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Ref Memories

   As I was sharing last week about volunteer scoresheet and score-clock men and women, they could make life easy or difficult. I had both! There were a few who could be classified as making life difficult. If they had been referees, those few would have been called homers for sure. Anyway, this column is about those who made life easy for you.

    Darren Kastrukoff from Virden was one of the great guys in the timekeeper box. Darren worked mostly minor hockey games and was at the rink all weekend running the clock. He probably was never thanked enough for doing a job that is so essential for a game of hockey. Darren worked the microphone as well as and could be quite entertaining. Like most people, sometimes there were slip ups in that the clock ran a little extra. Darren would tell you immediately if that happened and knew how many seconds had run off the clock. He was very trustworthy to say the least. 

    One day Warren Hunter, who could score goals like crazy, was having a big game. He had scored 9 or 10 goals in the game already and he scored again. Darren, who was working the microphone announced, Virden goal scored by, just in case you missed it or were not paying attention, Warren Hunter, his ninth or tenth goal of the game, whatever it was. We all had a laugh the way Darren announced it. Well maybe the opposition didn't like it, but that's hockey!

    Darren and his family moved from Virden to Melfort, Saskatchewan where he did some announcing for the Melfort Mustangs of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. We all missed him when he left, but he left us with some great memories.

    When I worked a lot of games in Elkhorn, the following men were terrific to work with. You could simply trust them, as they did their duties very professionally, John Stowe, Allan Tutthill, Bill Glover and the late Norman Kyle.

    Norman had refereed so he knew all the signals for penalties, and I think he probably taught the rest of the boys what the signals referred to. The penalty box in Elkhorn back then was right between the two players' benches. Sometimes you would be getting the business from some player or coach who was not happy with the call. I never had to stop there on minor penalties, the boys knew what the call was and entered it on the clock and the game sheet.

    Thank You guys for a job well done! It brought back a lot of great memories of working games in Elkhorn.

    One last person for today that I want to mention is Bob McKenzie from Miniota. Bob always had a smile for you, or a bit of an insult with a grin on his face. I asked him one night when he had given me some gentle ribbing, I said Bob, so when are you going to come over to the other side and take the money, like I will be taking from you? He would just laugh and say nope, what I am paying you is chump change for all the crap you have to put up with! Miss you Bob!