Is becoming an NHL ref a realistic goal?
Why would you want to be a ref??? Everyone hates them. You make one bad call and no one will ever forget it. In the 1985 World Series a ref made a bad call about the Cardinals and the Royals won the championship. The ref had to move away from his town because of the death threats he was getting. People still mess with him to this day. Sports fans get so passionate about their teams. We all get bad calls on us and we throw a sh#t fit. Imagine screwing up in a playoff game and having the home crowd pelt you with stuff. Seriously think this through. Do you really want to be hated? The players will hate you too.
It is absolutely a reasonable goal but it is a long and difficult road which can take 10-15 years to achieve. The first question I have is how old are you right now? If you are over 25 years old, you are pretty much already out of the running. I am assuming you live in the states. You are start by being one of the best officials in your local area. Request evaluations from your league or district and pay close attention to what you are told. Correct the issues raised in the first one the best you can and request another one. They are not going to look so much at how you do as much as they are about how you improve your deficiencies. Start expressing interest in going to a USA Hockey Regional camp. Do well there, you are likely to get an invitation to work for the Junior Development program. They have different levels of that. You can stay at home and work regionally or get hired full-time which will require that you move out to the mid-west. The Junior program will get you in working t
Very good question. That all depends on you, what you like and what you dont like. An NHL referee or linesman travels as much as the players (if not more in some cases) during the course of a season and the playoffs. Refs and linesmen board planes (on average) once or twice a week during the course of the 6 month long season. Some, but not all refs / linesmen, are then scheduled to officiate the playoff games. Another thing to consider is the number of times you may lose sleep and/or not get good sleep (since youre travelling a lot on planes) plus the number of times you will change the time on your watch as you go from time zone to time zone. Jet lag isnt the worst thing though. Whats worse are injuries. Although the refs and linesmen are not targets on the ice they all too frequently become part of the action, literally. Almost every injury to an on ice official is accidental. Usually a stick accross the legs, a puck in the face or just getting shoved into the boards by a falling pla
