Tim Peel opens up on the incident that cost him his NHL job, says his words came out wrong

Tim Peel was one of the most experienced referees in the NHL when a live mic cost him his job back in March of this year. In a now infamous incident, Peel could be heard saying "There wasn't much, but I wanted to get a f–king penalty against Nashville early in the —," before his live mic was cut off again. The incident, which took place in a game between Nashville and Detroit, essentially exposed game management by NHL referees, something many had long suspected but that no one seemed to want to admit. For the first time since losing his job, Peel has spoken about that day.

"For people to understand as a referee, normally if you've called five or six penalties against one team, I think everybody knows if you can find one against the other team to keep them happy then that's what we do," Peel told DFO Rundown hosts Jason Gregor and Frank Seravalli.

"But in this case, there had only been one penalty called in the game and it was against Detroit. When I called that penalty, I think it was Arvidsson that tripped the Detroit player and when I threw my arm up, I was in the neutral zone and I honestly thought Arvidsson tripped him. But as soon as I throw my arm up, I'm like 'jeez, I didn't think he pushed him down.' I didn't see it the way I thought that I saw it."

Peel added for referees, there's nothing worse than calling a weak penalty against a team and the other team scores on the powerplay.

"So I think it was my defence mechanism kicking in, more of an embarrassment thing to a guy that I really respected a lot in Kelly Sutherland and I said yeah it wasn't much, I wanted to get a penalty — which wasn't the case at all. I didn't want to get a penalty against Nashville, and I just made a mistake. I made a tremendous error in judgement by choosing the words that I did."

Peel said in no time, he received a call from his boss who told him "we've got a big problem."

"I didn't even remember it until I watched it. I turned to the (other refs) in the dressing room and I went 'I may get fired tonight'."

Peel was supposed to retire at the end of the season anyway, and it's still unclear whether he was canned or forced to take retirement early. Either way, the NHL said he would never officiate another game in the league. Peel has now taken on a role with Daily Faceoff, where he will be utilized to explain rules, penalty calls and non-calls, and anything else dealing with refereeing the game of hockey.

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