Bryan's BIO
Lewis: When my oldest daughter was 24, she said to me one day, “Dad, do you think I’m 12?” And I said, “No, why would you say that?” She said, “You’ve only been around for half of my growing up years.” Those things hurt. I never forgot that. I didn’t get to watch my boy play hockey that much, and it just seemed awful that my son had to say, “Dad, thanks for coming to my game.” When you factor those into any equation, why shouldn’t I think about getting out, especially after 11 years?
I’ve enjoyed the run, but one other factor kicked in recently. Since the playoffs this past season, my wife’s been having a battle with breast cancer. The good news is I’m going to be there. It’s not all doom and gloom. She’s very positive about it. I didn’t go to the first appointment. She said, “Oh, don’t worry about it; it’s nothing. I’m going to go shopping afterwards.” I remember this like yesterday. She called me from the parking lot of the doctor’s office and told me this awful news. I always thought that kind of thing happens to somebody on the other side of town. It doesn’t happen to anybody on your street. Well, it did and it got very close to home. So I took that into consideration with as low as I felt about being a bad father and husband. One day I was standing in my house — and I have a granddaughter who is about three months old — I’m standing there thinking, this is about the sixth time I’ve seen this little girl and she only lives 10 miles from my home.
And then the league came to me and we talked about the shelf life of a director of officiating. I think they wanted to make a change. I have no disagreement with the fact that 11 years is a lot. Throw in (NFL Senior Director of Officiating) Jerry Seeman as an example. He’s doing 10 and that’s it (See “The News,” p. 12). So maybe the number is 10. Maybe I’m a year too slow. My immediate reaction was, “They made this easy for me.” And that’s why I am not displeased. The following Friday my wife and I went golfing. That was the third time we’ve done it since we’ve been married. Never had the time. My wife asked, “How come you’re not mad?” I said, “I have no need to be mad; it’s tremendous for the Lewis family.”
Referee: What’s your new role going to be with the NHL?
Lewis: It’s not down on a solid piece of paper yet, but I’m going to do all the ancillary things that are time consuming. My game plan is definitely to be involved in the development of younger officials. I will do everything I can for Andy (Van Hellemond, newly named NHL director of officiating. See “The News,” p. 13). And I’ve told this to Andy directly: “You need me, you phone me.” The league has been very kind in saying to me, “What is it you want to do, Bryan? You design a job for you.” So I said to Andy, “Look, I’ll take away the things that you don’t have time to do, things that you’d end up doing at 11 o’clock at night or five o’clock in the morning, or you just can’t get to at all.” The director of officiating, in my mind, is and can be a two-person job.
Referee: So, you’ll be doing things you weren’t able to devote as much time to before.
Lewis: Absolutely. I plan to spend some time coaching officials and assisting and evaluating and all that stuff. That’s where I think I can offer my talents best. In addition to that I said, “Look, I want to stay involved with NASO. I want to stay involved with the American Hockey League. I want to be the guy that they call for rulebook information from any minor pro league we deal with. I want to be involved with the camps and clinics that are run by various leagues.” The director of officiating can’t be at all those things. The key to all this for me is that now if something comes up, with my wife in particular, I’m in a position to say, “I’m not going to Syracuse tonight. I’m not going to go an IHL game in Detroit. I’m staying home.”
Referee: I understand you were very impressed with Ed Rush and his NBA officiating department when the two of you met at the NASO convention in June. Do you think NHL officiating could benefit by emulating some of the NBA policies?
Lewis: Yes. When I look and see what they’ve got as far as computers and equipment, we’re just starting to get that way in the NHL. As an aside, when I went to the NFL officials’ camp in Dallas several years ago, they had more portable video equipment than the entire NHL owned. I presented that to the league and we’ve been changing. We now have complete television studios in our office. We tape every game. We didn’t do that kind of stuff before. Now I look and see what Ed is doing and he tells me what he does with his computers and all the lines of communication that he has. Our people right now are all in the process of getting computers. That’s not because of what I saw at the convention, because we had already started the process, but we can definitely do some of the stuff that Ed’s doing — like how he takes and marks certain plays on video and then ships a CD off to the guy. It’s mind-boggling stuff.
I also talked to him about doing assignments. He said, “I don’t do the assignments in the NBA.” I said, “You don’t? I’ve been doing them for 11 years.” You have no idea the hours and days spent doing those things. He has somebody doing them for him. Can you imagine how much better an officiating coach you could be as a supervisor if you could free up that block of time? It was just little things like that. And then I talked to Jerry Seeman at the convention and he tells me about how he brings in units of maybe 10 officials who they think are struggling to give them some special coaching guidance in the summertime. I’m thinking, “Geez, what a great idea.” Those are not knock-your-socks-off innovations, but until you sit down and find out what the other guys are doing, you don’t realize what you’re not doing.
Referee: How long will you continue with the NHL?
Lewis: I’ve got to do what’s good for me and my family. That’s first and foremost. But is that in lieu of retirement or going into another business? Is that in lieu of writing stories for Referee magazine or doing whatever? If I sit back at the end of one or two years and say, “I’ve had enough,” would I walk away? Sure I would. The good part is I’m still involved in the business of officiating. I’ve been tarred and feathered as an NHL officiating person for 33 years, and I say that from a very positive perspective. Do I have any intention of walking away? No, I don’t. The league might say to me, “Bryan, thank you very much. We’ve used you enough.”
Referee: Are you going to miss the day-to-day contact with your guys?
Lewis: I’ll compare it to when I went off the ice as an active official. It was tough. I’d actually stand at the rink entrance before the game saying, “Gee, if one of those guys gets hurt, I’ll go out there.” I expect some withdrawals. The good news is there’s no reason I can’t go and watch the game and go in the officials’ room and say hi and joke. It’s not a case of retiring. It’s not a case of riding off into the sunset. There will be a period of time where there might be some adjustment, but as a friend said to me before, “Bryan, you’ve been on a 33-year road trip. What’s wrong with slowing down?” I say not a darn thing.
Former NHL Director of
Officiating
• The ‘shelf life’ of a
bdirector of officials
• A new role
• Learning from the
bNBA and NFL
• The 33-year road trip
