Have you ever listened to a song and completely misheard some of the lyrics? One of the most commonly mistaken song lines is from a Peter Gabriel song. He sings "Jeux Sans Frontieres" (French for Games Without Frontiers/Borders) but it commonly gets misheard by English-speaking listeners as "She's So Popular."
The selections of referees and linesmen for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi are rather similar to this.
At the Olympics, the officials should be "arbitres sans frontieres". Only the very best -- regardless of league affiliation and nationality -- should be chosen. Additionally, once they pull on the striped sweater, their one and only loyalty should be to the good of the game and not to pleasing those who arranged for them to have that honor. Remember the judge in the fur coat in the skating competition?
Like the UN's Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), when a ref strips off the street clothes and dons the stripes, he represents all the game and not just where he was born.
In reality, there's a lot of politicking and patronage that goes into the selection of Olympic officials (not to mention the selection of NHL officials for employment and Stanley Cup Finals assignments).
The Olympic hockey official selections are not about creating jeux sans frontiers. Never have been, and probably never will be. Rather, it's all about "(s)he's so popular" among those who wield the power.
Who wields the real power here? It's the NHL, not the IIHF. Who gets the Olympic assignments? Those whom the folks in New York and Toronto handpick either because they are friends, family members, or long-tenured good soldiers getting a gift before they are on their way out or simply are being thrown a bone because they missed out on other coveted assignments and haven't been to the Olympics before.
Lest you think I'm only picking on the NHL here, I will add that the other, non-NHL half of the officiating selections were not completely immune from personal favor-doing and inclusionary quotas.
I know the IIHF has a fine line to walk in dealing with the assorted national federations. To try and be as inclusive as possible, they try to take at least one Czech, Slovak, Finn, Swede, etc.
With only a limited number of spaces available, deserving people get left out. For example , what if there are two Russian linesmen who are a little more worthy than the top Czech candidate who got picked? That's just a hypothetical situation -- there is a Czech referee but not a Czech linesman going to the men's tournament in Sochi -- but you get the point.
This is another reason why I think the national borders and league affiliations should ideally be put aside in this process.
I want to make very clear at this point that my objection is not with any particular individual selection that has been made, either among the NHL or non-NHL officials that got picked. These folks are solidly competent officials and there are really good ones in the mix who probably deserved to have made it, anyway, under the most dispassionate of criteria.
For instance, NHL referee Kelly Sutherland deserves to have emerged from the shadow of the retired Kerry Fraser -- which whom he's often been compared because of their body type and stylistic resemblance -- and be among those selected. Even when he was a young official and I was nearing the end of my NHL career, Kelly was a guy whom I could quickly tell had both the physical talent and the right mental approach to blossom into a really fine ref.
Likewise, one of the two German referees selected, Daniel Piechaczek, may not be a well-known name around most of the western hockey world but l must say that he's a phenomenal skater and a solid official in general who keeps getting better.
My moral objection is to the process itself. I will share with you, my readers, that I have asked IIHF president Rene Fasel, and others in high levels of power if the hockey world truly has only the best of the best going to Sochi? They say yes.
Rene, by the way, has been a longtime friend to me. Fasel was a supporter of my selection to the Canada Cup finals in '87 and ' 91. Little known is the fact that in '91 my then NHL officiating boss did not favor my selection. Rene had the final say. I worked. Rene is a fair guy but here, his hands are tied.
The IIHF's director of officiating is a Russian by the name of Konstantin Komissarov. Right now around the KHL, there are a lot of people who are ticked at Komissarov for the fact that there is only one Russian referee (Olenin Konstantin) and one Belarusian linesman (Ivan Dedioulia) who were honored with the chance to officiate Olympic games for a tournament taking place in Russia.
For public consumption, Komissarov has said that the criteria used for the selection of all officials was they ranked the highest among their peers in physical conditioning, on-ice performance and ability to work in a team with other officials. That's a nice, safe and politically correct thing to say.
Now let me tell you what really happened here. Komissarov's hands were tied, and so were Fasel's. The IIHF got Bettmanned by the NHL.
To meet its own goal of a successful major international tournament in Sochi, the IIHF needs NHL superstar players participating; in this case, especially Russian players such as Evgeni Malkin and Alexander Ovechkin. As such, the IIHF needed the NHL to agree to the Olympics more than the NHL needed to make Olympic participation its own number one priority. So Gary got busy and part of the deal was to help hand 50% of the games to NHL Officials.
This is the deal the NHL and the NHLPA struck with the IIHF as pertains to the officials: Half of the pool of referees and linesmen selected had to NHL officials of the NHL's own choosing. All of all tournament games involving at least one NHL player had to be officiated by at least one NHL referee and one NHL linesman. Thus, half of every officiating crew in any game must then have an NHL crest stamped in their passport and their butt. That immediately and severely cuts down on the open spots for others to try to obtain.
The NHL drove a very, very hard bargain with the IIHF about the League's participation in the Olympics in Sochi. The league and the NHLPA knew that it held all the real power in the negotiation and when Gary Bettman holds the leverage in any negotiation, he uses it to his full advantage. This Cornell grad is smart. Mind you, I cannot fault Gary. He did what a savvy businessman would do.
I like Gary Bettman on a human level. I will be forever in his debt for how wonderfully he treated me and my family when I was battling colon cancer. On a professional level, I think Bettman is outstanding at his job of creating revenues for the League and team owners and, in conjunction with deputy commissioner Bill Daly, basically managing to herd cats. I'm not wild at all about other people they've chosen for positions of power and influence, but I think both Bettman and Daly excel in their roles. I respect them.
Emotionally, I'm riding the rail. As a longtime, former NHL referee, I am happy for all my colleagues who will get the opportunity to participate in the Olympics. As a current officiating consultant to the KHL and the Director of Officiating for the ECAC, I am aggravated that people whom I believe to be equally deserving never had a snowball's chance in hell of being picked. Half the picks had to go to NHL guys and my KHL and collegiate guys didn't get a sniff.
I'll give you an example. The NHL's officials, Kevin Pollock, Tim Peel, Brad Meier are some whom I broke in as a referee. All are solid officials. I'm glad for the seven refs and seven linesmen that are going. Yet, the non NHL side of me knows that there's a Latvian referee, Eduard Odinsh, another Russian Referee, Slava Bulanov, an ECAC / Big Ten Referee, Peter Feola, and a Russian linesman, Sergei Shelyanin, who also deserved a chance for consideration. They never had that chance to be picked. Why? Because 50 percent of the picks had to be NHL guys.
So Kevin, Kelly and five other NHL refs and seven NHL linesmen are going. The NHL dominated the deal. That's Hockey and Hockey business 101.
Are the best in the world going? Yes, if you subscribe to the belief that anything NHL automatically means it's the best. However, my own officiating world is a bit bigger and more inclusive than that. I'd just like to keep the process fair. It's the referee in me.
I think there are others in leagues around the world who, if in a truly fair selection process, could also challenge as excellent officials for these games. That includes some other NHL referees who did not get picked, other collegiate officials I directly supervise, and KHL referees I scout and review on a consultation basis with the league directors. I seem to remember that it was the Russians who put that first man in space. The Europeans -- and especially the ones who skate -- aren't all that inferior, trust me.
I think you get the picture. I'm not attacking any of my officiating brethren here. I am happy for them on personal levels. But if you ask me for my professional opinion on something, you are going to get the unfiltered truth as I see it. It's like the NHL Officiating department itself; no American Supervisors, many supervisors with no NHL on-ice experience and the present on-ice staff itself is nearly 90% Canadian. To be good you have to live north of the St. Lawrence or be the bosses' buddy? I don't want to believe it but what do I know?
The truth is this: Viewed solely in the framework of doing the best for the game and removing all the business leverage and political correctness from it, I cannot say that the Olympic official pool truly represents a fair selection process for world wide participation.
All of the very best referees and linesmen in the Hockey world don't just work for the NHL. Going back to it, we should all keep in mind that growing and building the game worldwide means worldwide participation in all areas, especially in officiating.
************
Recent Blogs by Paul Stewart
Thornton Went After the Wrong Guy
Stevie Why?
Careful With That Stick, Eugene
Hockey Barns and Broken Zambonis
Stick Slashes, Butterfingers and Gordie Tattoos
A Slap Shot Story: My Day as a Long Island Duck
************
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 only 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 Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).
The longtime referee heads Officiating by Stewart, a consulting, training and evaluation service for officials, while also maintaining 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.
Stewart is currently working with a co-author on an autobiography. 
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
Join the Discussion:
»