Hockey mourns Bill Chadwick

CUTCHOGUE, N.Y. - Bill "The Big Whistle" Chadwick, the first U.S.-born official in NHL history who was later a popular broadcaster for the New York Rangers, died Saturday at 94.

His death was announced by son Bill, and John Halligan, a family friend and hockey historian. Chadwick had been in declining health for a number of years and died while in hospice care.

For 16 seasons, from 1939-55, and despite being blind in one eye, Chadwick was regarded as one of the best officials in the NHL. He invented and perfected the system of hand signals to signify penalties, a system now used throughout the world.

"Bill Chadwick had the confidence and the creativity to introduce hand signals to officiating," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said. "He had the courage to make the tough calls.''

Born in Manhattan, Chadwick became an amateur hockey player of some note while attending Jamaica High School. He also excelled at baseball, playing against future major leaguers Phil Rizzuto and Sid Gordon.

But hockey was Chadwick's sport of choice. In 1935, playing for an all-star team at Madison Square Garden, Chadwick was struck in the right eye by an errant puck as he stepped onto the ice to face a team from Boston. He spent a week at Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital, but doctors were unable to restore the vision in the eye.

"Nobody loved the game more than I did, but I couldn't take the chance of losing the other eye as well," Chadwick recalled in his autobiography, "The Big Whistle," written with Hal Bock.

In March 1937, Chadwick was at the Garden watching pregame warmups when he was paged over the public-address system. The scheduled referee was stuck in a snowstorm, and Tommy Lockhart, the Garden's amateur hockey boss, asked Bill to referee the game.

"Where's the whistle?" Chadwick said.

In 1939, NHL president Frank Calder asked Chadwick to join the NHL as a linesman. He accepted; a year later, he was promoted to referee.

As for the hand signals, Chadwick doesn't recall exactly when he started using them. "Somewhere around 1943 or 1944 would be fairly accurate," he told Halligan. "I know it was during the Stanley Cup finals. There was so much noise that I had difficulty communicating with the penalty timekeeper."

In last night's games:

* At Los Angeles, Anze Kopitar scored his ninth and 10th goals to lead the Kings over the Columbus Blue Jackets, 6-2.

* At Vancouver, Roberto Luongo had a shutout as the Canucks defeated Edmonton, 2-0.