Despite being blind in his right eye, his on-ice officiating career spanned the greater part of the 1940s and 1950s, during which he pioneered the system of hand signals for penalties which is now used in all hockey games internationally.

[3] His first experience as an on-ice official was in a Rovers game in March 1937, when he substituted for the scheduled referee who was stuck in a snowstorm.

His work in the amateur circuit caught the attention of then-NHL president Frank Calder, who hired him as the league's first American-born linesman in 1939.

[2] After one year of service in the NHL, he was promoted to referee, eventually becoming the first one to use hand signals during games in the early 1940s.

From 1967–72, he worked on radio with Marv Albert, and in 1972 moved to television broadcasts on WOR-TV, Channel 9, and the MSG Network.