Fine Line Between Hockey And Fighting Veteran Official Does His Best To Keep Game Under Control

Sometimes the doubt wakes up with him on Sunday morning, when Steve Murphy can’t ignore his age.

One of the elder officials in the Western Hockey League at 33, the body squawks on the mornings after the rougher nights, when 13 years as a hockey lineseman are just about enough.

“When there’s been a big slugfest the night before it takes a little longer to crawl out in the morning,” said Murphy, the WHL’s one linesman from Spokane. “I feel it a little more now than I did when I was in my 20s. You know when you’ve had a workout.”

For $55, only $14 more than a basketball official earns for a Greater Spokane League game, the linesman is a hybrid in stripes - consultant, arbiter, bouncer.

It’s a young man’s game.

There are no bank presidents, no captains of industry, calling hockey games even though a linesman is limited to determining offsides, icing, the two-line pass and too many men on the ice. He keeps an eye on illegal substitution of the goalie.

Other than that, the referee calls it all, but often after conferring with his two deputies, the linesmen.

A 1980 Shadle Park High School grad, Murphy by day is a sales representative for Darigold with a talent for not taking himself too seriously.

By night he’s probably the most booed man in Spokane.

When he skates on for the start of a period in the Arena he’s nameless, faceless, anonymous - just the way he likes it.

“Hockey is more vocal than any other sport,” he said. “They’ll boo you if you’re doing a great job. You just try to get off the ice without getting noticed.”

He’s worked a couple of big ones - a Canada-U.S. game in the Olympics, the Spokane Chiefs’ inaugural game in the Arena - but there are many more routines when all he remembers is the fun of the challenge.

It has to be fun. “You’re not in it for the money,” he said. “It can be a pretty tough $55.”

He’s been doused with beer. He once took a flying puck in the mouth, and is thankful that he got off with loosened teeth and swollen lips (“Luckily the puck went flat,” he says. “If it had come in on an angle I probably would have been toothless”).

His teeth all came back.

He dodges sticks, pucks and fists and has found himself crawling around on the ice, searching for teeth.

“One night a guy lost four,” Murphy said. “We found three. White on white on the ice - heck, we couldn’t find that last tooth and we had to get going. That’s too bad, because if they’re knocked out clean I guess they just pack ‘em back in and they root right back.”

What do you tell a kid when you’re handing him what’s left of his bridgework?

Murphy shrugs. “You can try, ‘Here’s something to tell your grandkids,’ but there’s not a lot you can say.”

The toughest part of the job?

“Everybody thinks it’s the fights,” Murphy said before doing Wednesday night’s Spokane-Calgary game here. “But really, we let the kids do the work and we mop up at the end. The toughest part is being consistent in your calls - establishing a rapport with the players.”

Still, diving to the bottom of a melee is what puts him in the public eye.

“Just by listening to the jabber you have a good feel by the third period where the frustrations are,” he said. “Sometimes there’s no bad-mouthing. Sometimes - a Tri-CitySpokane game - I’m like a babysitter. I tell them I have kids 2 and 5 who don’t need as much supervision.”

Eliminating fights isn’t worth the trouble it would take to legislate them out of the game, Murphy said.

“At this level, a lot of times it does more good than harm,” he said. “You get a lot of frustrations out there - a lot of gatherings, a lot of yap-yap-yap - and then two guys go. Everybody else has to split.

“So now you’ve taken 10 guys who could all be fighting down to two,” he said. “Let those two get it out of their system and on we go. I haven’t seen major injuries from fights. Maybe a broken nose. A lot of blood. Cuts. But that heals.”

The deal usually is, who’ll be first to let go?

“Our biggest concern is the cheap shot, making sure the arms are tied up and they’re separated,” Murphy said. “If somebody gets one last shot, usually somebody else is coming in and you’ve got problems.”

Murphy remembers the night of his conversion, when he became a believer in helmets and later in shields.

A former Spokane Chief named Mike Berger had a habit of dumping pucks in head-high.

“You tell them to have a look before they dump it in,” Murphy said. “If you stay still, 99 percent of the time they’ll shoot it around you. Then there’s the odd guy. Berger wouldn’t look.

“He whizzed one by my ear. After that I put a helmet on.”

Face shields became mandatory after referee Brent Larson suffered vision loss from a flying puck, Murphy said.

“It happened 4-5 years ago. He had permanent damage,” Murphy said. “We attributed visors to him. Thanks for making us wear visors, Brent.

“But it’s a good thing. My third game with one on, I took a stick after a faceoff that left a big white mark on the shield.”

The blade would have cut him bad.

“You get a few bruises here and there, but I don’t want to go to extremes,” Murphy advises. “It’s not that bad. I’ve enjoyed almost all of it but there comes a time. I’ll probably work another year and get out. I’d like to see a young guy here have a shot at it.

“I’ve enjoyed seeing a kid like (Pat) Falloon come in here at 16 and watching him develop. It’s nice to turn on the tube and see kids who were here, after they made it all the way.

“Same with officials. I know a lot of NHL guys.”

The job occasionally takes him to Portland or Tri-City but travel is limited. Referees circulate. Linesmen usually do not. They tend to be locals.

It was travel that kept him from following up on refereeing. He grew up with a grocery store job that kept him busy on the weekends, when young referees begin to learn the craft, often after venturing out on the road.

He started at 12, when his parents ran him to the rink for 6 a.m. games on Sundays. Two decades later, Murphy is just as taken by the action.

“Every game changes,” he said. “The speed, the tempo. Sometimes it’s sloppy and the same team makes a complete turn in 24 hours. They’re kids. You don’t know.

“I can see why coaches would be popping the Tums all the time.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo