hined a younger official to me recently: "Whose ass do I have to kiss to get a tournament final?"

Note to censors: "[A]ss" is not a swear word. It's in the Bible. You can look it up. But don't ask me why a hockey referee would want to kiss a donkey because I don't have a psychology degree from an accredited university. Or even an uncredited one.

It was a rhetorical question, of course. He knew whose ass he needed to kiss: mine, thank you very much, and by verbally assaulting me in that manner he was doing a very lousy job of it, too.

Continued...