Regular reads of my blog over my eight years of writing for HockeyBuzz have heard me say this before many times: There is a crisis of recruitment and retention in ice hockey officiating. I wrote about five years ago that, unless we address the issue, it was inevitable that we'd eventually start to see game cancelations due to a lack of available (or willing) officials.
Last week, Joe Haggerty tweeted out this alarming -- and true -- report:
I will put out the same call once again: If you can skate, please consider giving officiating a try. Boys and men, girls and women: If you can skate, I can teach you the rest. You name the league, it needs officials. We need female officials, too.
I see players who finish college or high school and then skate a few nights a week in a beer league. That's all well and good, but you pay to be there. Come out and give officiating a try. We will pay you.
Maybe you played hockey as a kid. You kept skating but gave up playing. Or maybe you played Div. 3 collegiate hockey or lower-tier junior hockey. Maybe you made it higher, playing Div. 1 or major junior but there wasn't a pro future in the cards.
You get the idea: I'm not really concerned about your playing background. I'd love to get more former pros involved, of course. I am constantly suggesting to former pro, collegiate and junior to players to come give it a try. If not for the money, do it for the chance to stay on the ice, stay in the game and contribute something positive in a place where we all love to be. The bottom line, though, is that we need a larger recruitment pool and it doesn't require an extensive playing background to become a good official.
Additionally, there is fluidity within officiating. The jump from working the lines to reffing is a small one if that's where your ultimate interests lay: Gain experience, gain acceptability, gain familiarity with the players and coaches.
Something else that I can't explain verbally but you'll experience once you get going reffing or lining games: It's a satisfaction in the game that you can never get playing or coaching. I speak from lots of experience. I played professionally. I've coached at youth levels. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever made me feel like I'm serving the game itself more than being an official.
There's a whole of "HL"s out there; not just the NHL, AHL and ECHL. So, what the L? Give officiating a shot. Contact me here on HockeyBuzz or Twitter and I'll do my best to point you in the right direction.
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A 2018 inductee into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, Paul Stewart holds the distinction of
being the first U.S.-born citizen to make it to the NHL as both a player and referee. On March 15, 2003, he became the first American-born referee to officiate in 1,000 NHL games.
Visit Paul's official websites, YaWannaGo.com and Officiating by Stewart 
Blogger •Former NHL Referee • 
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