Garrett Rank is making waves in hockey and golf.
Elmira’s Garrett Rank has one foot on the rink and one on the green
IF YOU ASK Garrett Rank how things are going these days, he’s likely to break into a grin and declare, “I’m just living the dream.”
The two-sport, 27-year-old Rank sat down recently in an uptown Waterloo burger place to talk about his busy life and his elite status in two very different sports.
At six-foot-three, and 200 pounds, he impresses with his athletic build, good looks and friendly smile. He peers out from under a black National Hockey League baseball cap, matching his black warm-up jacket and track pants.
“I’m really enjoying everything right now,” he says, settling down to talk. “In winter I have this reffing gig, and in summer I get to play golf — it’s great.” >>
>> Last September Rank got the call from the National Hockey League Officials Association. They were impressed by the young referee from Elmira who had stood out in junior hockey (OHL and OHA). He was invited to be an official in the pro leagues, the American Hockey League and the NHL, a dream come true for the young man who had refereed since he was 14.
At almost the same time last fall, he managed to capture one of the most difficult goals for any aspiring golfer. Already one of Canada’s top golf amateurs, he secured a place in Canada’s premier golf event, the RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey Golf Club, qualifying for the Open by winning the 2014 Canadian Men’s MidAmateur Championship in Barrie.
“It’s really cool, an exciting time for me — I’ve never been in a PGA tour event before,” he says between bites of his burger that he washes down with water, a concession to staying hydrated in the fitness regimen he maintains daily.
Like his older brother Kyle, who played professional hockey in the AHL and Eastern Hockey League (2006-11), Rank was an accomplished athlete who moved up to play Junior B for the Waterloo Siskins. That led to him playing for the Waterloo Warriors varsity hockey team.
“I played hockey and golf at UW for the first year and half,” he says, but then it became clear he would have to choose just one sport while carrying his economics course load. He chose golf and became two-time individual Ontario University Athletics golf champ while leading his team to the national university championship in 2012.
Just as in hockey, it seems the genes for success in refereeing ran deep in his family. When he was just 12 or13, he would follow his dad, Richard Rank, to the rinks in and around Elmira. His dad was a local refereeing legend, known to everyone in the tight-knit Elmira hockey scene.
“I’d always go with my dad to the rink. Then, when I was around 14, I started reffing little tyke hockey on Saturdays and Sundays. It came naturally, my dad was my teacher,” says Rank.
In January 2014 Rank was at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge in Nova Scotia. While getting ready to referee one of the biggest games of his life, the gold medal match at the Under-17 Challenge, he got the phone call that changed his life. His father had passed away suddenly, of a heart attack.
It was the kind of call that turns a young person’s life upside down. Rank wanted to come home right away, but after talking it over with his mom, Deby, brother Kyle and sister Caelen, he decided to stay and referee the gold medal game. It was very tough, and he did it with a heavy heart, but he felt his dad would have wanted him to do the game. He says his dad “guided him” through the game.
Around the time that he began refereeing in his early teens, he started seriously
playing golf. He hung around all summer at the Elmira Golf Club playing golf, quickly showing he had natural talent.
“I don’t know why, maybe it’s the similarity between the hockey slap shot and the golf swing,” he says, shrugging his shoulders with a grin the way only a natural athlete can while talking about two such demanding biomechanical motions.
Along the way there was also an awful lot of hard work and practice that paid off. Even though he’s always on the go, refereeing in winter and playing golf tournaments in summer, he wouldn’t have it any other way. For now that’s the way he likes it.
“The refereeing gig is a good job, it doesn’t feel like work,” he says.
But Rank has the look, the commanding focused gaze a referee needs to stare down hulking professional hockey players. He says he tries to stay calm in games and not let anything get to him. “I found I have to stay within the moment, remain calm. In golf you can’t let a bad shot get to you. You have to move on.” In refereeing hockey, he says the same focus helps him keep out distractions — at least most of the time.
“As a ref you have to remain even-keeled, make decisions in split seconds. I’ve gotten real good at tuning things out, tuning out the crowds.” But he smiles and says “sometimes I hear things and they’re pretty funny — like one time a player or a coach yelled ‘hey ref, you better work on your putting, ‘cause you’re no good as a ref’.” The smile breaks into a grin: “I had to laugh at that one.”
He thinks one of the secrets for success on the job as a referee comes from his legs. He has a powerful skating stride that he feels is a tremendous help.
“Skating is one of my strengths, I’ve always been a good skater. Blessed with it I guess,” he says with typical modesty, but then reveals there was lots of work that went into it — “There were plenty of power-skating lessons with Brigitte Wolf.” (Scratch any top hockey or ringette player in Waterloo Region and they might likely have taken lessons from local power-skating guru Brigitte Wolf-Taulbee.)
“The key ingredient to Garrett’s success is his unique combination of exceptional athletic talent, combined with maturity and judgment far beyond his years,” says Bob Copeland, former University of Waterloo athletic director who enlisted Rank to be one of his varsity sports leaders during his time as a Warrior.
“Lots of people can be gifted athletically, but it is the soft skills — interpersonal, tact, sense of humour — that elevates the very few from the rest of the pack. Throw in courage and you have Garrett Rank.”
It was during his career at UW that Rank ran headlong into another huge life challenge — he found out he had cancer in January 2011. One day while refereeing he felt an unaccustomed pain and went to the doctor. It turned out to be testicular cancer, early stage. Within a week he had surgery to remove the cancer, and thankfully he >>
>> didn’t need further treatment like chemotherapy.
At the time he said, “You’re a young kid, doing well in officiating, you’re doing well in golf and school, and you just think you have the world in your hands. And then all of a sudden it comes up and bites you. It is definitely something that made me stop and think, but it is what it is, I guess.”
“Golf is not going to be the life or death of me, but cancer could be so any time I make a bogey out there I don’t worry about it as much as I used to.”
That maturity and balance are what Copeland, now senior vice-president McLaren Global Sports Solutions, admires about Rank.
“It was a tough decision to forgo varsity hockey to focus on golf,” says Copeland. “But this paled in comparison to his battle with testicular cancer as a student-athlete, something he was very open about with his fellow student-athletes. He showed great courage and strength.”
As a first-year ref, his assignments are mostly in the AHL, but he gets his share of NHL games.
“I still want to get better,” says Garrett. When he refereed his first NHL game in Buffalo this year (last January) a huge group of family and friends made the trek from Elmira to support him. “My legs were shaking before I got to drop the first puck, but I was OK after the game started.”
Meanwhile Garrett often drags his golf clubs around to various assignments if they’re in more southern climates in the U.S., like Texas or Carolina. He will drum up some competitive games with local golfers he knows from his tournament experience in Canada and the U.S. “I have some contacts and I give them a call to get a game or two at some of the better clubs,” he says.
“I’m really looking forward to playing in a PGA event, in Canada’s national open. It will be a really great time for me and my family,” he says.
The Open is the latest in a list of achieve- ments for the long-hitting golfer. He came within a whisker of qualifying for the pinnacle of competitive golf, The Masters at Augusta, Ga., when he was runner-up at the 2012 USGA Mid-Amateur Championship. He also won the Toronto Star Amateur tournament in 2011. He says he wants to qualify as an amateur for as many tournaments as he can this summer.
“I guess my strengths are in putting and driving. I have to work on my chipping though,” says Garrett, who believes the adage that championships are often won “from 50 yards (to the hole) and in.”
His golf coach Dave Smallwood, director of instruction at Whistle Bear’s Golf Performance Centre, is tremendously impressed by Rank, especially considering his two-sport life.
“He’s got a tour level game. He’s really sound in all areas of his game and has developed it even more in the time since his UW days,” says Smallwood.
“He has options,” Smallwood says. “He has his economics degree, he has his refereeing.” His coach adds, “not many competitive golfers have these kinds of things to fall back on.”
Nonetheless, the challenge to compete at the current level and beyond will be considerable. Smallwood says most very good golfers spend all their time focused on the sport. “This year Garrett will essentially be starting over — he won’t have as much time to prepare.”
Despite the pressures of officiating, Rank says he still will give golf his best shot in the time he has in the summer. “I want to be the best player I can be, to wherever that takes me.” Maybe some day that will be in the PGA Tour, who knows?
You get the feeling that for Garrett Rank the best may be yet to come as he travels to cities across the continent. In the meantime, he recently moved out of his family’s home in Elmira — to an apartment in town. “I love Elmira, and always look forward to coming home.”