You may have noticed on an NHL game sheet or roster report this season: The league doesn’t use the term “linesmen” anymore.
Beginning with the 2023-24 season, they are "linespersons."
Which begs the obvious question: Is the NHL close to following in the footsteps of the NBA and the NFL in employing female officials?
Well, meet Kirsten (pronounced: KEER-sten) Welsh, the AHL’s only female lines… Person.
“My main goal is just to be a quality candidate (for promotion to the NHL), regardless of gender,” Welsh said last week, chatting while making the drive from her home in Pittsburgh to an assignment in Cleveland. “I don't want any handouts because I am a female. And that does happen.”
Welsh, 27, is the first woman ever to officiate a game in the Ontario Hockey League, and the American Hockey League as well.
There is only one next step in that progression.
“It feels icky, almost, to want more. But, obviously, that’s the goal,” said the Toronto native. “Eventually, I'd love to see a female get hired to the NHL. It does not have to be me, but I'd love to be a part of that.”
We’ll bet you didn’t know that the AHL currently employs seven female referees, in a pool of about 75. Welsh is the only female linesperson among the 150 lineys, most of whom work regionally.
A crew including AHL referees Samantha Hiller and Elizabeth Mantha, plus linespersons Alexandra Clarke and Welsh will officiate Thursday’s Canadian Tire PWHL 3-on-3 Showcase.
Of all of the female officials in the AHL none will have more assignments this season than the 60 or so games scheduled for Welsh, who is working her way through a process that is new for everybody but her.
What would be the toughest element for the Robert Morris University grad? Only the ones she cannot control.
“Just the outside stigma,” said the AHL’s VP of Hockey Operations, Hayley Moore. “She crushes our on-ice testing at camp, and her skating abilities are not something that she has to overcome. It’s just those outside pressures — she's going to have a target on her back because she is a female out there. And I think she embraces that challenge.”
It’s still an old boy's sport, to an extent. The PWHL is changing that, but females blowing whistles — and stepping in to break up a scrap — in the NHL will truly break through the barriers.
“There's always going to be teams, players, officials, coaches, and GMs who question it,” Moore said. “But once the game starts and the puck drops, it doesn't really seem to hold the question mark anymore. She just lets her work speak for itself.”
Welsh is in Year 3 in the AHL, so she has been around longer than a lot of the players.
“At first there was a little bit of a heightened awareness as to who's in the circle, and whether they were watching their comments or their fists,” Welsh said. “Now, it’s more accepted around the league that there's a female, and regardless of gender, if there's stripes in there, you’ve got to stop.
“Now that I’m in my third year, there’s a lot more acceptance.”
As for breaking up fights at the NHL level, Welsh admits that the game is more hospitable for her arrival today than, say, 20 years ago.
“The level of aggression and the consequences from not stopping or making dangerous plays (has changed). The guys, how mad they get,” she said. “Having two fights in a game now, it's fun. That's what makes the job. I kind of look forward to that, and I think I can handle it fine.
“The way the game was 20 years ago, if there were two fights then, it might have been a little more difficult.”
Welsh just wants to fit in, and improve the process so that those coming up behind her will be able to assimilate more seamlessly than she did.
“I’ve played on boys (hockey) teams my whole life growing up. I prefer when people say, ‘Nice job guys.’ Not, ‘And girl,’” Welsh said. “When they make an effort to single you out, it’s almost worse.”
This is hockey’s way. In our game, people prefer not to stand out.
That’s going to be a problem for Welsh. She may be a couple of years away yet, but if it’s more likely that the NHL officials' gender barrier is broken by a linesperson than a referee, then being the AHL’s only female linesman puts her on a collision course with history.
Welsh’s ascent is not guaranteed, of course. For a linesperson, there are hundreds of things to get right during a game, and as such, hundreds to get wrong.
“It's the little things that take you from good from great,” she said. “When a puck goes out of play, are you the first one to blow your whistle, and signal where the faceoff should be? If there's something that was missed by the (referee) when they're calling a penalty, going over and saying, ‘Hey, did you see this?’
“Everyone at this level is good,” she said. “Rulebook knowledge. Awareness. Fitness. Nutrition. All the little things that outsiders don’t see? Those are the things that the supervisors notice.”
You’ve got to think that the NHL will ease into this, most likely by promoting a linesperson ahead of a referee. As the only one in the AHL, it’s right there for Welsh — and she knows it.
“I'm a big believer that this is all very good timing,” she said. “There have been a lot of females before me that have paved the way, and there are a lot of females after me that are also going to be great candidates for the job.
“Place, time, location, all of the stars are just kind of aligned.”
