when you became a referee?

I, I think there's, uh, Nick, everybody has their own path to get to the highest level, but usually the, the talent shines through at every single level.

I will say that one thing about hockey, people are always, you know, they're always asking, you know, "How can we improve officiating? How can we get more people into officiating?" And, and they, and they need to kind of step back from it and recognize that the raw material for officiating is on the bench in every arena.

And, you know, you, you probably have, what, 400,000 people playing hockey, maybe 500,000 in Canada, and they're all potential referees in my mind because, you know, when you're on the bench, you're calling offside, you're calling icing, you're calling tripping, you're calling hooking.

You've, you've been an active referee, you just don't know it.

So for a person sitting on the bench that can skate- And if they want to give back to the game of hockey, doing it through officiating, um, doing it at every single level is good for the game.

And it ...

So how difficult is that over the course of, uh, an 82-game season for a team? I don't really know how many games a, a referee or a linesman would, would, uh, skate in a year, but how difficult and how important is that for that official to not only stay up to date and, and everything with the ongoing changes and whatnot in the league, but also take care of their body and be ready to go?