"Ok Coach, You've Convinced Me...One of Us Is Nuts
And I've Decided It's You!"

A defining moment in the career of Kevin Murdock
Pickering, Ontario

My name is Kevin Murdock and I am currently a Level IV official registered with the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA).  I currently live and officiate in Pickering, Ontario. 

I am also a CHOP Supervisor of Officials, a job that I very much enjoy.  I enjoy working with and developing our younger officials.  

I had been officiating for about three years in Toronto for a local “Select” league and had recently obtained my Level III when I moved to Pickering ON.  Upon moving to Pickering I joined the OMHA and started to referee for the “A, AA & AAA” levels.  This was my first experience at that calibre of hockey.  

Anyway, I was the referee for a Juvenile game and the two linesmen I had working with me were people I had just met for the first time.  

From the opening face-off the coach for the Pickering team was all over me.  Constantly yelling and gesturing at almost every call (or non-call).  No matter what I did he wasn’t happy. 

As the game went along and the coach continued his antics I was constantly having a private conversation with myself wondering what I must be doing wrong that this coach is so angry. 

I was questioning myself and my decisions.  I hadn’t warned the coach nor given him a penalty for his antics at any point because I couldn’t shake the possibility that he might be right. He’d obviously seen more AAA hockey than I had and maybe he knew what he was talking about.   

Was he right?  Was he just testing me?  I was undecided.  I knew I couldn’t ask either of my linesmen since I’d just met both of them and they’d never seen me work so I couldn’t really rely on them.  It would have been much easier if I’d had someone working with me who I was comfortable with.  Someone who’d seen me work and could tell me whether or not I was missing things.  But I didn’t.  My two linesmen were as new to me as the coach.  For all I knew they would tell me the coach was right.  

So, there I was, all alone with no one to help me figure this out.  

Well, here’s my defining moment.  I was standing in the Pickering end zone during the 3^rd period doing the line change procedure and I had my arm in the air for the home team to change, making eye contact with the coach.   Sure enough, he was yelling and complaining about something and it was at that point I thought to myself, “Ok, coach, you’ve convinced me.  One of us is nuts.  I don’t know which of us it is, but until I find someone whose opinion I can rely on, I’ve decided it’s you”.   

If, at that moment, I’d decided that the coach was right and I was the one that was nuts I would never have lasted as a referee.