By Darrell Greer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Kivalliq News
Donald Clark of Rankin Inlet had an eye-opening experience when the longtime player and coach decided to become a hockey official.
Clark said once he became an official, he had to know all the rules and regulations, while, as a player, he didn’t always understand all the decisions officials were making.
He said he definitely became more knowledgeable about the game once he became a referee.
“I think most hockey players know the basic rules, but there were a number of the nitty-gritty ones that I definitely wasn’t aware of,” said Clark. “And I didn’t realize there were so many of them. It really was a lot to take in.”
Clark said before he became an official, he was once kicked-out of a game for having three stick infractions; a rule he had no idea even existed.
He said that rule really surprised him when he was ejected from the game.
“When you become an official, if a lot of the players know you played the game before and competed against them, then they have a level of respect for you already as a player and that can carry over a little into officiating. They know you’re, kind of, a stand-up guy and you’re not there to favour one team over the other.
“During tournaments, I never shied away from doing a gold medal game. I always felt that if the organizers had enough confidence in me to select me for the game, then I went out there and did my best. You get the best view in the arena when you’re on the ice with the players,.”
Clark said you can be nervous before the big game as an official because you want to do a good job and not have any mess-ups.
He said in that way, it’s not much different than being a player before the big game.
“There’s always that level of anxiety that comes along with doing the final game, but I always enjoyed it when I was picked to do those games.
“Travelling to other communities to work a tournament could be a little different because sometimes I’d find it a little humorous to go into a community that just wasn’t used to having officials and they’d often have a whole different interpretation of how the game should be refereed.
“So, because of that, sometimes you’d have some interesting conversations with some of the spectators.”
Clark said once he stopped coaching, he always looked forward to officiating the Polar Bear Plate because it was a full-contact tournament for players under 21 years of age.
He said it was always an energetic, highly-competitive tournament that made it one of his favourites both as a coach and an official.
“Sometimes I found the non-contact tournaments more difficult to ref than the full-contact ones. There’s still contact, just no body checking and some players couldn’t really tell the difference between being checked and just rubbed out battling for the puck.
“And some players also try to take advantage in the non[-contact tournaments, so you can sometimes see some pretty dirty play.
“I enjoyed being out there for all the big games, but I’ll take full contact over non-body contact any day.”
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