18-Year Veteran Referee Justin St-Pierre Retires Due To Knee Injury

CheckingLineCenter

Registered User
Aug 10, 2018
9,429
10,266
It's a tough job. You don't have (m)any fans and you make a lot less than the players for a significant risk of injury. All you get are hotel and airline points. 18 years is a solid run.
Completely disagree. You work 75 “days” (a gameday is what? 4-5 hours?) a year with summers off for 200k to 500k+ depending on seniority. If you have to go over that for playoffs you get bonused out. Linesman have comp a little worse. And going outside the scope of HFB no one knows who the hell you are nor do you have to answer for anything. CBA protects your job.

The downside is injury risk. And time away from home.

“All you get” is a pension, and a playoff game retirement bonus. A lot more than most could say.

Are these guys making crazy money? No. Are there cushier jobs? Sure. But doesn’t seem that tough to me.
 

The Crypto Guy

Registered User
Jun 26, 2017
28,233
36,745
Completely disagree. You work 75 “days” (a gameday is what? 4-5 hours?) a year with summers off for 200k to 500k+ depending on seniority. If you have to go over that for playoffs you get bonused out. Linesman have comp a little worse. And going outside the scope of HFB no one knows who the hell you are nor do you have to answer for anything. CBA protects your job.

The downside is injury risk. And time away from home.

“All you get” is a pension, and a playoff game retirement bonus. A lot more than most could say.

Are these guys making crazy money? No. Are there cushier jobs? Sure. But doesn’t seem that tough to me.
You realize that the 3 hour game is not the only time they are at “work”. They have to train almost non-stop to make sure they can keep up with the game, most are older than the players, they have daily meetings, and have to be at the rink hours before the game to look over game notes and player tendencies (more meetings). All while being on the road for 8 months of the year in highly stressful situations.
 

DearDiary

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Aug 29, 2010
15,180
12,495
Completely disagree. You work 75 “days” (a gameday is what? 4-5 hours?) a year with summers off for 200k to 500k+ depending on seniority. If you have to go over that for playoffs you get bonused out. Linesman have comp a little worse. And going outside the scope of HFB no one knows who the hell you are nor do you have to answer for anything. CBA protects your job.

The downside is injury risk. And time away from home.

“All you get” is a pension, and a playoff game retirement bonus. A lot more than most could say.

Are these guys making crazy money? No. Are there cushier jobs? Sure. But doesn’t seem that tough to me.

You left out the money they make as mercenaries, selling their services to the highest paying team owner.
 
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Hockeylife2018

Registered User
Nov 21, 2011
886
1,192
You realize that the 3 hour game is not the only time they are at “work”. They have to train almost non-stop to make sure they can keep up with the game, most are older than the players, they have daily meetings, and have to be at the rink hours before the game to look over game notes and player tendencies (more meetings). All while being on the road for 8 months of the year in highly stressful situations.
Ehh, I'd take that over laying brick and destroying your body only to have to likely work until the day you die
 

bambamcam4ever

107 and counting
Feb 16, 2012
15,014
7,118
It's a tough job. You don't have (m)any fans and you make a lot less than the players for a significant risk of injury. All you get are hotel and airline points. 18 years is a solid run.
There are so many jobs with higher risk of injury. And most don't pay $250k to work 2 or 3 times a week for 3 hours
 

Sanderson

Registered User
Sep 10, 2002
5,746
471
Hamburg, Germany
There are so many jobs with higher risk of injury. And most don't pay $250k to work 2 or 3 times a week for 3 hours
There are certainly harder and less rewarding jobs than that, but why make an ignorant comment like that?
It's like stating the players own their salary by playing a game every few days for some months, or that coaches get paid to stand around and watch others play hockey. That's just not how this works at all.

Refs have to travel a lot, they have to train a lot, at an age at which it is much harder to keep up than for players, and their game day sure as heck doesn't revolve around being there when the game starts and leaving when it ends. They also have to do a ton of reports, meetings and league-internal camps.

It's always funny when people who have zero idea what the life of a ref is like pretend they can judge how hard that job is...
 

NJ DevLolz

The Many Saints of Newark
Sep 30, 2017
4,713
5,654
You realize that the 3 hour game is not the only time they are at “work”. They have to train almost non-stop to make sure they can keep up with the game, most are older than the players, they have daily meetings, and have to be at the rink hours before the game to look over game notes and player tendencies (more meetings). All while being on the road for 8 months of the year in highly stressful situations.
Didn’t have Crypto Guy as a passionate defender of officials on my bingo card but he’s a man (?) of intrigue!
 
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CheckingLineCenter

Registered User
Aug 10, 2018
9,429
10,266
You realize that the 3 hour game is not the only time they are at “work”. They have to train almost non-stop to make sure they can keep up with the game, most are older than the players, they have daily meetings, and have to be at the rink hours before the game to look over game notes and player tendencies (more meetings). All while being on the road for 8 months of the year in highly stressful situations.
daily meetings? Have to prepare beforehand? Almost sounds like a job. Sounds like the 75 days they work are closer to 8 hour days. So that’s still way better than the avg person who works 260 before holidays/PTO. (And I understand it’s not just limited to those gamedays, but I’m showing the sheer difference to a normal employee)

Getting paid to work out isn’t a bad thing like you make it out to be and fully lmao at “highly stressful situations”.

The travel is a downside for those with families which I acknowledged but plenty of people travel for work constantly with families.

I am not sitting here and saying it’s the easiest of all gigs, but it’s not this heroic, thankless grind. They’re paid very fairly for a very high quality of life. It’s not a “tough job” relative to the rest of the world.
 
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MOGlLNY

Registered User
Jan 5, 2008
12,357
12,660
You realize that the 3 hour game is not the only time they are at “work”. They have to train almost non-stop to make sure they can keep up with the game, most are older than the players, they have daily meetings, and have to be at the rink hours before the game to look over game notes and player tendencies (more meetings). All while being on the road for 8 months of the year in highly stressful situations.
Wow so he has a job?
 

Craig Ludwig

Registered User
Jun 16, 2005
717
854
daily meetings? Have to prepare beforehand? Almost sounds like a job. Sounds like the 75 days they work are closer to 8 hour days. So that’s still way better than the avg person who works 260 before holidays/PTO. (And I understand it’s not just limited to those gamedays, but I’m showing the sheer difference to a normal employee)

Getting paid to work out isn’t a bad thing like you make it out to be and fully lmao at “highly stressful situations”.

The travel is a downside for those with families which I acknowledged but plenty of people travel for work constantly with families.

I am not sitting here and saying it’s the easiest of all gigs, but it’s not this heroic, thankless grind. They’re paid very fairly for a very high quality of life. It’s not a “tough job” relative to the rest of the world.
You are so out of touch, do you have any idea how hard it is to make it as an NHL Linesman or Referee....They start by doing Novice/Pee Wee games and get screamed at by idiot parents, idiot coaches and idiot kids 10 times a week. Confronted often in parking lots. About 75% of young referees quit in their first year. If they don't quit, they go on to Midget and then if really good, possibly the WHL, OHL or QMJHL, where they're again constantly lambasted by fans and coaches, and now media. The guys who make it to the NHL are the cream of the crop, and have earned every penny of your so called "Easy Job". It's just like anything in life, if you're the top 0.1% you have earned it, and kudos to them. That's the way life works my friend. Sure once they get to the top it may look easy to you, but it's a LONG road to get there.
 

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