Bill Chadwick, 94; was pioneering NHL referee
NEW YORK - Bill Chadwick, who became a Hall of Fame referee in the NHL despite losing his sight in one eye and was later a popular broadcaster for the New York Rangers, died Saturday in Cutchogue, N.Y. He was 94.
Mr. Chadwick was a Manhattan native known in his broadcasting years as the Big Whistle, a tribute to his 16 seasons as an official. He was the first US-born referee in the NHL and the first to use hand signals when assessing a penalty.
He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto in 1964 and the US Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minn., in 1974.
As a youngster, Mr. Chadwick skated in Central Park and played amateur hockey.
But in one instant, any aspirations to play in the NHL seemed gone. Mr. Chadwick had just stepped onto the ice in a Metropolitan League all-star game at Madison Square Garden in 1935 when he was hit in the right eye by a puck. The injury left him legally blind in the eye. He continued to play hockey at Chadwick began refereeing in the Eastern League. He was named an NHL linesman in 1939 and worked as a referee from 1940 to 1955. When he retired, he had refereed in more than 1,000 games, a record at the time.
As Mr. Chadwick remembered it, he began using hand signals for a penalty during a Stanley Cup Finals series in the World War II years, introducing a practice eventually adopted by all referees to let fans know what type of infraction has been called.