This Day in Hockey History – January 31, 1987 – Newell’s 1000th

Jan 31, 2020

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We have all seen it—a player in the NHL achieves that milestone 1000th game and he is showered with a pre-game presentation on home ice in front of his adoring fans that includes, among other things, a silver hockey stick.

But what does a referee get after officiating 1000 games? Well in 2018 when Wes McCauley reached his milestone, he was honored before the game with his family, fellow officials and the NHL Director of Officiating, Stephen Walkom, at center ice. He was presented with signed jerseys from both teams.

When Dave Newell became just the fourth referee to reach 1000 NHL games on January 31, 1987, what did they do for him?

A search of the newspapers shows that he appears simply because he was the referee of the game that took place in Toronto between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings. There was no indication of a pre-game presentation or acknowledgement. However, not everyone overlooked him.

“Former Wings forward Brad Smith, who had missed five games with a back muscle pull, returned to the leafs’ lineup Saturday. He stirred the emotions of the crowd with a wild skating style reminiscent of former Leaf Eddie Shack. Among those Smith crashed into during his free-wheeling gyrations were teammate Wendel Clark and referee Dave Newell,” reported the Detroit Free Press the day after the game.

Beyond that, his name simply appeared in the traditional statistics columns. Not much of a thank you for the years of in-your-face attitude and disagreement that meets just about every referee during every game.

Newell began his NHL officiating career in 1967 and would put his skates and the stripes on until his retirement in 1990—standing tall for 1,169 regular season games and 106 playoff games. Throughout that time, he was the sole referee on the ice, as the NHL did not go to a two-referee, two-linesmen system until the 1998-99 season. He worked the NHL Stanley Cup Final in 1981, 1984 and 1987. He was also selected for the 1980 All-Star Game and the second game of the Rendez-vous ’87 series that saw the NHL All-Stars and the Soviet Union national team play two games in Quebec City.

In 1988 during the Wales Conference final playoff series between the New Jersey Devils and the Boston Bruins, it would be Dave Newell who would lead a wildcat strike of the officials.

At the end of the third game, Devil’s coach Jim Schoenfeld confronted referee Don Koharski, hurling verbal abuse from the second Koharski left the ice and following him down the tunnel. As a result, Schoenfeld was suspended for a game. However, the Devils took their case to the New Jersey courts and were able to get a restraining order allowing Schoenfeld to continue coaching in the next game.

Newell, who was the scheduled referee, as well as president of the NHL Officials’ Association at the time, along with linesmen Gord Broseker and Ray Scapinello, and alternate referee Denis Morel refused to officiate the game. Newell felt that the NHL should be doing more to protect the referees. In the end he and his fellow officials were not penalized for taking a stance.

During the 1987-88 season, an article in The Vancouver Sun perhaps offered the best spotlight on Newell’s life as a referee.

“Newell, 43, is sitting in his Hotel Vancouver room gnawing on a toothpick and habitually twisting his NHL Officials ring, a bagel-sized affair with an orchard of diamonds planted on top.

“Twenty-one years of rink hopping, whistle blowing, puck dodging, four-letter word deflecting—not to mention death threats, hate mail and the occasional fist in the face—and that’s about all the sentimental acknowledgment (besides a weird sort of fame that might as well be infamy) Dave Newell gets. A ring.”

The diamonds on his ring signified he had reached 15 years of service in stripes.

“Maybe after 25 years I’ll get a rocking chair,” Newell shared.

Newell would never find out, as his NHL career spanned 22 years before he decided to retire in 1990. And once again there was no fanfare—a simple pondering by Newell to Jim Matheson, who mentioned it in his Hockey Notebook column in the Edmonton Journal, that it might be time for him to consider hanging up the whistle.

However, even after retiring, he continued to be involved, working for 15 years as an NHL Officiating Coach, helping to bring new officials to the game.

When he passed away on November 23, 2018, Colin Campbell, NHL senior executive vice president of hockey operations summed up Newell’s career and with those words showed the regard in which Newell was held.

“A consummate professional who epitomized class, Dave’s calm demeanor on the ice earned him the respect of players and coaches.”

And perhaps a referee would prefer to be remembered that way rather than with some fancy fanfare.

Additional Resources:

“Wings-Leafs tickets hot items Saturday,” Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan), Sunday, February 1, 1987, p. 8C.
Barry Meisel, “Schoenie ban lifted” Daily News (New York, New York), Tuesday, May 10, 1988, p. 50.
Lee Bacchus, “The Men They Love to Hate,” The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, British Columbia), Saturday, November 7, 1987, p. H1.
Jim Matheson, “Hockey Notebook,” Edmonton Journal (Edmonton, Alberta), Sunday, February 4, 1990, p. C2.
NHLOA – Alumni – Dave Newell, online.