches; actually, much more thoroughly in most cases.

4) Demonstrate confidence in your speech and physical posture.

5) Be in good physical condition, hustle and be in position. Players and coaches (and your supervisors) will make note of all these things and they will either work for you or against you, even on a situation-by-situation basis.

*********

Paul Stewart holds the distinction of being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.

Today, Stewart is an officiating and league discipline consultant for the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and serves as director of hockey officiating for the ECAC.

The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials. Stewart also maintains a busy schedule as a public speaker, fund raiser and master-of-ceremonies for a host of private, corporate and public events. As a non-hockey venture, he is the owner of Lest We Forget.

In addition to his blogs for HockeyBuzz every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, Stewart writes a column every Wednesday for the Huffington Post.