How to Become a Youth Ice Hockey Referee

• Contact a USA Hockey Supervisor of Officials in your home area for information you will need to become a referee and do it before the end of October of the season you want to officiate.  The best time to contact a supervisor is in July and August preceding the hockey season.  Once November comes and you have not contacted a Supervisor for information, it is probably too late to become a referee for that season.  Try again during the following summer.

• Attend a USA Hockey Officiating Seminar anywhere in the country.  Make sure to receive a USA Hockey Referee Application Form from the seminar.  Bring skates, helmet and a whistle as a minimum for the on-ice portion.  Also, to receive credit for attending the seminar, make sure that you have signed the official attendance sheet at the end of the seminar.

• Mail in the USA Hockey Referee Application Form along with the appropriate fee directly to USA Hockey in Colorado.  You will receive a rule book and open book rules exam directly from Colorado when they receive your form.

• Do the open book rules exam when it comes to you from USA Hockey.  Carefully mark the answer sheet.  When you are done, mail the answer sheet directly back to USA Hockey in Colorado.

• If you have passed the exam and have attended a seminar, you will receive your officiating crest for your sweater and your referee ID card.  Place the crest on your officiating sweater.  It is at this point that you are now fully registered with USA Hockey and you are covered fully by USA Hockey medical and liability insurance.  You may now be scheduled to arbiter ice hockey games. Your registration is valid through November 30 of the following year.  If you have not passed the open-book rules exam, you will be given one more chance to take it.  Complete the new answer sheet and mail it in.  You are not fully registered until you have passed the exam.

• Contact one or more of the local officiating schedulers in your area.  If you don't know who they are, call your Supervisor (typically, USA Hockey local Supervisors are not the same as the schedulers; the Supervisor can direct you to the people who schedule officials).  Sometimes the schedulers are part of a local officiating organization and membership in that organization is required in order to get games.  Find out all about the various methods that local scheduling is done.  It is up to you to find out!  The local schedulers will not come looking for you once you get your materials from USA Hockey!

 USA Hockey Officiating Program                                                     http://www.nyho.org/bearef.php
1775 Bob Johnson Drive                                            
Colorado Springs, CO  80906
Phone: (719) 576-USAH
http://www.usahockey.com/
E-mail: MattL@usahockey.org