Ex-Michigan State defenseman Wes McCauley finds calling as NHL’s top referee

Detroit News

Mark Falkner
 
| The Detroit News

Wes McCauley’s rise to the top of the National Hockey League officiating ranks began to take shape as a freshman on the campus of Michigan State in 1989.

He just didn’t realize it at the time.

Now the NHL’s most animated official whose dramatic pauses and amusing calls after disputed goals and penalties have gone viral on YouTube and shared on social media by hockey fans and whose popularity among players was underscored in an NHLPA poll when he was voted the No. 1 referee in 2018, McCauley back then was about to follow his father’s advice and attend Michigan State, which had an enrollment (40,000) about the same size of his hometown in Georgetown, Ontario, just outside of Toronto.

In 1985, his dad John McCauley, an NHL referee for 15 years and the league’s director of officiating at the time, was in East Lansing for a series of exhibition games between the Canadian Olympic team and the Spartans at Munn Arena.

“Dad came home and said, ‘You’re going to Michigan State,'” McCauley said. “He was good friends with league commissioner Bill Beagan and as the boss, he (McCauley) would watch the young officials in the CCHA (Central Collegiate Hockey Association) and meet the coaches there. He always wanted me to go to Michigan State.”

McCauley signed his letter of intent in April of 1989 after winning a Toronto-area Metro Jr. B Hockey League championship and the Sutherland Cup provincial title with teammate and future Hockey Hall of Famer Eric Lindros of the St. Michael’s Buzzers.

At age 15 and already 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, Lindros dominated with 67 points in 27 games with 194 minutes in penalties. After playing for Detroit Compuware the next season and graduating from Farmington High School, Lindros turned down a scholarship offer from the University of Michigan, won a Memorial Cup with the Oshawa Generals in 1990 and went on to record 865 points in 760 games during a 13-year NHL career with the Philadelphia Flyers, New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs and Dallas Stars.

“We would do these little one-on-one drills,” McCauley said. “I was just a skinny little guy, maybe 160 pounds, but I would poke the puck away from Eric when he tried to beat me. He would always get the last laugh, though. He would run me into the end boards.”

McCauley’s summer in 1989 was going as planned until June 2 when his dad died suddenly at age 44 after complications from gall bladder surgery. Two months later, the 17-year-old McCauley was back on the ice with a new team and new coach Ron Mason, who built the Spartans into a powerhouse with a record of 635-270-29 in 23 seasons, including an NCAA national championship three years earlier in 1986.

“Things were different back then,” said Jason Muzzatti, a former MSU teammate who played five years in the NHL and is now the goaltending coach with the Carolina Hurricanes. “Coaches barely talked to players and there were limited services about coping with death. Coach Mason really liked Wes, and he created a pretty decent environment and support system to try and get over that terrible loss.”

McCauley credits St. Mike’s graduates Muzzatti and former Red Wings defenseman Jason Woolley as well as teammate, longtime friend and 15-year NHLer Bryan Smolinski for helping him deal with the sudden death of his dad and he said Mason “always checked in on me” and “became a male presence at such a young age.”

On the ice, the 6-foot-1, 170-pound defenseman had a successful first year. Drafted by the Red Wings in the eighth round in 1990 after recording nine points in 42 games, the Spartans featured Hobey Baker Award winner Kip Miller as the nation’s best player with 48 goals in 45 games and the team finished first with a 26-3-3 record, won the CCHA title before losing to Boston University in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament.

“We probably should’ve won a national championship if it weren’t for some questionable officiating,” McCauley laughed, acknowledging the irony of blaming officiating for the outcome of the game. (Future NHLer Tony Amonte scored the winning goal on a power play late in the third period of the Terriers’ 5-3 clinching victory in East Lansing).

“My biggest takeaway from my four years was completing my undergraduate degree and recently my master’s in sports coaching and leadership. If I didn’t have that degree in my pocket, I’m not sure I would’ve been as comfortable trying to pursue my NHL dream. Taking it a step further, Michigan State has had an impact on me even to this day at age 48.”

McCauley’s professional hockey career lasted four years with the IHL’s Las Vegas Thunder and Fort Wayne Komets, the ECHL Knoxville Checkers, the CHL Muskegon Fury and overseas with Milan of the Italian Serie A League. Shortly afterwards, he began “using a whistle in my hand versus a stick” while working junior hockey games in Ontario, then the ECHL in 1998 before becoming a full-time NHL referee in 2005.

“I don’t think I was cracking that (Red Wings) lineup,” McCauley said. “If you look at their draft the year before, they grabbed a guy who wore No. 5 (Nicklas Lidstrom). I don’t think they were too worried about Wes McCauley. The closest I was going to get to playing with him was referring him, standing behind him.”

McCauley’s successful career change doesn’t surprise former NHL enforcer and referee Paul Stewart, who named his oldest son McCauley in honor of Wes’ father. In 1976, John McCauley gave Stewart a game misconduct for hair pulling after only 81 seconds of ice time in his first NHL exhibition game with the Rangers against the two-time Stanley Cup champion Flyers in New York (“I spent $800 for tickets and $800 for dinner at Toots Shor’s,” Stewart said).

Years later when Stewart’s pro career was ending, McCauley encouraged him to referee which eventually led to Stewart’s induction into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018 as the first American to officiate 1,000 career games. In his milestone game in 2003, Stewart insisted on rookie Wes McCauley working as his partner and “passed the torch” by calling McCauley over to center ice to start the third period to drop the puck, “bowing out to the next up-and-comer” just as his dad did for him.

“I felt like it was coming full circle,” Stewart said. “John saved me and gave me direction. You never wanted to disappoint him, the same way (actor) Gregory Peck instilled pride in Twelve O’Clock High. Wes commands respect. He builds relationships and trust. It’s not rubber-stamped and it’s inexplicable to others unless you’ve been in their skates.”

Matt Pavelich, who worked with McCauley for “countless games” and was the first linesmen inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1987, says McCauley’s dad “would be proud of Wes” and that he’s “a chip off the old block except a better skater.”

In 1979, Pavelich was with John McCauley at a New York restaurant when McCauley was assaulted by a fan after the NHL All-Stars lost 6-0 to the Soviet Union in the Challenge Cup, sustaining a serious eye injury which led to the end of his on-ice career.

“I was with John in his first game back from the injury at Madison Square Garden,” Pavelich said. “He was seeing double so he had me referee the last period and a half. He became my boss but still had a way of communicating, smiling and laughing. He was that kind of personable guy and that’s the way his son is now.”

In the two years after the eye injury, McCauley remembers how his dad would walk him to school and then “hop on a bus back home because he couldn’t drive.” He says those memories and a career-ending eye injury to his brother Blaine make him appreciate his job and that “you’re basically going to have to cut the skates off of me” before he retires.

“One thing I don’t talk about enough is my dad’s love of the game, his passion,” McCauley said. “We would go to the rink early in the morning of game days, watch the other team skate and then I would go on the ice when my dad was meeting with the coaches or general managers. Unfortunately, his eye injury ended his career but he was able to serve the game in a different role, more of a coach and mentor type to the Andy Van Hellemonds, Bill McCrearys and Don Koharskis.

“I’m there to serve the game, too. Really, at the end of the day, who’s got the best seat in the house? I get to see these phenomenal athletes and that’s what I do for a living. Being a guy who played at the lowest levels and kept getting sent down and not called up, I’m staying out there. It’s the best. No better thing to do that I can think of.”

Muzzatti, Pavelich and Stewart agree it’s that positive attitude and exuberance for the game which comes through loud and clear when McCauley heads over to the penalty box, reaches for the microphone on his right hip and often times makes his signature calls.

“It’s not an act,” Muzzatti said. “That’s the way Wes is with people, his personality. He has charisma like his dad, larger than life in a way.”

“I like the one where the two guys were fighting,” Pavelich said. “Five minutes . . . for FIGHTING. The cameras went to the benches and everyone was laughing.”

“It’s a good tool, a natural tool,” Stewart said. “When he makes his announcements, it changes the mood. It can also be a way to reduce stress in the moment.”

After 1,094 regular-season games, 165 playoff games (he worked Games 1, 3, 6 in the 2020 Tampa Bay-Dallas final), eight straight appearances in the final (he missed the 2019 final because of an injury) and more than 65 days of working in the Toronto and Edmonton bubbles this year (“a really positive experience meeting people behind the scenes”), the resident of South Portland, Maine, says he’s not about to change his approach to the game now.

“Sometimes I can communicate a little too much and I can talk a little too much so I pull back a bit,” said McCauley, who said his children (ages 19, 17, and 12) are a “little bit embarrassed” with his videos on social media, but he says his wife and kids have a “pretty good sense of humor” and don’t take themselves too seriously.

“I make mistakes. A lot of mistakes, but if you show you care and want to be there, people will have a little more time for you. I want to referee a perfect game. Am I ever going to referee a perfect game? Probably not. I just want both teams to sit there and say we’re going to get a fair shake when they see my name on the lineup.”

mfalkner@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @falkner

Wes McCauley glance

Who: Wes McCauley

Birthplace: Georgetown, Ontario

Age: 48

Hockey background: Played four years at Michigan State University. Drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in the eighth round of the 1990 NHL draft. Played in the minor leagues in Las Vegas, Fort Wayne, Knoxville and Muskegon.

Officiating career: Worked 1,094 NHL games in the regular season and 165 games in the playoffs since 2005, including eight Stanley Cup finals.

John McCauley’s three rules for officiating: 1. Call the match penalties 2. Call the scoring opportunities 3. Call the obvious foul that everyone sees

McCauley tribute: Hall of Famer Eric Lindros wore No. 88 in honor of referee John McCauley, who wore No. 8 during his 15-year NHL career.

Quote: “Wes has a real feel for the game,” former Michigan State teammate and current Carolina Hurricanes goalie coach Jason Muzzatti said. “He lets the game develop and won’t panic or lose his cool. You know what to expect when he works your game.”

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