OHL: Referee gets a hometown sendoff and a surprise from young son
For one night, Chris Hodgins was fine with a referee being on display. After all, it was his last night.
Unbeknownst to Hodgins, his spouse, Lisa, and the Ottawa 67’s cooked up a little surprise on Friday before the veteran official presided over his final Ontario Hockey League game. As so often happens, the teams lined up on their respective bluelines for a ceremonial faceoff. Who came out to drop the puck? Hodgins’ four-year-old son, Jordan, escorted by Chris’ father, Les, putting three generations of the family on the ice at once.
“It was a pretty special surprise,” Chris Hodgins said about 45 minutes after the Brampton Battalion’s 2-1 overtime win over Ottawa, still in uniform and skates as he savoured the moment with family, friends and his fellow officials, referee Sean Reid and linesmen Steve Corlyon and Eric Dagenais. “My wife, I have to thank her. She made a couple calls and of course I have to thank the 67’s for making that happen. It was amazing to see the smile from ear to ear on my son’s face and of course I was wearing one as well.
“It was quite emotional, I suppose. It was just amazing to have him be part of the experience. Hopefully it’s something he [Jordan] remembers. I think we’ve got enough photos and videos to remind him of the experience.”
Hodgins, 34, who spent 14 years officiating in the OHL and four lining in the American Hockey League, is staying in the game. He’ll still arbiter Junior A and Canadian Interuniversity Sport games near his home base in Ottawa. Between having a growing family — he and Lisa have two children under five with Jordan and two-year-old Kaitlyn — and a job in sales with a start-up information technology company, it was time to scale back.
“The last couple years we’ve been watching our children grow and now they’re starting to get into sports,” Hodgins said. My son is into hockey so I was the decision it was time to spend more time with them. I’ve been fortunate to work in this league and others.”
Like many game officials, Hodgins got into refereeing through a family member. His father was a ref, working Tier II Junior A games, so when Chris was 13, he took it up as a part-time job. By the time he was 20, the same age as an overage player in major junior, he was an OHL linesman.
Over the past decade and a half, he’s had an ice-level view of pretty much every player who came through the OHL on his way to NHL stardom. Rick Nash. Corey Perry. Mike Richards. P.K. Subban. Drew Doughty. Steven Stamkos. Jeff Skinner. Taylor Hall. Tyler Seguin.
“It’s been amazing to turn on the TV and see a huge number of players that I’ve had the opportunity to referee, of course, and a number of a friends from the refereeing community who’ve gone up there as well,” he said.
A highlight was being chosen for the 2005 MasterCard Memorial Cup in London. That was one of the most watched Memorial Cups in recent history. Junior hockey had the stage to itself due to the season-long NHL lockout. The host Knights were the immovable object that had piled up an OHL-record 59 wins, while they were confronted by an irresistible force from the QMJHL named Sidney Crosby, who was leading the Rimouski Océanic.
“As a linesman, I worked three championship finals, The 2005 Memorial Cup, that was probably the highlight of my career, working that tournament. Sidney Crosby and Corey Perry were the name players. It was pretty amazing. I also had the chance to go over to Austria and work the world university games. That was pretty memorable as well. I worked the gold-medal final.”
Few players get to write their own ending. Hodgins, notwithstanding the surprise of having his little boy drop the puck, got to script a bit of his departure. He managed to finish in his hometown; fellow ref Reid and linesmen Corlyon and Dagenais also hail from the national capital region.
“I had the opportunity to choose my final game, both the rink and the crew to work with me. I got a lot of great memories here. This is probably my favourite rink to work in. The 67’s organization, they’re a class act and I appreciate everything they’ve done for me.”
Here’s hoping the armchair refs in the vicinity will appreciate who they’re sitting near when the Hodgins clan watch together as fans.
“We’re looking forward to watching it from the stands,” he said.
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet (photos: Robert Lefebvre, Ice Level Photography).
