Derek Nansen will wrap up his NHL officiating career at home

Article content

Derek Nansen will leave the Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday afternoon and walk into the sunset.

Article content

Article content

The Carp native will wrap up his 23-year career as a National Hockey League linesman as the Ottawa Senators take on the Florida Panthers — and he’ll leave with his head held high.

Nansen, 53, will pull on his No. 70 striped jersey one last time and skate onto the ice with his handpicked crew — Jake Brenk, Pierre Lambert, and Brad Kovacik — to close out this chapter of his life.

Article content

It will be an emotional day because Nansen would have been happy to work for one more year, but he’s ready for retirement.

“Bodywise, I feel like I could still go on, but in my head, I know it’s getting close to that time for me to move on and open up some space for some of the new guys coming in,” Nansen said from his Ottawa home.

“I’m happy with my career. It has been a fun 23 years. I have no regrets or anything like that. It’s time to move on. That’s probably the best way for me to sum it up.”

Hired by the NHL in 2002, Nansen will finish his career just shy of the 1,500-game mark. He doesn’t know the exact number, but he’ll finish with about 1,470 under his belt and that’s an accomplishment.

The road Nansen took to get to the NHL wasn’t easy.

Sure, he grew up wanting to play hockey, but his late mother, Sharron, was a volunteer for the Kanata Minor Hockey Association, and she urged him to become an official.

Nansen paid his dues to get to the NHL. He worked early mornings, late nights, long weekends and everything in between at every level of hockey to carve his path to the big leagues.

Article content

Article content

“From the time I was 11 years old, I pushed, and pushed, and pushed to see if I could make it a career,” Nansen said. “When I was in my early 20s, I was looking at all the guys who were getting 6-foot-4 and they were tall guys. I was thinking I didn’t have a shot.

“I kept pushing through, and I finally got a shot when I was 30 years old. Pretty much my whole life it was something I wanted to do, and just like a lot of us, we were sh***y hockey players, so the next best thing to stay involved was to go this route.”

He refused to give up on his dream and the perseverance paid off because he was just about to step away when he got his chance.

After working at the International Ice Hockey Federation world championship in 2001, he didn’t think the opportunity was going to come along, but being laid off from a job as a project manager at Nortel Networks in Aug. 2001 made a big difference in his life.

After Nansen attended an NHL training camp for officials, Andy Van Hellemond, a former referee and then the league’s director of officiating, asked if he’d move to the Toronto area because he could get more work, including the American Hockey League in Hamilton.

Article content

The rest is history.

“It’s very gratifying,” Nansen said. “It was a lot of work, I had to do a lot of sacrificing, moving to Toronto to live out this dream, but it all worked out for me. Twenty-three years later, I can look back and say that I have no regrets.

“It’s been a great ride, met a lot of good people, worked with a lot great guys, past and present, guys like (Bill) McCreary and (Don) Koharski, those are just people I will never forget.”

Nansen is fortunate that he will be able to work this game in his hometown.

His wife, Sandra, and sister, Jill Nansen, along with close friend Mark Papousek, will be among the guests in a box upstairs to witness Nansen taking one last twirl in the league.

Somewhere, up there in the heavens, his late parents, Peter and Sharron, will be pleased that Nansen was able to live out his dream.

Article content

“They would be so proud,” Jill Nansen said. “The whole family is so proud of him.”

Nansen didn’t get many home games in his career, so he’ll appreciate the time he’ll be able to spend with Sandra, who retired from the federal government three years ago.

Nansen wouldn’t mind helping mentor up and coming officials or do some scouting, but at this point he wants to sit back and relax.

Papousek has got a trip planned to the fishing camp where they are members later this month. Once the snow melts, you’ll be able to find them chasing golf balls around the Pakenham layout.

The day will move into the evening when Nansen and a crowd of about 150 of his closest friends gather at a bar in Kanata to toast a great career.

“It’s amazing that he’s done what he’s done,” said Papousek, who retired from his legendary career with radio station CKBY in 2013. “It’s not just the games, it’s the travel that these guys do is just stupid.

“It should be good to wrap it up this way.”

[email protected]

Article content