No. 227: PAUL STEWART / On or at least around the anniversary of the last game at Boston Garden, my backstage profile of the ex-enforcer who reffed the farewell.

Oh, and it had to be "backstage" because I had to sneak into the storied arena.

THURSDAY marked the 29th anniversary of the last game at Boston Garden, but the scribes, me among them, wouldn’t have left the building until after midnight, so September 27 is an entirely appropriate day to mark the occasion. In my case the last game at Boston Garden was in fact my first and only visit to the venue so rich in the lore of the Bruins and the Celtics. It was, cough, eventful.

I wrote about that night in an earlier SubStack entry, which, if I’m doing my job well enough, should convey the improbable sounding but utterly true narrative: No. 68: BOSTON GARDEN / At large in the unfriendly confines. On the night they closed the Beantown shrine I had to make like Whitey Bulger & go into hiding.

Yeah, I was getting chased by police and security who wanted me thrown out of the Garden at least and possibly even charged with trespassing if the Bruins’ media-relations director had her way. You’ll need at least a trial subscription to access this entry from the early days of this SubStack, but I think this story along is well worth the $5 a month.

Unfortunately, I was in such a race to write and narrate the memoir for Audible that I didn’t include this story, but worry not—it will appear in my collected miseries which will be published by ECW down the line. Working title: Puck Luckless. Yeah, that will never fly, but it gets to the spirit of the thing.

Spoiler alert: I got out alive. And those who know me also know that one of my favourite films, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, features a key scene at Boston Garden with two heavyweights, Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle.

Oh, and if you get the idea that mine is a casual strain of fandom, my Eddie Coyle poster in my sunroom.

To mark the 29th anniversary of my narrow escape, I’m offering readers a look at the feature appeared in the Globe on September 28, 1995, a profile of Paul Stewart, who reffed the last game at Boston Garden. Stewart was an unwitting accessory in my illegal entry into the venue that night … but I’d giving away too much detail if I go on.

Anyway, here’s the Paul Stewart profile in all its glory.

Beantown ref packs away his Garden treasures

As a young boy, Paul Stewart would watch the Bruins and dream of playing in the NHL. He got his wish - though briefly - then took up the family trade.

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BOSTON -- ON a night for the fans, amid the celebrations of the greatest players who ever played in Boston, you would have been forgiven if you didn't pay a lot of attention to the fellow blowing the whistle. After all, it was Bobby Orr for whom the fans cheered the loudest, for whom Hall of Famers knelt on the red carpet Tuesday night, the last night at the Boston Garden.

Oh sure, a few cheers went up for referee Paul Stewart when he took the ice before the game between the Bruins and Montreal. Boston fans know Stewart, know that he's a Boston guy, a Dorchester guy. But you'd have to go under the stands to find those who know Stewart's connection to the Garden.

Two hours before game time, Stewart walked into the Garden and followed his routine. A "Hi, how ahh ya?" to every policeman and Garden worker on the way to the officials' dressing room. For this occasion, a few asked to pose with him for photos.

Near where the Zamboni was parked, the "bull gang" was having a last pregame bull session. Stewart's routine called for banter and a coffee with these rink workers in their white sweaters with black and gold trim. But Tuesday night, the coffee was all gone. "If we knew you was comin'. . .," one old bull offered.

The veterans of the crew and the retired policemen who pull the Garden as special duty remember Stewart from his youth.

"I was five years old when I first came here," the 40-year-old Stewart said. "I snuck down to the threshhold where the Zamboni comes out and I put my foot on the ice, just to feel it. I sat down at the one end with my grandfather. I was like any kid, I guess."

He guessed wrong. For one thing, his grandfather, the fellow who told the youngster not to put too much salt on his French fries, was William J. Stewart, a Boston sporting institution. Bill had been the manager of Boston Arena, the Bruins' home before the construction of the Garden. He was also the ref for many Bruins games, including the first played at the Garden. And he earned everlasting fame as the coach of the 1938 Chicago Blackhawks, an outfit that went 14-25-9 during the regular season but confounded the favoured Canadiens and Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup. He also was a long-time National League baseball umpire.

"My grandfather would sit there with his watch fob and his hat, dressed to the nines, and people would always come up to us," Paul Stewart said. "They knew the Stewarts."

The dapper old man and the kid in tow were in attendance because William Stewart Jr. was on the ice, the second generation of Stewarts to wear stripes. A teacher and athletic director at Boston English High School, Stewart Jr. worked college hockey games at the Garden. In fact, he both reffed a National Collegiate Athletic Association hockey championship game and umpired in the collegiate baseball championship series.

Young Paul Stewart wanted to make it to the Garden as a player. "I decided my life wouldn't be complete unless I made it there," he said.

Most good high-schoolers and collegians had opportunities to play at the rink, but events conspired against Stewart. "Because I went to a boarding school, I didn't get a chance to play in the city championships, which are played at the Garden," Stewart said. "And because I went to the University of Pennsylvania, I didn't get a chance to play at the Garden as a college player."

So, for several years, Stewart rode buses in the minors and plied his trade in the World Hockey Association before he was called up by Quebec on U.S. Thanksgiving, 1979, for a game, yes, against the Bruins at the Garden. Because the Nords' Robbie Ftorek had swatted Boston's Bobby Schmautz, brawls were expected to mark the holiday and the Nordiques called in reinforcements, including Stewart.

"I put a skate on the ice and wondered if I was going to do a Bambi," Stewart said. "It felt like my legs would just give out under me. I just thought about all the work, the abuse and fights. And I looked where my grandfather and I sat."

The elder Stewart didn't live to see his grandson on the ice. He died in 1964, but hockey hadn't changed so much that he wouldn't have understood what happened next. While still in the warmup, the Bruins' Wayne Cashman stuck a stick into Paul Stewart's shoulder. Within moments, Stan Jonathon, the toughest of the tough guys, started pushing Stewart as the pleasure skate threatened to become a melee. "I stood at centre ice and challenged the whole team," Stewart said. "I told 'em, 'I'll fight the whole (freakin') lot of you.' " That night, Stewart fought Terry O'Reilly, Al Secord and Jonathon. As Stewart walked, bleeding, down the runway after his tossing, he turned and waved to the Garden crowd, to friends and family. That was the trademark of his National Hockey League career, all 21 games of it. He was the happy warrior, scorer of two goals and 1,000 one-liners.

NHL enforcers burn brightly but briefly, so only a few years after that auspicious debut at the Garden, Stewart's NHL playing career was at a close. He took a job teaching and became involved in high-school sports. Only then did he entertain the notion of become a third-generation ref.

Even though the thought of making a tough guy into a zebra offended some, John McCauley, then the supervisor of NHL officials, took an interest in Stewart. "John was either going to make me a ref or break me," Stewart said.

McCauley's advice to the apprentice was to work often and, on nights off, to go to the rink and watch the big names in black and white. This paid off one night 10 years ago when Montreal came to the Garden. McCauley and Stewart were in the house when the Canadiens' Mats Naslund accidently knocked ref Dave Newell into the boards. When linesman Leon Stickle signalled to McCauley that Newell's ribs were broken, the mentor told his protege to suit up for his first NHL game.

"The joke is that, if Naslund hadn't broken Newell's ribs, I would have, the way I burst through the gate," Stewart said. "But I owe so much to John McCauley for giving me a chance. He died a few years back, but I have his obit mounted right beside the puck I scored my first NHL goal with. I see it every day."

Since then, Stewart has become perhaps the league's most identifiable ref, respected as an official who stays out of the way of the game. That was his job Tuesday night and, as he sees it, every night.

"There are still guys in the league who try and push my button," Stewart said. "They challenge me to fight. I just tell him, 'I'll kick the (breakfast) outta ya, buddy.' " There was nary a confrontation Tuesday night, from the opening faceoff between the Bruins' Adam Oates and the Habs' Pierre Turgeon till the final countdown.

At one juncture, Stewart took a little heat. At the 10-minute mark, Boston defenceman Kyle McLaren fired a slapshot on Patrick Roy. Roy lost sight of the puck after the stop and it came to rest behind him, just in front of the goal line. Stewart blew a quick whistle, earning the jeers of fans at the south end of the rink who could have told him exactly where the rubber was.

But that whistle did not matter, because the Bruins won 3-0. League vice-president Brian Burke came into the officials' tiny dressing room after the game and congratulated the crew for "a good job." For Stewart, Kevin Collins and Gerard Gauthier, that good job was not crowding a stage set for players and legends. In turn, they thanked Burke and their boss, Bryan Lewis, for the chance to work the historic game.

"It's the end of an era," Gauthier said. "The small rinks always produced the big hits. But now with the Garden gone, the only small rink left is Buffalo. When the Sabres move, that's it."

"The shorter neutral zone in Boston made it tougher for the line calls," said Collins, a native of Massachusetts who, like Stewart, asked the NHL to be assigned the last game at the Garden. "The big hits made this the toughest and most dangerous place to work. The worst injuries I've had came working here."

Stewart was the last of the crew to clear the dressing room. He had a steady stream of visitors. Hall of Fame linesman John D'Amico paid respects. His old sparring partner, Stan Jonathon, gave him a bear hug.

A few white-haired employees of the Garden stopped by and told stories about a five-year-old who stepped onto the Garden ice just to see what it felt like. They lamented that old Bill and Paul's dad, who died in 1987, didn't have a chance to watch the game.

"I'm sure they're watching, and John McCauley, too," he told them.

By 11:30 p.m., an hour after the ceremonies, Stewart packed up and walked up the runway, where workers were already dismantling fixtures.

"I'm buyin' ya' beers fah one of the bench seats," Stewart told the rink workers.

"We don't drink be-ah," said one fellow whose girth gave away the lie.

Stewart walked out to centre ice, beside the scoreboard lowered one last time. He gazed at the old barn and looked to the seats where he sat with his grandfather.

Home means a lot to Stewart, a fellow who lives in Dorchester just blocks from the house his grandfather built with his winnings from the Stanley Cup. The Garden was home but would be home no more.

For all his greatness, Bobby Orr was not defined by the Garden. No, No. 4 did the defining, made the moments. Paul Stewart could only envy Orr's gifts, but even the Bruin icon can never share Stewart's sense of this treasured place, now sadly dark, dormant.

Boston’s captain Ray Bourque opposite Canadiens’ captain Mike Keane at the ceremonial puck drop before the Last Hurrah game—the fellas dropping the puck, Bruins GM Harry Sinden and Canadiens boss Serge Savard, who would be fired by the Habitants’ just two seasons after they took the Cup on a parade down Ste-Catherine.