Your refs for 2018/2019
by Martin Merk|26 OCT 2018
The male and female ice hockey game officials during the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
photo: Andre Ringuette / HHOF-IIHF Images
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The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has assigned the referees and linesmen for 28 of its 30 tournaments in the 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship program.

This includes assignments of female and male on-ice officials for all tournaments except the top-two men’s senior events. The assignments for the 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Slovakia and the 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship Division I Group A in Kazakhstan next spring will be made in February from a pool of top game officials whose performance will be overserved by the IIHF Officiating Committee during the international and national competitions.

The 346 different game officials who will officiate in five categories with men, women and junior teams at different levels come from 45 different countries. The United States (25), Canada (22), Finland (18), Germany (17), the Czech Republic (16), Russia (16) and Switzerland (15) lead the way but there are many more officials from these continents as well as from other regions of the world such as Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Oceania.

Click here for all assignments.

At the same time the IIHF has published the list of international game officials for the new ice hockey season with IIHF licences of different categories who will be able to officiate international games including IIHF-sanctioned tournaments but also other events.

In total 1,094 game officials from 52 countries were licensed for the new season. This includes 76 female referees, 389 male referees, 148 female linesmen and 481 male linesmen.

Click here to find the licensed game officials.

Want to see what a game looks like from the refs' perspective? Then check out this video below from last spring's World Championship gold medal game!
Best of Ref Cam - Gold Medal Game 2018 Worlds
You can't get closer to the game than that! Watch some highlights of the #IIHFWorlds final between Sweden and Switzerland from the referee's perspective!
24 MAY 2018