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Never Doubt This Thomas
A good Ref story...for a change
By John Down, Calgary Herald January 28, 2009
Teen steps into stripes to keep the show going
Thomas Doucet, 14, goalie with a PSA Grizzlies bantam squad, was lauded for volunteering to ref an Esso Minor hockey week game on Monday.
Thomas Doucet, 14, goalie with a PSA Grizzlies bantam squad, was lauded for volunteering to ref an Esso Minor hockey week game on Monday.
In a society that often loves to diss anyone dressed in black and white-striped jerseys and blowing whistles, young Thomas Doucet was being hailed as a hero Tuesday.
The 14-year-old stepped up Monday night and refereed an Esso Minor Hockey Week game when all appeared to be lost. Which is to say, the officials slated to handle an Atom 1 Blue game between Blackfoot and Trails West at the Village Square Arena didn't show.
What was even more remarkable in the eyes of Hockey Calgary officials is that the parents of both teams took up a financial collection for the helpful teenager.
"It's certainly a feel-good story from the volunteer side," said Sean Hyde, vice-president of operations for Hockey Calgary. "With the challenge of putting on so many games, there's times when we're missing officials and it's our worst fear.
"Often there's a lot of resistance from the coaches and parents but everybody was just unbelievably co-operative."
Doucet, who is a goaltender with the Properties Sports Association's Bantam 3 Grizzlies, is one of about 500 accredited on-ice officials under the age of 16 with Hockey Calgary but he's only cleared to referee games up to the novice level, which is one below atom.
The teen had just finished refereeing a novice game and was packing up his equipment when a parent of one of the Atom players went to the referees room after it was discovered that the scheduled officials were a no-show. Doucet was willing to stay, but his partner had to leave.
"I was happy to do it," said Doucet. "I always like doing extra games because I really like reffing. I was a little nervous, though, because it was Atom-1 and I thought I was going to have to do it alone, so it was a little nerve-racking."
The butterflies were a little more manageable when Craig Popoff, the atom co-ordinator with Trails West, was able to borrow Hyde's skates and join Doucet on the ice as the linesman. Had the teams, or parents, not been able to recruit Doucet, the options were either cancellation or having both teams agree to use their captains as referees.
"Atom 1 is pretty good hockey so we didn't want to get to that point," said Hyde, who was at the arena and hung around to support Doucet.
"Thomas did a real good job. I was in the refs' room after the game congratulating him and in comes one of the moms with a handful of loonies and toonies, saying it was from both teams' parents.
"We just don't run across something like that very often, if ever."
Needless to say, Doucet was just as grateful for the pocket full of loot as the parents were for his overtime duty.
"I was really happy. I really said thank you. That was so nice," he said, conceding it was his best payday since he graduated from the refereeing course last September.
Hockey Calgary director of officiating Darrel Martindale said he's never heard of anything like it before.
"I've been refereeing for I don't know how many years and I've never heard of everyone getting together like that to take up a collection.
The odd time they might throw in a couple of bucks but this was both teams so it was quite unique."
Martindale isn't sure why the slated refs were no-shows but with 506 teams and almost 1,000 on-ice officials, things don't always come off as smoothly as they should.
"It happens,"he said. "It's not the first time. Sometimes the referees read miss-read their schedules, have a typo in their game times, don't get there on time or for whatever reasons, it does happen and we're just happy there's people out there like Thomas."
Both Martindale and Hyde said Hockey Calgary could use more officials, especially like Doucet, but it is difficult to keep the teenagers past the age of 16.
"Referee retention is high on our agenda as a board," said Hyde. "We have to try and find a way for these kids to stick around. We get them started around age 13 or 14, initially a way for them to make a few bucks and go for a skate and some of them turn out to be really good referees.
"But then their hockey careers or personal lives get in their way and they leave but we're working on it."
In the meantime, they'll have to count on the Thomas Doucets of the world.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
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