With chance to ref, his path to NHL is paved
Bill McGoldrick was behind the wheel of his car late Monday evening, counting down the mile markers on a strip of highway in New York. He was hours and miles from his home in Merrimac, journeying from one dream to another.
McGoldrick has been refereeing hockey games since he was 11 years old. Now, at 23, he has landed a job as a referee with the US Hockey League based in Omaha -- the biggest officiating job of his life.
Training camp will start Tuesday in Wisconsin. He had to check in by Thursday, which meant he'd be eating up the interstate for the next 3 1/2 days.
McGoldrick has never lived more than an hour away from home and now he was driving halfway across the country, chasing a dream he refused to lose sight of.
Like any kid who had grown up with a hockey stick glued to his hands, McGoldrick imagined himself in skates in the National Hockey League. The farthest he made it as a player was college at Framingham State.
He believes he will get to the NHL one way or another. The path for most ex-players would be coaching, or the front office, or as a trainer. But McGoldrick still wants to be on the ice.
"The reason why I want to continue to be a referee is for the same reason I grew up playing," he said. "I wanted to make it to the NHL, and that's something I know I cannot do as a player. So, being an official is the only other option really, being involved or being on the ice."
Officiating started as a side job -- a quick way for McGoldrick to make a couple of dollars. When he was playing youth hockey in Haverhill, his father, Bill Sr., asked if he'd be interested in being a ref. The job paid $10 an hour or $20 for two games.
"Not bad for an 11-year-old," he said.
In college, he officiated in the fall and spring, using the ice time to stay in shape for the winter season. Typically, he was the youngest official on the crew. Officiating was always there, just not at the forefront. But at some point, he considered making it a full-time possibility.
"I wasn't thinking of it as something I could turn into a career," said McGoldrick, who refereed in the Eastern Junior Hockey League last year. "But a lot of older guys that have been involved in the game for a long time gave me feedback and made suggestions along the way. They said you have the ability if you want to start taking this to higher levels. And I started thinking maybe they're right. So I'll try to make a run at it and see what happens."
On Monday night, McGoldrick met up on the Massachusetts Turnpike with Justin Green and Gene "Geno" Binda, two more guys who share his goal.
Binda met McGoldrick at a camp in Vermont a couple of years back and they kept in touch. Like McGoldrick, he played his hockey in high school, then at a prep school, then some college before his hourglass ran empty.
"When I was in school, you could kind of tell when Division 1 schools aren't knocking at your door or when your hockey career is out," said Binda. "So when I was about 16 or 17, I realized I wanted to be a referee and do it that way."
His father, Gene Binda Sr., commissioner of the Eastern Junior Hockey League, has helped many referees progress through the ranks, including Chris Rooney, another local who has been an NHL referee for five years now. So they can see that the dream is possible.
The driving, eating out of the car, staying in hotels, waking up at 9:30 to work out at 11:30, then hit the road for another eight hours of driving, McGoldrick said, will all be worth it if he can one day reach his goal.
"I want to be a part of the game," he said.
But just like reaching the highest level as a player, reaching the same level as an official is a process.
"It's a lot of stepping stones," McGoldrick said.
"You gain experience and you gain exposure. . . . You start at the bottom and work your way up." 