He began officiating when he was fourteen, working minor hockey games in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and by the time he was twenty years old was referee-in-chief of the Northern Michigan Intermediate League.\n', '

Pavelich worked in the American Hockey League in the 1955–56 season but at age twenty-two, he made his National Hockey League début on October 11, 1956.\n', '

His older brother Marty Pavelich had been a player with the Detroit Red Wings since 1947 and when the younger Pavelich joined the NHL in 1956, it marked the first time in NHL history that there had been a player/official brother combination.\n', '

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