'I just made a mistake': Tim Peel opens up on hot mic incident that ended his NHL officiating career

“There wasn’t much, but I wanted to get a f–king penalty against Nashville early in the —.”

It was a hot mic attached to then NHL referee Tim Peel on March 23, 2021, that picked up his words that sent shivers through the league. As it seemed, an NHL referee admitted to what so many theorized — referees trying to manage the game.

Social media blew up and a day later, Peel was without a job. While the 54-year-old had planned to retire next month, his early exit generated a huge buzz.

Peel had called the Nashville Predators Viktor Arvidsson for a tripping penalty on the play and now, months later, Peel has joined the team at DailyFaceoff where he shared his perspective on the incident.

“For people to understand as a referee, normally if you’ve called five or six penalties against one team, I think everybody knows ‘if you can find one against the other team to keep them happy then that’s what we do,” Peel told DFO Rundown hosts Jason Gregor and Frank Seravalli.

“But in this case, there had only been one penalty called in the game and it was against Detroit. When I called that penalty, I think it was Arvidsson that tripped the Detroit player and when I threw my arm up, I was in the neutral zone and I honestly thought Arvidsson tripped him. But as soon as I throw my arm up, I’m like ‘jeez, I didn’t think he pushed him down.’ I didn’t see it the way I thought that I saw it.

“I was working with a veteran referee in Kelly Sutherland, who is one of the best in the NHL, and I think it was more my defence mechanism when I went over to the box. We take a lot of pride in the penalties that we call to make sure we call good NHL penalties and there’s nothing worse than calling a weak penalty against a team and the other team scores on the powerplay.

“So I think it was my defence mechanism kicking in, more of an embarrassment thing to a guy that I really respected a lot in Kelly Sutherland and I said ‘yeah it wasn’t much, I wanted to get a penalty — which wasn’t the case at all. I didn’t want to get a penalty against Nashville, and I just made a mistake. I made a tremendous error in judgement by choosing the words that I did.”

It didn’t take long for Peel to get a phone call from his boss.

“So I hear my phone vibrating on the corner and I go pick it up and it’s my boss, Steven… the first thing I thought was ‘did we miss a goal?’ And he said ‘we’ve got a big problem’ and he tells me. I didn’t even remember it until I watched it. I turned to the (other refs) in the dressing room and I went ‘I may get fired tonight.”
And later, Peel had to confront the Predators franchise about what had happened.

“[Predators GM] Mr. [David] Poile had already left the building, so (I was on phone) with him and I explained to him that was not my intent. My intent was not to get Nashville. I said to him ‘I made a terrible mistake, my words came out wrong’,” Peel told Poile. “And John Hynes, who is a tremendous human being and a coach, he came out and he goes ‘Timmy I know you didn’t mean that,’ and I go ‘John I didn’t… you know I was always fair and tried to make it a fair and safe environment for the players, and a fair game for the players’ and I go ‘I’m so sorry’ and I could tell he felt bad because he could see how upset I was and how terrible I felt.”

For more on the incident and more on Peel’s career as an NHL official, you can listen to the latest DFO Rundown podcast here.

Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.