Yahoo! Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski with NHL referee Tim Peel

Yahoo! Puck Daddy’s Greg Wyshynski with NHL referee Tim Peel (via @wyshynski)

Nobody’s been a tougher and more vocal critic of referee Tim Peel than Puck Daddy’s Greg Wyshynski. Tracking his calls – complete with banana peel ratings, Wyshynski made Peel the poster child for questionable penalty calls.

For Wyshynski and Peel to speak would be one thing. For them to come together for drinks at a Manhattan bar is another. That’s exactly what happened on Friday night, when an impromptu officiating summit took place between one of the league’s veteran officials and his most vocal critic.

[Note: Peel was scheduled to work Friday night’s game between the New Jersey Devils and the Pittsburgh Penguins, the day this interview was published, but was a late scratch. He was replaced on the ice by referee Justin St. Pierre.]

 

From Yahoo Puck Daddy:

Here’s what I learned about Tim Peel in 90 minutes on two bar stools: He knows who he is. He has a level of self-evaluation that’s impressive, although I wished I had asked if it was influenced at all by the public scorn he deals with.

…

He’s a guy who knows he makes mistakes, whether it’s because the game is too fast, or he got the call wrong or because the NHL is asking him to focus on a certain call and he overreaches. He’s knows his limitations. I asked Peel why he’s never officiated a Stanley Cup Final in over 15 years as a League official.

“Because there are guys that are better than me,” he said.

One highlight stood out:

He keeps Photoshopped images of himself on his phone. Because he finds them funny.

We’re at least partly responsible for that, and we’re proud of it.

Read the full story about their meet-up over at Puck Daddy.