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News Article: Gilmour Spills, but doesn't quite go all the way

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therealkoho

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Jul 10, 2009
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Ex-Leaf Doug Gilmour looks back at the Wayne Gretzky high stick in 1993 and sees ‘the worst officiated game you can imagine’
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Our occasional series, Hindsight In 2020, digs into some of the most significant moves and moments in Toronto sports history: hirings and firings, trades and non-trades, things you knew a little bit about or didn’t know at all. This week, Wayne Gretzky, the high stick and the end of the Maple Leafs’ 1993 playoff run ...
It is 27 years since the most infamous non-call in Maple Leafs history, but everyone remembers the lasting images from overtime of Game 6 of the 1993 Campbell Conference final.

Doug Gilmour obviously had blood on his chin. Kerry Fraser and his linesmen clearly had blind spots. Wayne Gretzky, instead of being rightly ejected for a high stick, scored the winner that set up a Game 7 heartbreak at Maple Leaf Gardens and unleashed a torrent of bitterness that still lingers.

And as much as the story of Toronto’s near miss has been told and retold through the decades, it took the coronavirus for Gilmour to do something he’d never done before: That is, watch Game 6.

“I’ve seen the high stick many times, obviously. But I’d never watched that full game,” Gilmour said recently.
It was in the early days of the pandemic lockdown that Gilmour, the leading scorer and double-shifting linchpin of that well-remembered Leafs era, sat down for one of the most heavily dissected matches in the pantheon of Toronto sports as it was replayed on Sportsnet. That is not something every key participant can say they’ve done. Wendel Clark, Gilmour’s beloved teammate who scored a hat trick that went for naught on the night in question, said he has still never seen Game 6 in full and has no intention of ever seeking it out.
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Like I always thought the league was looking for the Kings to get to the final, if only for the sake of the great god US TV

“You know what? Truthfully, that had to be the worst officiated game you can imagine,” Gilmour said. “Not even the high stick, but all the other penalties (Fraser) missed. What a joke. I can’t wait to see him one day and tell him, ‘OK, you missed the high stick. That’s fine. But what a bad game you reffed.’ ”

For many years before he’d actually watched Game 6, Gilmour had urged Maple Leaf fans to let bygones by bygones — to cease and desist with their hostilities toward the officials who presided over a game in which the Kings, playing in the Los Angeles Forum, scored four of their five goals on the power play, including the overtime decider. Fraser and his family, after all, have endured copious abuse from the get-go, everything from property damage to verbal tirades. And the 67-year-old Fraser, who hung up his NHL stripes in 2010 and has since been diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, has repeatedly fallen on his sword, for years acknowledging the missed high stick and faithfully re-explaining it to anyone who asked.

But Gilmour said watching the game made him finally see it through the eyes of the Toronto faithful who’ve had a difficult time letting it rest.

“I’m just like everybody else. I’m a hockey fan. I lived it. I played it. But I’m sitting there thinking, ‘This is getting me frustrated, just watching this game,’ ” Gilmour said. “I’m in the backyard having a cocktail going, ‘Oh my god. Come on. Replay that again. Fast forward, run it back. Come on — that’s not a call.’”
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Good for Killer.

NHL refs are horrible because of one thing, for some reason they're given the responsibility for game management. That is such a flawed approach to officiating, and I'd much rather see International refs come on and call the game how it's supposed to be called.

I don't know if many people remember, but Fraser worked on TSN for a short while, and he had a segment where he would talk about officiating. He blatantly said that refs pick and chose things depending on the person, they have bias and that they are told to game manage to keep things competitive.

I'm sure the NHL didn't like that and asked TSN to pull him, because he didn't last long.
 
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Stephen said:
Kerry Fraser was an arrogant referee. Was always making cheesy calls and non calls with his chin sticking up in the air like “hmpphhh.” The idea of game management is definitely a weird tradition of the game.
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He was the worst ref any Leaf team could draw. Screwed us more than any ref over the years. He was a hated man in Toronto. Koharski (sp?) was a piece of crap too. Very worst refs against the Leafs for me.
 
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It could have led to an All-Canadian SCF. There hasn't been one of those since 1989. I believe the most recent Tor-Mtl playoff series took place in 1979! NHL hockey's biggest rivalry taking place with its greatest prize on the line. The two teams also can no longer meet in the finals considering they are now in the same conference. The important thing is that I am over it and not at all bitter! Realistically, there was still an opportunity to come away with a series win in Game 7. Alas, momentum shift and all of that.
 
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My problem has always been that I don’t believe he missed the call. He was looking right at the play.
He just didn’t have the balls to make the call. In 1993 a high stick drawing blood wasn’t a double minor. It was 5 and a game misconduct. If Frazer did his job he would have to have thrown Grez out of the game. And with the pressure of the situation and it being overtime of a potential elimination game of the conference final he chickened out.
 
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cyris said:
My problem has always been that I don’t believe he missed the call. He was looking right at the play.
He just didn’t have the balls to make the call. In 1993 a high stick drawing blood wasn’t a double minor. It was 5 and a game misconduct. If Frazer did his job he would have to have thrown Grez out of the game. And with the pressure of the situation and it being overtime of a potential elimination game of the conference final he chickened out.
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Yup and it was the league's hot button penalty at the time (like stick taps to the gloves a couple of years ago) and was being called left, right and centre. It was just impossible that he "missed" it.
 
I watched that game recently. Lots of missed calls on both sides of the puck, and a pretty badly missed offside.

The high stick was not the worst call or non-call in that game. I always thought that was an odd thing to focus all the anger on.
 
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Jamason said:
I watched that game recently. Lots of missed calls on both sides of the puck, and a pretty badly missed offside.

The high stick was not the worst call or non-call in that game. I always thought that was an odd thing to focus all the anger on.
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When a player scores the overtime winning power play goal right after he should have been ejected from the game than ya, that's what all the anger is going to be focused on.
 
GLobello said:
When a player scores the overtime winning power play goal right after he should have been ejected from the game than ya, that's what all the anger is going to be focused on.
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If the ref had made, for example, the right call on one of the earlier goals, the game wouldn't have gone to overtime.

I understand why people focus on that play, but I disagree with it being singled out so much. In this, I agree with Doug.
 
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