BOSTON, MA - FEBRUARY 4: Katie Guay becomes the first woman to officiate a men's Beanpot hockey game ... [+]
The National Hockey League has taken a step toward catching up with other major pro sports. For the first time, four women were invited to officiate games at preseason prospect tournaments around the league over the weekend.
Referee Katie Guay donned the stripes for the Anaheim Ducks’ tournament in Irvine, California, while Kelly Cooke took to the ice in Nashville. Linesman Kendall Hanley skated in the Detroit Red Wings’ tournament in Traverse City, Michigan and Kirsten Welsh worked the lines in Buffalo.
The four were among 11 women who participated in the 96-person NHL Exposure Combine this summer, up from just four female participants a year ago and one in 2017. They range in age from their early 20s to their late 30s, and they all share four years of playing experience in NCAA women’s hockey.
Guay, whose current day job is working as director of philanthropy for USA Hockey, has the most high-level officiating experience. She has worked as an official since 2006 and in 2015, she became the first female official to work NCAA Division I men’s games. After being selected to work the women’s tournament at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, she went on to become the first woman ever to work Boston’s Beanpot tournament last February.
“That's an assignment that she’s earned, regardless of her chromosomes,” ECAC director of officiating and former NHL player and referee Paul Stewart told NHL.com about his decision to give Guay the Beanpot assignment. “If it’s a long-reaching effect, then I'm glad for that because I hope that a lot of people see her out there and say, you know, my daughter plays hockey, maybe she can referee when she's finished playing.
“Her skating ability is easily one of the best in the officiating ranks that I’ve ever seen, both in the [NHL] and at other levels,” Stewart continued. “She has the best backward skating ability that I’ve ever seen, bar none. And that’s even with players. She skates backward so easily. She’s in the top three speed-wise of both men and women's officials that work for me.”
Cooke has worked as an official for 10 years. After finishing her playing career with the NWHL’s Boston Pride in 2016, she became that league’s director of player safety while also officiating games and attending law school. Last spring, the Princeton graduate was tapped by the IIHF to officiate the women’s world championship in Finland.
Hanley is entering her 12th season of officiating, working with the IIHF, Divisions I and III of NCAA women’s hockey, and with the NWHL. She has also worked the lines for USHL, NAHL and NA3HL junior games as a member of USA Hockey’s Officiating Development Program.
Welsh, a 22-year-old who just completed her senior year as a defenseman at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania, got her first taste of officiating at the Exposure Combine, but liked the experience immediately.
Thrust straight into the fire in Buffalo, the 5’10” Toronto native told the Associated Press that she wasn’t afraid to take on the physical elements of the linseman’s job in her first game action on Friday night.
“I think the guys were kind of thrown off that a girl was rushing in there to break them up,” she said. “I got smushed in the boards yesterday, too. It’s fun. I just think it’s so great to be out there with them and being able to be on the ice with all these amazing athletes.”
If passion is a stepping stone to success, Welsh sounds like she has what it takes.
“I just think this is what I love,” she said. “Having the opportunity to pursue this is just unbelievable. I can’t tell you how thankful I am.”
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and the league’s director of officiating Stephen Walkom have indicated that they’re eager to add women to their officiating staff, although they haven’t been specific about a timeline.
On Friday, the league announced that it has promoted three part-time officials to its full-time crew: referee Peter MacDougall and linesmen Bevan Mills and James Tobias.
The NBA was the first major pro men’s league to hire female officials, adding Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner to their roster in 1997. In 2000, Major League Baseball brought in Pam Postema as umpire for a spring training game, and the NFL added Sarah Thomas as its first female official in 2015.
