Central Hockey League’s 2011-12 on-ice officials introduced

TEMPE, Ariz. – The Central Hockey League has introduced the 11 gentlemen that will serve as full-time on-ice officials for its upcoming 20th anniversary season.   
The full-time referees include Zac Blazic, Boone Bruggman, Brent Coulombe, Marc-Andre Lavoie and Peter Tarnaris and the full-time linesmen are Kyle DeMaggio, John Grandt, Bill McGoldrick, Shaun Morgan, Cory Piche and James Sanders. The 2011-12 season will mark the first for Blazic, Coulombe, Tarnaris, DeMaggio, Morgan and Sanders as full-time CHL officials.      
“We are very excited with the group of officials that both Bryan Lewis (CHL Referee-in-Chief) and Leon Stickle (CHL Senior Supervisor of Officials) have assembled for this season,” Jim Wiley, the CHL’s Director of Hockey Operations said. “These young men have all the tools to have long careers as on-ice officials and the experience and development they will gain from this season is a positive for them and the league.” 
This season will also be the first for Lewis and Stickle. The duo replaced Wayne Bonney, who left the CHL in May after seven years of service as the league’s Supervisor of Officials.

Lewis spent the last five years with the ECHL as the Director of Officiating and as an officiating supervisor. He served as the NHL’s Director of Officiating from 1989-00, overseeing all on-ice officials in both the NHL and the AHL. During his NHL career, Lewis worked 1,023 regular season games, 30 Stanley Cup Playoff games, nine Stanley Cup Finals games and one NHL All-Star Game (1983). Lewis’ son Duane has served as the CHL Commissioner since June of 2008. Stickle, an NHL linesman for the past eight years, worked 1,987 regular season games and 200 Stanley Cup playoff games as well as six Stanley Cup Finals games and four NHL All-Star Games (1975, 1978, 1983 and 1997). He served previously in the Western Professional Hockey League beginning in 1997 and continued in the hockey operations department until joining the NHL as the Supervisor of Officials in 2003. In addition to its full-time staff, the league will draw from a list of over 150 part-time officials in order to cover the 462-game regular season which begins on Friday, October 21st. The role of on-ice officials is to ensure that the game is played fairly and safely by both sides. The CHL utilizes one referee and two linesmen in each game. The referee, who wears orange armbands on his striped shirt, supervises the game and calls penalties. The two linesmen do pretty much everything else, including dropping the puck for face-offs, making offside calls and flagging hand passes and pucks batted with high sticks. They are on the ice and in motion during all 60 minutes of play. Obviously, it’s a physical sport, a fast game, and like the players, officials have to be in excellent physical condition to perform their duties. For those who’ve made officiating their career choice, training comes by way of official training schools and camps as well as power skating sessions in both Canada and the U.S. Many instructors are current or former NHL officials, who have been students at these very same training camps and schools. Emphasis is placed on on-ice positioning, signals, penalty calling, skating skills, and off-ice theory sessions to provide a sense of “the game.” Representatives of various junior and pro leagues and USA Hockey associations are usually present to help develop and encourage young officials to further their careers in officiating. The careers of hockey officials parallel those of players, seeking upward mobility to higher levels of the game. Numerous CHL officials have advanced to the American Hockey League as well as the NHL in recent years. On August 22nd, the league announced that former referee Mark Lemelin will join Frederick L’Ecuyer and Gord Dwyer, two other CHL alumni now officiating in the NHL. Lemelin, 30, began his professional hockey career in the CHL before being promoted to the American Hockey League. Over the past three seasons, he has been a full-time AHL official. Lemelin will work a combined NHL/AHL schedule during the 2011-12 season. Contact the writer/photographer at robert.keith@prohockeynews.com