Paul Stewart was an NHL referee from 1986-2003, and it now director of officiating for the ECAC. As anyone that's ever spoken to the man will attest, he's an opinionated guy with a ridiculous number of stories to tell. Which he did on Monday's episode of Puck Daddy Radio on The Score Sirius 158.
• Diving in the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and why Colin Campbell's a bit of a hypocrite about it.
• Theo Fleury and Dino Ciccarelli's "gravity issues," and how he'd tell them not to dive lest he "look the other way" when Scott Stevens would run them.
• Whether NHL refs should meet the media after playoff games with controversial calls.
• Pat Quinn throwing a piece of gum at a linesman.
• Kerry Frasier's hair.
• His 'blind guy with a seeing-eye Chihuahua' joke.
• His loathing of playoff beards.
• And, in a discussion about whether linesman Steve Miller lifted the 2010 Stanley Cup winning puck from Game 6 between the Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers, this nugget about the Boston Bruins:
"It's so much smoke and mirrors. Talking about pucks, I refereed the last game ever played at Boston Garden. I went to center ice and dropped the puck. The puck went back and forth and then the play was offside. It ended up at my feet. So I picked it up, stuck it in my back pocket, and I pulled another puck out and handed it to them. So the Hockey Hall of Fame thinks they have the puck. I think I have the puck. So who do ya think is right?"
Please note that the 'last-ever puck used at Boston Garden' was auctioned from the collection of one Mr. Paul Stewart.