Ian Walsh only recently retired after 24 years as an NHL referee. The Philadelphia native who first started calling games as a teenager in the Delaware Valley hung up his stripes in August after officiating more than 1,300 NHL matches.

And now, whenever he’s speaking with a group of people, or kids approach him wanting to know more about his past professional life, there’s one individual he frequently used to cross paths with who comes up more than any other.

“It’s always (John) Tortorella,” Walsh told The Athletic in a phone interview on Sunday.

The 65-year-old Philadelphia Flyers coach, of course, has become known for his emotional outbursts over the years, whether it be sparring with the media, confronting other coaches or demonstratively challenging officials over what he believes are dubious calls.

It was the latter on Saturday in Tampa Bay, when Tortorella was tossed from the Flyers’ 7-0 loss to the Lightning midway through the first period after seemingly getting upset with a few early penalties, and then not promptly departing to the visitors dressing room when he was given the boot by referee Wes McCauley.

On Sunday, the league announced Tortorella was suspended for two games and fined $50,000 for “unprofessional conduct directed at the officials by refusing to leave the bench area after being assessed a game misconduct.” He will miss Flyers home games against the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday and Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday.

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Flyers coach John Tortorella suspended 2 games

Considering Tortorella has now been fined 13 times in excess of $200,000 over his career, it must figure that he doesn’t have too many supporters among the men in stripes.

Right?

Not according to Walsh and fellow former referee Dave Jackson, who retired in 2018 and is now a rules analyst for ESPN.

“John was a real fair guy to deal with,” Walsh said. “He could give it to you, and you could also give it right back. He had his say and I had my say at times. We’ve had some battles, but once it was over, it was over. It wasn’t like hanging around the rest of the game, or the next time you saw their team. It was done. It was in the moment. He’s obviously an emotional coach on the bench but he was real fair to deal with.”

Said Jackson: “He was always one of my favorite coaches. You knew exactly where you stood with Torts. He would leave you alone for the most part. He wouldn’t try and work you for calls. He just let you do your job, until it got to the point where he felt he had no choice and he had to let you know what he thought. I’m going to say 99 percent of the time, he would say it and then he’d be done with it. You’d go talk to him next period about something that was said earlier and he’d say, ‘Hey, Dave, it’s over. It’s forgotten.’ I had a lot of time for John. Very emotional but very honest, and not mean-spirited.”

Tortorella apparently crossed a line on Saturday, at least from McCauley’s point of view, although the league press release was light on details.

Three of the calls, in particular, seemed a bit ticky-tack, including a hold on Ronnie Attard at 4:31 that led to a Lightning power-play goal, a trip on Attard that really got Tortorella’s blood up when the Flyers defenseman and Tampa Bay’s Mikey Eyssimont were going for a loose puck and incidentally got their skates tangled, and a 10-minute misconduct on Garnet Hathaway for bumping the Lightning’s Anthony Cirelli between whistles. The Attard and Hathaway penalties helped result in the Lightning upping their lead to 4-0 with another power-play marker.

Then Tortorella exploded.

Most referees will give a coach some leeway when it comes to salty language, and it doesn’t take a master lip reader to understand a good portion of Tortorella’s tirade was NSFW. While that was caught on camera, those sorts of interactions are perhaps more common than many realize, according to Walsh.

“A lot of times between the coaches and referees it’s just a whole lot of f— yous, and shut the f— up. Things like that,” Walsh said. “That doesn’t really bother anybody.”

But every official has a threshold before he’s heard enough.

“This would have been a progressive situation,” said Kerry Fraser, who spent 30 years as an NHL referee before retiring in 2010, via text message. “I don’t know if Torts became personal in his comments to the referee, but rest assured something took place that escalated the situation in the ref’s judgment and triggered him to remove (Tortorella) from behind the bench.

“Looking at the game situation at that point, it is logical that any coach would be frustrated with his team’s poor start. Most of those goals would be deemed weak, to compound the frustration and negative emotions the coach would be feeling. The veteran referee would certainly understand this and allow the coach some leeway to vent but not if he was using the officials as an excuse for his players’ poor performance and, as I said, if comments and or gestures became personal.”

Whatever happened, Tortorella escalated the situation by not leaving right away, in what assistant coach Brad Shaw labeled “a bit of a protest.”

It was a unique situation, and judging by the wording of the press release from the league, is the primary reason Tortorella is getting the week off.

There’s really not much a referee can do in that situation, either. Another delay of game penalty could have been added to the minor penalty Tortorella already received with his game misconduct, but “I think that would be kind of piling on,” Jackson said. “Yes, he could have, but I think (McCauley) used good judgment in not pouring gas on this fire.”

Forfeiting the game is technically on the table too, but …

“That obviously is never going to happen at that level,” Walsh said. “But at some point, you’ve just got to hope that a guy like Brad Shaw is on the bench or (Flyers captain Sean) Couturier says, ‘John, you’ve got to go. Stop. This is not good for the league. It’s not good for anybody.’”

McCauley, replays showed, seemed content to just wait Tortorella out. There was also a suggestion from former referee Paul Stewart that McCauley was standing up for his partner and young referee Brandon Schrader, who made the tripping call on Attard.

“I really admire Wes’ self-control actually, he didn’t make it about himself like you sometimes see in baseball where it’s the big arm toss and they throw out the coach and they’re right in his face, confrontational,” Jackson said. “Wes was across the ice, arms folded, standing there, and he was talking to the players. I’m sure he was telling them, ‘Look, I can wait here all day. If you guys have a plane to catch, we’re not going to drop the puck until he leaves.’

“We’ll just wait him out, because we have more time than he does.”

(Photo: Mike Carlson / NHLI via Getty Images)