Katie Guay became the first woman to officiate an American Hockey League game when she took to the ice and dropped the puck between the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton Penguins and the Lehigh Valley Phantoms on Saturday.
Katie Guay's first American Hockey League puck drop #breakingbarriers pic.twitter.com/J2k22PVSvK
— American Hockey League (@TheAHL) October 16, 2021
“It’s a very historic night around the American Hockey League and I don’t think we’re gonna see a better story all weekend long,” Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek said during the 32 Thoughts segment on Hockey Night in Canada.
Guay, 39, is from Westfield, Mass., and played for four years with Brown University before becoming a referee in 2006. In women’s hockey, Guay has officiated the Frozen Four and the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. In men’s hockey, she has called games in NCAA Division I, the Southern Professional Hockey League, and at an NHL prospects tournament.
The AHL has 10 women officiating – seven referees and three linesmen – this season. Kelly Cooke is scheduled to work the Rochester-Utica game on Sunday. Most NHL officials, of course, are brought up through the AHL.
And it looks like the timing is right for bringing in more officials from the AHL, as NHL referees Brad Meyer, Dean Morton and Marc Joannette, and linesman Vaughn Rody are calling it a career at the end of this season.
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