Originally posted by Chuck Murray
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Pop quiz answers:
(1) Which Hockey East referee is also well-known as an Everett (MA) police officer? Benedetto
(2) Which Hockey East referee had a cameo once on This Old House? Gravallese
Moral of the story taken from the quiz (if any)? Being a HEA on-ice official is probably a great side hustle, and helps these guys supplement their income, all the while doing something they all probably really enjoy doing (and for the most part, they do good work that keeps them in those jobs). But it's clearly not paying anyone enough to be a full-time gig, unless you can string in a few ECAC and/or AHL games to round things out - to say nothing of the seasonal nature of the employment.
Now ... back to where we left off, which was with the BU blogger's stray observation in his circa 2014 review of HEA officials, in which he commented at length about a certain Kevin Shea ...
https://baystateroadsports.blogspot....season-in.html
Another interesting stat about Kevin Shea is that among his 27 games that he officiated in Hockey East last year, he officiated approximately 0 BC games. Now this may be because he has a documented bias for or against BC(I'm going to go out on a limb and say it is for if this is the case) so good for Hockey East for not assigning him to BC games but they still benefit by not having the worst ref in the league do their games.
So that didn't go any further with the blogger, at least not that he commented on in his blog. But it's an interesting observation that at least deserved some further checking into, so the folks at TEHA set about doing that checking. To recap one of the things we'd stumbled into earlier … Shea was placed him on a Beanpot officiating crew circa 2003, when his full-time job apparently was as "chief spokesman for the Boston Red Sox". This mention, and details of an in-game injury he suffered, appear at the bottom of this long-ago ESPN article:
https://www.espn.com/ncaa/news/2003/0203/1503576.html
TEHA sources were able to determine that Shea left the Sox a year later, sometime in 2004. The next couple of years, Shea went to work for the Archdiocese of Boston as communications director for Cardinal O'Malley, during a fairly turbulent time with the Church, in the aftermath of the various sexual abuse scandals that rocked the Archdiocese at the turn of the century. Two years later, no doubt having experienced a demanding and challenging time working for the Archdiocese, it appears Shea took his career in a different direction, and into the world of academia, where over the next decade-plus, he would advance to the heights (spoiler alert) of overall second-in-command at a most prestigious local university. As a Holy Cross graduate, it probably shouldn't have come as a big surprise that his route into academia followed a Jesuit path, but after starting out as an Executive Assistant in the President's office …
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-shea-95a25811/
… ten years later, Shea would be appointed as Vice President and Executive Assistant to the President, Fr. William Leahy S.J.
https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/cam...president.html
https://services.bc.edu/publicdirect...r=BC+Community
At Boston College
As in, the second-in-command at a prominent HEA member institution is an on-ice HEA official.
Bet you never saw that coming. I know for sure I didn't.
So TEHA at WIS came upon this information before Saturday night's UNH @ BU rematch, in which Shea was the lead official for a second straight night with the home-and-home series, working with two entirely separate officiating crews. Reach your own conclusions about how that game was called. I made some comments dotted in and around the game thread that evening, and in a game where UNH had their most dangerous forward DQ'ed relatively early in the game - for a second straight night BTW - which led to a BU equalizing goal, followed by a would-be UNH go-ahead goal that was chalked off, and concluding with BU getting a go-ahead goal late in the second period, followed by (predictable?) whistle-swallowing in the 3rd period that had UNH head coach Mike Souza blowing a gasket at least once … it just had a *funky* feel about it.
Again, remember, UNH and BU entered the weekend even in the standings, with BU having been the "victims" of the double OT questionable call to lose in the Beanpot Finals. I will concede, as far as "motives", I'm not sure anything we've come up with here so far is a smoking gun that gets us beyond "conspiracy theory" territory. It's one of the reasons I waited to post this until today. Was HEA looking to "protect its gate" at the HE Tourney next month by helping BU out a bit … did the way BU lost the previous Monday play a role in things? It seems weird that the league might view a "BC guy" as someone to smooth things over with BU here … but then again, why does HEA keep the aforementioned "BC guy" in its mix of available on-ice officials, when it might be more prudent from a league standpoint to avoid even the slightest perception of putting their thumbs on the scale???
So, there it is. Many thanks to our source(s) for the lead. If nothing else, a moment of transparency.
(1) Which Hockey East referee is also well-known as an Everett (MA) police officer? Benedetto
(2) Which Hockey East referee had a cameo once on This Old House? Gravallese
Moral of the story taken from the quiz (if any)? Being a HEA on-ice official is probably a great side hustle, and helps these guys supplement their income, all the while doing something they all probably really enjoy doing (and for the most part, they do good work that keeps them in those jobs). But it's clearly not paying anyone enough to be a full-time gig, unless you can string in a few ECAC and/or AHL games to round things out - to say nothing of the seasonal nature of the employment.
Now ... back to where we left off, which was with the BU blogger's stray observation in his circa 2014 review of HEA officials, in which he commented at length about a certain Kevin Shea ...
https://baystateroadsports.blogspot....season-in.html
Another interesting stat about Kevin Shea is that among his 27 games that he officiated in Hockey East last year, he officiated approximately 0 BC games. Now this may be because he has a documented bias for or against BC(I'm going to go out on a limb and say it is for if this is the case) so good for Hockey East for not assigning him to BC games but they still benefit by not having the worst ref in the league do their games.
So that didn't go any further with the blogger, at least not that he commented on in his blog. But it's an interesting observation that at least deserved some further checking into, so the folks at TEHA set about doing that checking. To recap one of the things we'd stumbled into earlier … Shea was placed him on a Beanpot officiating crew circa 2003, when his full-time job apparently was as "chief spokesman for the Boston Red Sox". This mention, and details of an in-game injury he suffered, appear at the bottom of this long-ago ESPN article:
https://www.espn.com/ncaa/news/2003/0203/1503576.html
TEHA sources were able to determine that Shea left the Sox a year later, sometime in 2004. The next couple of years, Shea went to work for the Archdiocese of Boston as communications director for Cardinal O'Malley, during a fairly turbulent time with the Church, in the aftermath of the various sexual abuse scandals that rocked the Archdiocese at the turn of the century. Two years later, no doubt having experienced a demanding and challenging time working for the Archdiocese, it appears Shea took his career in a different direction, and into the world of academia, where over the next decade-plus, he would advance to the heights (spoiler alert) of overall second-in-command at a most prestigious local university. As a Holy Cross graduate, it probably shouldn't have come as a big surprise that his route into academia followed a Jesuit path, but after starting out as an Executive Assistant in the President's office …
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-shea-95a25811/
… ten years later, Shea would be appointed as Vice President and Executive Assistant to the President, Fr. William Leahy S.J.
https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/cam...president.html
https://services.bc.edu/publicdirect...r=BC+Community
At Boston College
As in, the second-in-command at a prominent HEA member institution is an on-ice HEA official.
Bet you never saw that coming. I know for sure I didn't.
So TEHA at WIS came upon this information before Saturday night's UNH @ BU rematch, in which Shea was the lead official for a second straight night with the home-and-home series, working with two entirely separate officiating crews. Reach your own conclusions about how that game was called. I made some comments dotted in and around the game thread that evening, and in a game where UNH had their most dangerous forward DQ'ed relatively early in the game - for a second straight night BTW - which led to a BU equalizing goal, followed by a would-be UNH go-ahead goal that was chalked off, and concluding with BU getting a go-ahead goal late in the second period, followed by (predictable?) whistle-swallowing in the 3rd period that had UNH head coach Mike Souza blowing a gasket at least once … it just had a *funky* feel about it.
Again, remember, UNH and BU entered the weekend even in the standings, with BU having been the "victims" of the double OT questionable call to lose in the Beanpot Finals. I will concede, as far as "motives", I'm not sure anything we've come up with here so far is a smoking gun that gets us beyond "conspiracy theory" territory. It's one of the reasons I waited to post this until today. Was HEA looking to "protect its gate" at the HE Tourney next month by helping BU out a bit … did the way BU lost the previous Monday play a role in things? It seems weird that the league might view a "BC guy" as someone to smooth things over with BU here … but then again, why does HEA keep the aforementioned "BC guy" in its mix of available on-ice officials, when it might be more prudent from a league standpoint to avoid even the slightest perception of putting their thumbs on the scale???
So, there it is. Many thanks to our source(s) for the lead. If nothing else, a moment of transparency.
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