USA Hockey’s Officials Shadow Program

Jack Hevey and Hunter Neale were selected to participate in USA Hockey’s Officials Shadow Program as part of Hockey Weekend Across America, where they saw Wednesday’s (2/24) Bruins game against Pittsburgh, and had the opportunity to meet the refs pregame.

From Jack’s Dad :

First, thanks to the Bruins Organization, Mass Hockey and USA Hockey for this opportunity.  Candidly, for the boys to have a chance to meet the NHL refs and ask questions was great.  Its nice to hear they started the same way as Jack and Hunter and through love of the game and passion, its become a career.  One of things that stuck out for Jack was Mort’s comment on how managing the game, players and coaches is very similar to any sort of business life.  It’s managing people and giving and getting respect.  They provided some key take a way’s and also suggested Referee clinics to strive to get better and better.

Special thanks goes out to Mike Dargin and his group.  He and Andrew were gracious hosts and Mike walked us around personally so the boys could see what goes into a Bruins game.  We saw warm ups from the glass and the boys were even introduced to one of Ice Managers who let them try on his Stanley Cup ring.  Mike added in the fist bumps with the Bruins which was pretty cool.  Especially, Brad Marchand fist bumping the boys with a little joking around.  All in all a great night and the 5-1 win topped it off.