Thursday, December 6, 2001
Cvik pride
Veteran Calgary linesman gets the call to Salt Lake City
By JEAN LEFEBVRE -- Calgary Sun
Officiating in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the Olympics is a tall order, so it's little wonder 6-ft. 8-in. Mike Cvik is getting the call to work in Salt Lake City this February.
OK, the fact Cvik has worked almost 1,000 games as a National Hockey League linesman is probably a slightly more important criterion than the rangy 39-year-old Calgarian's ability to light the Olympic torch with both feet planted firmly on the ground.
Thing is, the 15-year NHL vet can't offer a better explanation as to why he is one of seven NHL officials who have been asked to pack their whistles and head to Utah.
"That I don't know," he admitted with a laugh.
"Actually, I'm on my way to Toronto for meetings. That's where I'm going to learn everything that I need to know. Everything that has gone on and will go on."
In any event, the selection procedure is far less interesting to Cvik than the actual assignment, even if it means passing up on a mid-season vacation when the NHL shuts down for a dozen days.
"There wasn't a doubt in mind," he stated, "that if I was asked to go to Salt Lake City that I would accept.
"I had a brief conversation with Andy (Van Hellemond, the NHL's director of officiating) when he phoned to let me know that I was being considered.
"After that, I didn't know how they were going to go about it until he called me when I was in San Jose and said: 'Are you interested in working the Olympics?' "
When Cvik assured his boss he wanted the job, Van Hellemond replied: "OK, you're going."
The Salt Lake City Games will be Cvik's first major international duty.
"I worked the pre-Olympic tournament that was here back in '87," revealed Cvik, who apprenticed in the AJHL, Alberta college, Canadian university and WHL ranks on his way to the bigs. "And then any of those international (exhibitions) that came through Calgary."
Otherwise, Cvik has done his whistling on the 200-by-85-ft. ice surface.
In fact, his NHL career prevented him from enjoying the Olympic experience in 1988 when the five-ring circus was in his home town.
At that time, active NHL players did not take part in the Olympics.
"The games, the experience ... just the overall Olympic theme and everything that goes along with it," Cvik replied when asked about anticipating the trip to Salt Lake City. "When it was here in Calgary, I unfortunately missed out because I was travelling because there was no (NHL) hockey here (during the Olympics). I was gone basically for the whole Olympics."
This week's meetings in Toronto will bring Cvik and his fellow officials up to speed on international rules, including the legal two-line pass.
There's a temptation to suggest the importance of a linesmen's policing duties -- and when you're talking about the towering Cvik, it really is the long arm of the law -- is dramatically reduced in international play but Cvik isn't so sure.
"Well, I don't know," he laughed. "Theo had the lights turned out on him."
That's a reference, of course, to the infamous Piestany Punch-up in Czechoslovakia when Theo Fleury and his Canadian mates were tossed out of the 1987 world junior championships following a wild brawl with the then-Soviet Union.
Turning out the arena lights was tournament officials' not-so-bright idea to quell the brouhaha.
Fisticuffs, however, remain rare in the global game.
"I'm sure, depending on who's playing, there'll still be the odd scrum here and there." Cvik suggested.
"Fighting is a lot less common because it's an automatic game misconduct.
"I don't think you'll see a lot of fights but then ... who knows?"
The other NHL officials who have been summoned for Olympic duty are referees Bill McCreary, Stephen Walkom and Dennis LaRue and fellow linesmen Jean Morin, Dan Schachte and Tim Nowak.
Others have been recruited from junior, minor pro, college and Europe.
2002 Games Men's Hockey Coverage
