“I’m a hockey referee. Don’t even get me started on the immaturity I have to deal with on the job. I was calling a game, when in the first period, I heard a coach screaming, ‘WHISTLE,’ repeatedly from his bench. As a person on the ice who blows the whistle when necessary, that’s a word that instantly gets my attention. I looked around, but couldn’t see anything that would necessitate a stoppage in play. I decided to give the coach the benefit of the doubt and stop things once his team had possession. I skated over to the bench and asked what the deal was. He told me that ‘whistle’ was his code-word for his team to ice the puck or something.
Obviously, that couldn’t continue. I told the guy to pick any other word that didn’t have the same confusing connotations as ‘whistle.’ He begrudgingly agreed, and the game continued.
Later in the game, it happened again. I waited until a normal stoppage this time, and tried telling him that it simply wasn’t acceptable for him to be shouting ‘whistle.’ Instead of a calm conversation like last time, he decides to put both his arms up in the air and calling me every name he can think of. He gets one more warning. I tell him that I won’t be talking to him any longer, and if he wants to take things up with me, it shall be through his team’s captain.
After shouting a triumphant ‘F* you, zebra!’ he turns his back on me and grumbles to himself. I immediately gave a bench minor penalty to his team, and this guy took offense to that as well. At this point, he thought it was a great idea to throw a water bottle at me to express his contempt. I asked him to leave, he refused, and I said that the game wouldn’t start again until he had left the building.
We had a stand-off. The evil coach was refusing to leave. Eventually, the fans caught wind of what was happening, and soon, hundreds of people were booing this clown. It got the better of him, and as he stepped down from the bench, the boos turned into applause from the other team’s fans. He was subjected to a disciplinary review, and I haven’t seen him since.”
