Clink

The Grand River Industrial League was where I played when I first moved to Kitchener in the late 1980’s.  Decent hockey, as good as I was capable of playing, and a great thing to look forward to each Sunday night out at the Grand River arena.  For the most part, the league had evenly matched teams and good refs.

However, there was one ref, not sure his real name but we all called him “Clink” (or perhaps it was spelled “Klink”) and he was something else.  You just never knew who he would call or for what.  It mattered not which team was winning, what the score was, what time of the game it was, he would just call the most random things.

Everyone on both teams knew this before the  game.  When it was your team he nailed, there would invariably be one or two guys with a short fuse who would just go bananas and he would just add more penalties on to the initial call, and then eventually kick them out unless they could find their emotional balance.  It was horribly frustrating when your team was the victim.

However, when it was the other side he chose to go after, it was Abbot-and-Costello-meets-Three -Stooges funny.  You would get to watch the short fuses on the other team go insane over some ridiculous call.  Great stuff indeed.