Former NHL ref Paul Stewart previews new book, reveals: Eric Lindros is, was and always will be an as**ole

Paul Stewart

Former NHL referee Paul Stewart, who later on in his career beat cancer, has written a new book, and to preview it, he wrote a column for The Huffington Post. In the column, he explains his relationship with former Ranger and Flyer Eric Lindros.

It was never pretty.

The ultimate moment between the two happened when Stewart asked the Flyers’ equipment manager to have Mark Recchi and Lindros sign a few posters for a charity. Recchi obliged, but what Lindros did was incomprehensible -- yet hardly surprising -- given his career.

From The Huffington Post:

We Devils fans tend to prefer to remember

Lindros in this position — flattened by

Scott Stevens on much more than

one occasion.

Before the game, I had brought a tube filled with posters to Flyers’ equipment manager Jim “Turk” Evers. The posters, which depicted Recchi and Lindros, were to be autographed and then donated to a charity auction. I had done a similar thing in other cities, such as a Cam Neely and Ray Bourque poster in Boston, and a Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr in Pittsburgh.

After the game, I want to Turk to collect the poster tube.

“Stewy, you're not going to like this,” Evers said. “I don't have them.”

“What do you mean you don't have them?” I asked.

“Well, Rex signed the posters but when Eric found out they were for you, he tore every one of them up. I'm sorry about that.”

I never spoke to Eric Lindros again.

This, of course, all stemmed from an incident between Stewart and Lindros when the player was a 19-year-old rookie, and was having a bad two-game stretch against the Devils.

Said Stewart:

I was working an afternoon Philadelphia-New Jersey game at the Spectrum; the back end of a home-and-home. The Devils won the previous game, 6-4, in a game refereed by Mark Faucette. The game got chippy late in the third period, with about 40 penalty minutes being handed out in the final five minutes, including roughing penalties to Lindros and Scott Stevens in the waning seconds of the game.

The start of the game at the Spectrum was delayed several minutes. I had to wait for the red light on the scorer's table to indicate that the broadcast had returned from a commercial and it was OK to drop the opening faceoff.

During the delay, I made small talk with several of the Devils and Flyers on the ice. I said hello to Mark Recchi and talked to Bernie Nicholls. I then tried to greet the 19-year-old rookie Lindros.

“Hey, Eric. How are things going? How's your dad?” I asked.

The response: “[Bleep] you. Just drop the [bleeping] puck already.”

Ever the class act, that Lindros, eh?

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