Longtime Minnesota hockey referee trains next generation to make the calls

Alicia Hanrahan has traveled the world officiating hockey games. She’s worked at every level of the sport from youth leagues to the Olympics. On a recent cold Saturday morning, she’s at the Runestone Community Center in Alexandria where the air is abuzz with energy from young hockey players.

But Hanrahan won’t be wearing stripes and carrying a whistle today.

“I’m at the tail end of the on-ice career, and part of what you do when you’re an on-ice official is, you help the ones that are coming up behind you because someone did it for me. So it’s giving back,” said the 52-year-old Hanrahan as she laced up her skates to shadow a teenage official.

Hanrahan steps into the locker room to meet 16-year-old Keaton Olson, a high school hockey player who is officiating his first game.

Olson admits he’s a “little nervous.”

“You’ll be fine. Everyone’s nervous their first time,” Hanrahan assures him. “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. You are going to make a mistake.”

This is the voice of experience. Over more than 20 years Hanrahan says she has officiated thousands of games, from 10-year-old girls just learning to play to the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, something she calls an “amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Hanrahan works as an administrator for a large corporation, but she also schedules officials for hundreds of Alexandria youth hockey games.

Hanrahan grew up in California and didn’t start skating until she was 23 years old.

“I really fell in love with the sport. I mean, really fell in love,” she recalled. She wanted to stay involved and decided the way to do that was to become an official.

“To be an official you have a front seat to this awesome sport."

Most weekends are spent at a rink, either on the ice or watching young officials work. There’s also game video to review if officials are challenged on a call.

She pulls no punches telling young officials what’s expected of them.

“If you know the rules, I will back you up 100%,” she explained. “But if you are out there and you don’t know the rules, you’re gonna get eaten alive, and that’s where I can’t help you.”

As teams of girls ages 10 and younger play, Hanrahan shadows Olson up and down the ice, sometimes close enough to touch, sometimes drifting a few yards away, always watching and offering praise and advice.

“Patience,” she tells him at one point. “You know the game. You know the game. Just anticipate that play, where it’s going.”

Dan Gunderson / MPR News

And Olson does make a mistake. He blows his whistle to stop play but too softly and the players don’t hear it.

“You gotta blow it so hard that grandma in the next room hears you,” Hanrahan tells him.

This game is going smoothly, but earlier in the day Hanrahan got a call from two teenage officials who had been challenged during a game and wanted her advice.

“Parents were a majority of the issue, and I assured them that they’re not your problem, you’re on the ice to call the game and make sure that all the players leave safely,” she said.

Officials with the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission say game officials are in short supply across most sports. Retaining new officials is a big challenge.

“As you try to recruit folks and encourage them to do it, it’s about the potential abuse,” said Todd Johnson the commission’s executive director. “There’s almost this clarion call needed to educate fans and parents about the abusiveness and the almost fear that happens sometimes, especially in youth sports.”

Having a seasoned official mentor young officials is one of the best ways to improve retention, said Karah Lodge, the sports commission’s managing director. “It’s hugely helpful and we hear requests for mentors all the time. People know that it works and they’re asking for it.”

Hanrahan regularly fields challenges from frustrated, angry parents.

On this day, she’s trying to decide how to respond to an email from an angry parent.

“I’ll be judgmental here. Because that is our job on the ice. We have to judge,” said Hanrahan. “They clearly didn’t know the rules. So do I want to take my time and explain to them the rules?"

That’s not really part of her job. She wants her focus to be on supporting young officials, mostly high school and college students.

She says attitudes toward officials have taken a negative turn since the pandemic.

“COVID-19 was a big change,” she said. “People are angry, just, I don’t know, angry and entitled,” she said. “In the 25 years that I’ve been doing this, that’s probably been the most noticeable change.”

Her advice to young officials is to ignore what happens off the ice. “It’s how you develop a thick skin,” she said. She gives the same advice to players who are upset by angry parents, sometimes asking her if she can eject a parent.

“Go there and support your kid. Because they’re there to learn and develop. They’re not perfect,” she said. “These officials have to develop just like the players do. Be positive and support your team, your child.”

This story was originally published on MPRNews.org.