Katie Guay Makes History As First AHL Female Referee
By Scott Burnside
As game time approached for the American Hockey League season-opener between Lehigh Valley and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Hayley Moore, the AHL’s Vice-President of Hockey Operations, became overcome with emotion.
Moore was a freshman on Brown University’s women’s hockey team when Katie Guay was a senior and captain of the team. Guay was a mentor to Moore and many of the other young players on that team, and the two had kept in touch over the years.
Now Guay was about to drop the puck in a game that would mark the first time a woman would referee an American Hockey League hockey game, the final hurdle before officials reach the National Hockey League.
“Obviously we’ve known this moment was coming for a bit of time but it didn’t hit me until that first puck dropped,” Moore said. “I got really emotional. Honestly, I didn’t really expect it.”
Katie Guay's first American Hockey League puck drop 👏 #breakingbarriers pic.twitter.com/J2k22PVSvK
— American Hockey League (@TheAHL) October 16, 2021“As a woman growing up in a male-dominated sport to see the progress that’s been made,” Moore added. “I know how much commitment to her career that Katie has had over the years. I felt so proud. I felt so happy for her.”
For Guay the feelings were a bit more elemental.
From the moment the AHL announced Guay and nine other women — six other referees and three linesmen — had earned spots in the AHL’s officials’ rotation for the 2021-22 season and that Guay would referee the first game, she had been inundated with calls of support and best wishes.
Current NHL officials Wes McCauley and Steve Barton, both of whom had been key participants in mentorship program with top women officials starting in December 2020, had reached out. So, too, had officials she’d worked alongside or whom she knew from her international work including refereeing the women’s tournament at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea.
Current AHL officials had sought her out as the day approached.
As did former teammates, including one from Guay’s days playing mite hockey outside Boston, whom she hadn’t heard from in two decades.
But as she prepared for her first AHL match, Guay had to come to terms with the fact that in spite of all the praise and attention the work was just beginning.
“Just the outreach was just incredible,” Guay said. “But once that puck went down then I was able to comfortably start moving on the ice and it was just another hockey game.”
Guay grew up about two hours west of Boston. An older brother and sister both played hockey and she followed suit playing with boy through the 9th grade after which she played at New England prep school Deerfield Academy and then a leader on the Brown University team.
“I was always a grinder, kind of that third line player,” Guay said. “I definitely got my fair share of penalties but I usually deserved them.”
After graduating from Brown Guay missed the vibe of the locker room and decided to look into becoming an on-ice official. As it turns out the transition from player to the person who kept all the players in line was a seamless one.
She began refereeing boys’ high school hockey eight to 10 years ago and then moved on to calling some Division I men’s games.
“I’m convinced that the passion that officials have at all levels of the game is the highest in the building for the game,” Guay said.
She also called women’s games at an elite level both at the collegiate level and internationally, culminating with an opportunity to referee the women’s tournament at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea.
At the time, though, she wondered if she had hit a kind of refereeing ceiling.
“I wasn’t sure what my next goal was going to be,” she said.
Women have always been part of the NHL’s officials’ exposure combine a four-day clinic that includes officials who are working games at various levels of the game, as well as players who are recently retired from having played at a high level who may be interested in staying in the game as on-ice officials. In all, 30 women have taken part in the combine over the years.
“I realized there was a chance to continue and to dream bigger,” Guay said.
Along with the mentorship program, which was developed with support from the NHL Officials Association and involved 48 women from around North America, the NHL also helped the American Hockey League set up an evaluation and teaching camp for referees. This is something that hadn’t happened for a decade, the head of officiating for the NHL, Stephen Walkom, said.
Similar camps for linesmen are planned for the future.
It was after the exposure combine and the AHL referees’ camp that the AHL decided their officiating roster would include the 10 women for the coming season.
The jump to the AHL is a test for any official. But it's a chance they know they've earned, and they hope that other women will see this as a legitimate path forward in hockey.
📝: @AmalieBenjamin | https://t.co/RrUxCf3lCF pic.twitter.com/hKrD8xZpCv
“Once we got through the officials’ camp it just made sense, it was time,” AHL president and CEO Scott Howson said. “It was time for the next step. There was no doubt in our mind that Katie was ready and deserved the first game.”
“It’s not like these women fell out of the sky,” Walkom added. They, like their male colleagues, have been working at their craft hoping for an opportunity like this.
“It’s really their moment,” Walkom said.
But more than that it is a moment for women everywhere in the game, especially those women who are wondering what is next for them when their playing careers end.
“At some point in time they’re going to be finished playing and it’s vital for the long-term success of the game that women get involved in officiating at every level,” Walkom.
“These women (getting the chance to call AHL games) are great role models,” he added. “For the next generation and the future generations.”
While Moore was watching her former teammate and captain make history via the AHL’s streaming service, Howson was on hand in person to watch Guay mark a moment in time.
“We were quite pleased,” Howson said. “Obviously she found her feet and the game was very well called.”
“I think they’re trailblazers for sure,” Howson said. “It’s time. It’s time for people to see.”
All the young people in the crowds they can see what Guay and the other women are doing, “and they will say, oh, this can be done,” Howson said. “That’s how change happens. You have to see it to believe it.”
The NHL has long enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the AHL relying on the developmental league to help try out new rules or innovations to equipment or technology. And, of course, the AHL has always enjoyed a prominent role as the main feeder league for the NHL by helping to groom not just the next generation of players, but coaches, managers and officials.
“These women have earned every step of the way,” Moore said.
“Honestly I can’t wait for the day where it’s not news. Where this is the norm,” Moore said of women officiating at the game’s highest levels.
Guay said she has always felt a rush of adrenaline whenever she’s set to referee at a new level or in a new league. This night in Wilkes-Barre was no different.
“I was just eager to get out there,” she said.
Howson, perhaps like many observing the game, gave little thought to the fact a woman was calling the game from moments after the initial puck-drop until the very end when Guay made a critical too many men on the ice call.
As it turns out it was not only the right call but a pretty easy call to make given that Lehigh Valley had seven players on the ice.
“I think I counted 10 times,” Guay laughed. “There was a lot of orange.”
Is it inevitable that one day just like the players who get the call to put aside their AHL jerseys for the jersey of an NHL club that some of these women will get a call from Walkom to join the NHL officials’ team?
“Yes,” Walkom said. “All officials that make it to the NHL make it through the American Hockey League. And so by conquering that level of hockey, demonstrating they can keep up with the pace of that game and officiate in all that chaos, yes, it is inevitable that we are going to get that great athlete that one days finds a place in the NHL on our team.”
That, for Guay, is a story for another day though.
“My next goal is the next game I have in front of me on the calendar,” she said.