The Final Call by Kerry Fraser Read Free Book Online Page B

healed.
    Dan Marouelli, subsequently joined the staff as a full-time referee and had an outstanding career. He also retired at the end of the 2009–10 season.

    Despite my decision not to wear a helmet until it became mandatory under our collective-bargaining agreement, which came during my final three seasons in the NHL, I only had three facial cuts and one in the back of my head that required stitches. Not a bad batting average over all those years and games. Either I was so bloody short that the pucks generally went over my perfectly coiffed hair or I had developed a keen, laser-like sense of awareness for incoming projectiles. I like to think the latter is true.
    One recurring problem I have to deal with involves both knees. When I was 15 years old and playing Midget AAA hockey in the All-Ontario semifinals against the Toronto Young Nationals, the blade of my left skate got stuck in a rut where the Zamboni door opened. An opponent hit me from in front, causing my body to twist—a full rotation—in the direction of contact. With my left skate locked, my left leg from the knee down didn’t follow the rest of my body. I ripped the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) clean through and tore the medial meniscus as well. To this day, I havenever experienced pain like that. For 10 or 15 seconds, it was excruciating; then it just stopped.
    I was on crutches for a week and watched the final game of the series from behind the bench in Toronto as my teammates and future NHL stars Wayne Merrick (four Stanley Cups with the NY Islanders) and Bob Neely (Toronto Maple Leafs) put us in into the Ontario championship against Copper Cliff the following weekend. I was back in the lineup taking a regular shift and was able to play two out of three games in the championship series. The first of four surgeries to my left knee was scheduled for the end of the following season, my first in junior hockey. Back then, they didn’t repair the ACL.
    A big cut on the inside of my knee allowed the surgeon to clean out the torn meniscus, resulting in a lengthy rehabilitation process. In 1972, I finished playing as captain of the Sarnia Bees of the Southern Ontario Junior A League. In spite of several scholarship offers to top Division 1 college programs, I realized I had come to the end of the line as far as my playing aspirations were concerned. It was time to find a job, preferably one within the game that I so dearly loved. Little did I realize just how quickly a door of opportunity would become unlocked when Ted Garvin introduced me to officiating.

    In preparation for my final season I started training earlier than I ever had before. When I was younger, I could ramp it up with two-a-day workouts after enjoying the off-season to the fullest. With age and injuries, I had to avoid letting my baseline fitness level get too far off track. Had I not been dedicated to a healthy lifestyle and pushed myself to maintain a high level of fitness, there would have been no way I could have worked at this level just short of my 58th birthday.
    How does a 57-year-old man prepare his minuscule, well-used, sometimes abused body to enter into an arena filled with youthful, athletic gladiators whose chiselled physiques look like granite statues?
    Well, if you want to walk in someone else’s shoes, you’d better shop at the same shoe store as they do. Not only did I find that shoe store just 20 miles from my home, but more important, I connected with the master shoemaker himself. Jimmy McCrossin has been the Philadelphia Flyers’ athletic therapist and strength and conditioning coach for the past 15 years. He and I are about the same height, about the same age (he’s only 52, but anything over 50 puts us all in the same category), and, like me, has a pretty serious knee problem. That’s about where the comparison ends. Jim leads by example as he competes hard in all of the components of the conditioning programs he designs for his athletes. They are challenged to