Paul Stewart: We Need to Recruit More and Better Officlals

After hanging up my goalie skates after my sophomore season in College I began officiating and refereeing various sports to pay my way through college. I am glad to say that I graduated from College (on the six year plan) with zero student debt.
I left officiating soon after.

The shortage of officials is so bad it required setting aside entire weekends in the middle of hockey season within our district as no scheduling games because there are no officials available due to tournaments scheduled within the district.

This year due an incredible shortage of officials for hockey in my district, bad ankles and all, I have been called out of retirement to help. When talking to the assignor he asked if I could work ten games a week? If I could that would be $8000 over the Hockey Season for refereeing the lowest level of Squirt Hockey. Too bad my ankles wont take that kind of punishment.

I can't speak for other USA Hockey districts, but Atlantic District does a good job making entry-level seminars available to prospective officials. Abuse of officials is a problem in youth hockey, but there's not a lot of it at the mite and squirt levels where the new refs are working. I think the bigger problem is scheduling: 1--it's hard for new officials to get games, and 2--they end up getting a lot of early-morning and other unattractive games. It's because some of the more experienced officials arrange to work six games a day or more.

Officials in all sports need their leagues and commissioners to stand behind them. I am so tired of dealing with arrogant, berating coaches. As a rules interpreter in soccer, I have instructed my officials to deal with coaches... We have had multiple meetings and seminars on ways to deal with problem coaches. At least at our high school level, I can say our league stands behind us when we deal with coaches.
Sadly this is not so when I work at the college level.

The #1 complaint I hear from officials who have left the avocation is that they have grown weary of dealing with insane coaches! Paul, you are right on with this. I love hockey and hope that we can get young, excellent officials to push/replace the current officials at the NHL level!