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Ref Memories

    When the St. Lazare Outlaws joined the North Central Hockey League, no one knew much about the players on the team. Some of their players had played in Foxwarren in past years so we knew a handful of their roster. I did not know what size their arena was. It turns out it was a small ice surface and the fans seemed to be right on top of you. Back in the day there was no glass around the side of the rink.

    I had heard of a handful of players like Danny Tremblay, Martin Dupont, Gil Chartier, and the Haney brothers, Carl, David and Larry! The word was they had some really loud fans which was great, the more noise there was, players tended to play faster.

    I decided the only way to find out about the team was to go to St. Lazare and officiate some of their games.

    One of the first guys that I met was Terry Haney, who would be working as one of the two linesmen in the game. I do not remember the other linesmen although it may have been Ray Christy.

    Terry was a great linesman and an even better person. He always brought his best to the game and was extremely honest. Terry also had a great sense of humour. If there was trouble on the ice during the game, Terry, when asked, would know what had happened on a particular play. Trust is huge when you are working a game and Terry was someone you could completely trust.

    During that first game in St. Lazare there were a couple of incidents where the player from St. Lazare would not be happy about the call I was making and would be speaking in French to me. I did not understand what they were saying to me. Terry would step in and speak to them in French and they would just skate away. I asked Terry what did you say to them? He said you don't understand French, eh Gerry?  I said no I don't! Well he said I swear at them and threaten to tell me what the player said so they would get a misconduct. I just tell them to take a hike or something like that. I got a chuckle out of that.

    As I said earlier, Terry was a great guy to work with doing games. Terry was involved in minor hockey, not only in St. Lazare, but in Birtle and Foxwarren. He helped develop young officials in that area. He was a really good teacher and mentor to them. He was instrumental in helping them grow to become top notch officials.

    I just recently caught up with Terry and we shared some great memories of games from the past as well as where some of the players on that great team were doing. Most of them are retired, following their grandchildren around.

    I really appreciated Terry and all the work he did for hockey around the leagues in western Manitoba.

    I would have to say, in some ways Terry was very underrated as an official. For me he was one of the very best I ever worked with!