Tim Peel, a former longtime NHL referee who became known as an object of social-media scorn due to perceived in-game mistakes, allegedly entered the referee’s dressing room and “berated” two 17-year-old officials who had just finished working his son’s youth hockey game that featured mostly 10-year-old players.
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The alleged incident, which took place in mid-January, is the latest in a series of publicized alleged indiscretions by Peel.
Why is Tim Peel a name in hockey circles?
Peel worked his first NHL game on Oct. 21, 1999, and would go on to officiate 1,362 regular season games and 90 more in the playoffs. He’s also refereed at the 2012 All-Star Game, the 2014 Olympics, the 2017 Winter Classic and the 2009 Winter Classic. Despite this resume, as social media gained more of a presence, Peel’s missed calls were often pointed out online by media outlets and fans alike.
What was the ‘tequila shot’ incident?
In 2016, the NHL suspended Peel after taking a photo and shot of tequila with then Yahoo! Sports’ Greg Wyshynski, who often wrote about Peel’s mistakes. Though the photo got most of the attention, the article explained that “In talking to Peel, you start to see a pattern: The NHL asks its officials to manage the game a certain way, and they have to do it.”
The NHL cited league policy and refused to comment on the suspension.
What was the hot mic incident that ended his career early?
In 2021, during a March game between Nashville and Detroit a hot mic caught Peel explaining a tripping penalty he called on Viktor Arvidsson as, “It wasn’t much, but I wanted to get a f—— penalty against Nashville.”
Peel had already said he would retire at season’s end but after the incident, the NHL said Peel “no longer will be working NHL games now or in the future.”
“Yeah, I saw that whole thing,” Predators forward Matt Duchene said shortly after. “He’s a veteran ref. It was his last year, anyway, so I think that’s maybe why they let him go rather than maybe suspending him or fining him. The crazy part is he was talking to (Predators forward Filip) Forsberg in that clip, and he told our bench that, so I mean, really bizarre. I just think that can’t happen. Imagine the scenario where they score on that power play, we lose the game and we miss the playoffs by one point. Imagine that scenario. That could happen, right? That is not out of the realm of possibility, right?”
More NHL-related drama after retirement
Peel has since turned himself into a hockey media personality, but the transition hasn’t been smooth. During the 2022 Western Conference finals, he tweeted, before deleting, the word “KARMA!” after Colorado’s Nazem Kadri was injured by Edmonton’s Evander Kane on a hit into the boards.
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Earlier in the postseason, Kadri had a collision with Blues goalie Jordan Binnington that knocked Binnington out for the rest of the playoffs. Shortly after this play, Peel had tweeted (and deleted) criticism of Kadri.
“Nazem Kari (sic) bringing up Craig Berube in the postgame new (sic) conference shows me why he was shipped out of Toronto. It’s all about him and not the team!”
The quote was in reference to Berube choosing to say “no comment” when asked about racist threats on social media toward Kadri in the midst of the team’s playoff series.
Berube eventually clarified why he chose not to comment.
What’s he been up to?
The 56-year-old Peel, who in the last several years has become a hockey media presence on Twitter, is based in the St. Louis area. According to his LinkedIn page, he has been the Director of Client Solutions for Genoa Employment Solutions since December 2021.
Peel also has a significant presence in the St. Louis hockey scene, which is home to many former NHL players. Peel has close relationships with those players and has leveraged that into a yearly referee camp that bears his name and raises money for a local scholarship fund.
When reached for comment regarding his alleged actions toward the youth hockey referees, Peel declined to discuss the incident. But Travis Noble, a lawyer representing Peel, said the former NHL official “did nothing improper.”
“The report that we’ve seen that was filed is inaccurate. Not true,” Noble said.
A representative for USA Hockey, without commenting on the decision it reached, said that the organization’s reporting and review procedures were followed correctly.
(Photo: Isaiah J. Downing / USA Today)
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