Don Koharski, the referee whose altercation with coach Jim Schoenfeld during the 1988 Stanley Cup playoffs remains a major part of Devils history, officiated his final game Thursday night.

Koharski oversaw his 1,719th and final game when the Tampa Bay Lightning hosted the Washington Capitals at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fla."Koho has had an outstanding career as an NHL referee which spanned an impressive 28 plus seasons. The respect he has garnered is reflected in his relationships with players, coaches and teammates," said Stephen Walkom, NHL Senior Vice President and Director of Officiating. "His love of playing hockey led him to officiating, which he turned into a hall of fame career, much to the benefit of our team. Koho's innate sense of the game will serve our team well as he continues to assist the Officiating Department throughout the playoffs."

It was after a 6-1 Devils loss to the Boston Bruins on May 6, 1988, in the third game of the Wales Conference finals that Schoenfeld confronted Koharski as officials were leaving the ice. Both exchanged words. Koharski slipped and accused the former Devils coach of pushing him.

At that point, Schoenfeld responded with his infamous line: "Have another doughnut." Schoenfeld wound up being suspended for one game during that playoff series.

Both men later became good friends and put the incident behind them. Both have also remained much-respected figures in the game.

Koharski began his NHL career in 1977 as a linesman, fresh from the World Hockey Association (WHA) where he started officiating at the age of 18. His first NHL game was a match between the Colorado Rockies and Toronto Maple Leafs in the 18-team NHL. He worked 163 NHL games as a linesman before becoming a referee.

On Nov. 21, 1981, Koharski refereed his first NHL game -- a contest between the Rockies of the Smythe Division and the Patrick Division's Washington Capitals. Friday night, the man affectionately known as "Koho" caps that distinguished career that had merited selection to work 262 playoff games -- including those in 11 Stanley Cup Final series.

Koharski also represented the NHL on the international stage with assignments at the 1987 and 1991 Canada Cup competitions and the 2004 World Cup. He also worked the 1992 All-Star Game in Philadelphia and the 2000 All-Star Game in Toronto.

Koharski said he looks forward to spending more time on the golf course and at home in Dade City, Fla., with his family.

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For those not familiar with the Koharski-Schoenfeld incident, here is the story I wrote in The Star-Ledger print edition last season:

Jim Schoenfeld exudes a noticeable calmness nearly 20 years later, dealing with the regret from a moment he knows will be mentioned in the first few paragraphs of his obituary.

Don Koharski recognizes that his long career as an NHL referee will be just as defined by that same incident, though he now sees the humor in it. He laughs off the thoughts of May 6, 1988, and speaks affectionately of the coach whose insult became one of the most memorable quotes in sports history.

"Have another doughnut, you fat pig!" lives on two decades later, even if those were not the exact words Schoenfeld used.

On that night, in the passageway that leads from center ice to the dressing rooms in the Devils' former home at the Meadowlands, there was only anger, confrontation and accusations.

The Devils will participate in their 18th Stanley Cup playoffs beginning this week, including 11 in a row. But in the spring of 1988, two decades ago, it was all new.

The young and enthusiastic Devils came within one victory of reaching the finals in their playoff debut. But it was the confrontation between their coach and Koharski, ultimately escalating into a war between the Devils and the NHL, which defined that spring and marked the moment the franchise refused to be pushed around any longer.

After upsets over the Islanders and Capitals, only the Boston Bruins stood in the way of a showdown with Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Finals, four years after Gretzky had called the Devils franchise "a Mickey Mouse operation."

It was moments after a 6-1 loss in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals, putting the Bruins ahead two games to one, that Schoenfeld vented his anger at what he felt was a poorly officiated game.

Instead of following his team into the dressing room, Schoenfeld lingered in the passageway and cut off Koharski's exit route. Walking off in his skates, the ref stumbled on the rubberized carpeting and accused Schoenfeld of pushing him. In fact, if there was any contact at all, it was minor and accidental.

Linesmen Ray Scapinello and Gord Broseker, as well as Devils assistant coach Doug McKay, stepped between Schoenfeld and Koharski but the verbal exchange continued.

"You fell and you know it," Schoenfeld screamed.

When Koharski maintained he'd been pushed and there would be a price to pay, Schoenfeld responded with his infamous line, which was actually: "You're full of (expletive). You're crazy. You're crazy. You fell, you fat pig. Have another doughnut! Have another doughnut!"

Schoenfeld's anger had percolated since late in the first period. Koharski called a holding penalty against Devils captain Kirk Muller when Pat Verbeek and Boston's Keith Crowder came together.

"We were getting a penalty called on us, and Crowder came into the scrum and drilled me right in the face. Right in front of Koharski," Verbeek remembers. "Well, you know me, I hauled off and popped Crowder back. They flagged me for an extra two minutes, and the Bruins ended up scoring two goals on the 5-on-3."

The two goals came early in the second period, and the 2-0 Boston lead grew to 5-1 before the period was over.

Two decades later, Koharski was asked if he thought he had called a bad game that night.

"The ironic part of it is, if anybody should've been chasing me, it should've been the Boston Bruins," he says.

The Devils were awarded five consecutive power plays between the 13-minute mark of the second period and 17:27 of the third. They scored once, but the Bruins already had a 4-0 lead.

"When we came off the ice," Verbeek says, "Schoenfeld was hot."

Devils defenseman Tom Kurvers remembers: "Schoeny erupted. It was intense. We had lost big, and it got ugly at times. Don slipped a little bit, but the confrontation shouldn't have happened. Schoeny was pretty aggressive."

Schoenfeld had a temper and suspected it was a case of the "Original Six" Bruins getting the benefit of the doubt against the upstart Devils.

"That could be completely wrong, but that's how I felt at the time," he says. "So I felt it was my job as coach of those kids to take a stand for them. The way I did it was wrong, but at the time I felt the motivation behind it was right."

Koharski's reaction only made it worse.

"When Koho fell, he jumped up and said: 'You pushed me. I'll see to it you never work again.'" Schoenfeld recalls. "It was, 'Whoa, I didn't.' We were both fiery young guys. Sometimes you do and say things you'd rather not. But if it isn't on camera, that might've been the end for me right there."

Schoenfeld did not realize there was a lone TV camera, from ABC in New York, which caught the incident. And Lou Lamoriello, in his first season as Devils general manager, wasn't aware of the postgame confrontation until he came down from his suite to the dressing room.

Before he had access to a videotape, the GM asked Schoenfeld if he had pushed Koharski.

"I just asked Jimmy the question and he said, 'Lou, I did not.' That was good enough for me," Lamoriello says. "I never asked him a second time. ... I believed Jimmy."

Lamoriello telephoned Devils owner John McMullen.

"I told him what had transpired and what the potential repercussions could be," the GM recalls. "I said, 'Doc, this is a time the Devils have to make a stand. And there is going to be some pain along the way.'"

The video of the incident, always a few clicks away on YouTube, has taken on a life of its own. It is still played on ESPN and TSN in Canada. After any coaching blowup or run-in with an official, out comes the Schoenfeld-Koharski tape.

Google the phrase, "Have another doughnut, you fat pig," and it produces 198,000 entries (156,000 if you spell it donut).

"Listen, that's not the worst thing that's ever been said to a referee. That's for sure," Schoenfeld maintains. "Had I said what is normally said, it would all have been bleeped and there's no story. I tried to clean it up a little bit and look what happens."

Because he was more creative than most, Schoenfeld's words live on to the point where the incident has earned a place in pop culture. In the 1992 Mike Myers movie "Wayne's World," the cop at Mikita's Donut Shop, played by actor Frederick Coffin, is named Officer Koharski.

"If you're a hockey fan, you've probably seen it over and over," Schoenfeld says. "Had it happened 40 years ago, it would've died. But we're in a different technological world now. You can go on the internet and see it."

But in the hours after the actual incident, Lamoriello recalls, the Devils did not even know a video existed.

"It was a godsend that somebody sent me this three-quarter-inch tape, but we didn't have a machine to view it," Lamoriello says. "We had to go to a television studio to watch it. We really didn't know what we were going to see."

What they saw was evidence backing Schoenfeld.

"Ironically, the thing that indicts me for the comment is also the thing that probably saved me from being suspended for the rest of my coaching days," Schoenfeld points out. "Because it was caught on camera, all of the sworn recollections and statements made by those who observed it and said I pushed Don were all changed at the hearing."

That hearing was still a long way off.

The incident occurred on a Friday night. The league did nothing that Saturday.

John Ziegler, president of the NHL at the time, was nowhere to be found. Although rumors had him helping his son in escaping from the "tentacles of a cult" or vacationing on the French Riviera, the consensus 20 years later is that Ziegler was in England.

"Even to this day, I don't know where he was," Lamoriello claims.

Bill Wirtz, then owner of the Chicago Blackhawks and chairman of the NHL board of governors, telephoned Lamoriello. The Devils' GM also spoke to NHL executive vice president Brian F. O'Neill, who was in Montreal.

O'Neill announced at 12:32 p.m. Sunday, just hours before Game 4 was to be played at Meadowlands Arena, that Schoenfeld was suspended for at least one game pending further investigation.

Lamoriello, not yet an influential figure with the league, had a plan. He called Judge John A. Conte in an effort to get a temporary restraining order against the NHL that would allow Schoenfeld to coach that night's game.

Conte, a Devils fan who often housed the team's young players at his Mahwah home, put the Devils in touch with the New Jersey Superior Court judge on call. It was Mother's Day and Bergen County Judge James F. Madden agreed to hear the case at his apartment in Cliffside Park.

"Lou drove," says Conte, 71, who recalls going along with attorney Patrick Gilmartin. "My wife, Lucille, and one of my daughters, Jennifer, had typed up all the papers."

The Devils announced that they had a court order at 7:20 p.m., after the pregame skate and 25 minutes before the game was scheduled to start.

Madden, who died at the age of 82 in January 2004, once explained why he granted the restraining order.

"It was very simple," Madden said. "They had a stadium full of people and the game was on television. The place was sold out. I told them the matter could be settled on Monday. Play the game."

The Devils and Bruins, along with respective coaches Schoenfeld and Terry O'Reilly, were on their benches ready to play. But the on-ice officials for Game 4 -- referee Dave Newell and linesmen Scapinello and Broseker -- refused to work the game. So did backup ref Denis Morel.

"It was a black eye for the game," veteran NHL referee Kerry Fraser says, "but it was the officials taking a stand. We can't work with the fear of being threatened."

Wirtz ordered that the game was to be played with or without Newell's crew and, at 8:40 p.m., it was announced that three local off-ice officials would call the game.

Paul McInnis, a 52-year-old goal judge and ice rink manager from Livingston, served as the referee. Fifty-one-year-old salesman Vin Godleski, of Califon, and retired New York cop Jim Sullivan, 50, of Long Island, were the linesmen.

"Poor Paul had to find skates," Godleski says. "Sully had to find everything. Paul used a pair of Aaron Broten's skates. I had stored all my equipment in my car, which was how Paul ended up with a (striped referee's) shirt. I happened to have one."

It was decided that McInnis would be the referee because he had recently done more skating. Godleski hadn't skated in a month and had run five miles that morning. The linesmen wore yellow practice jerseys and all three wore green sweat pants with red and white stripes down the side.

"The part I remember most was not so much on the ice," Verbeek says. "When we saw those guys walk through our locker room with those yellow jerseys and green sweat pants on we thought, 'Holy cow.'"

The Devils won the game, 3-1, to even the series at two games apiece. Thirty-three penalties were called totaling 90 minutes -- 45 for each team.

"We were a feisty team," Muller remembers, "but I think there was an unwritten rule to respect the situation."

To make the weekend even more bizarre, Schoenfeld's parents and in-laws had flown in for Mother's Day.

"So they had all that to contend with," he says. "A lot of people were affected by my temper."

Koharski and Schoenfeld put the incident behind them almost immediately, but almost no one else did.

"The unfortunate part is Schoeny and I will retire, and that will be our legacy," says Koharski. "I hear about it every day of my life. Every day. It doesn't matter where I go.

"People ask me about the Schoenfeld thing and they're waiting for me to talk negative. I tell them I wear No. 12 because that's how I order my doughnuts -- by the dozen. But look at me now. Do I look like I eat doughnuts? I just have fun with them."

In fact, Schoenfeld has participated in Koharski's golf tournament in Canada and the two are very cordial when they bump into each other, so to speak.

Koharski's eldest son, Jamie, is a referee in the AHL and has encountered Schoenfeld.

"His kid is a referee, and I bark at him," Schoenfeld says with a laugh. "He's going to be a good referee. Don's brother is a referee, and I have a lot of respect for him. Listen, I have a lot of respect for Don."

Koharski came close to opening a doughnut shop.

"I think I even had a sign," he says. "It was going to be Koho's Donuts and the 'O's' in Koho would've been doughnuts. But I wanted to keep working in the league for the next 20-25 years, so it didn't seem like the right thing to do. Maybe I should have. I could've hired Kerry Fraser to be my manager."

Koharski, 52, said he doesn't have anything from the game. Not even his whistle. He said this will probably be his last season as a referee.

He said good-bye to the Meadowlands a year ago.

"In the old building, you still had to take that same walk," Koharski says. "I'd work with young officials, and you'd get talking in the room and that became a question. You'd share the stories with them. You'd go around the corner and, 'Right there is where it happened.'

"In the old building, whenever I went out there or a period was over, there absolutely were flashbacks. I was probably more disappointed and hurt because the situation boiled over from emotional to personal. I knew Jim and I know him now. That's just not his character."

Schoenfeld is now an assistant GM with the Rangers.

"If I could rewind the tape and redo it, I would," Schoenfeld said. "But you don't get any re-dos. It was wrong on a lot of levels. The worst thing is it was a personal remark in a professional disagreement. Don and I reconciled immediately, but it ended up being a fiasco.

"It's funny. Many people will tell me it's the greatest thing they ever heard. Still today. I don't get it every day, but is it regrettable? Absolutely."