Ben Betker has been hired by the NHL and will be officiating games in the AHL next season<\/p>\n
A Cranbrook\u00a0hockey referee has been hired by the National Hockey League, with the expectation of working most of next season in the American Hockey League.<\/p>\n
Ben Betker, 30, spent the last season working in the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL), while also working in the AHL and the ECHL.<\/p>\n
Betker played four years of major junior with the Everett Silvertips in the WHL, while being selected in the sixth round of the NHL\u00a0Draft by the Edmonton Oilers in 2013. Following his WHL career, Betker played in the AHL and ECHL and closed out his professional career in\u00a0European leagues at the end of the 2024 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis means everything to me,\u201d said Betker, in a BCHL news release. \u201cTo be able to share this success with family and friends was really cool. There is still a lot of work to do, but it\u2019s a step in the right direction and I\u2019m just enjoying the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
In just his first year as an official, after retiring from a playing career that took him to the AHL, ECHL Slovakia and Austria, Betker worked three to four games per month in the BCHL throughout the season, on top of his professional schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting consistent reps is huge and being able to come home from the pro schedule and work in the BCHL was really helpful to work on my craft,\u201d he said. \u201cHaving such a great group of guys that I got to work with over the BCHL season really helped my development curve.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BCHL\u2019s Officiating Department is led by Vice President of Hockey Operations Brad Lazarowich, who worked as an NHL official for 30 years and nearly 2,000 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NHL hiring Ben Betker just adds to the impressive list of accomplishments by the officiating staff in the BCHL,\u201d said Lazarowich. \u201cBen came on board last year directly to us from the NHL Combine and had a very impressive year. His hard work and dedication to his officiating propelled him to the level that the NHL is looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this spring, the BCHL announced that Betker was one of\u00a012 on-ice league officials\u00a0selected to participate in the National Hockey League\u2019s Officiating Exposure Combine that will be hosted in Buffalo, NY\u00a0in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe relationship that Brad [Lazarowich] has with the NHL, as well as his resume, speaks for itself,\u201d said Betker. \u201cI\u2019m not sure I\u2019d be in the position I\u2019m in if it wasn\u2019t for his guidance and mentorship. Any official just starting out would benefit from his 30 years of experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Betker is expected to work a full season in the AHL next year with the hope of earning an NHL game towards the end of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Betker has been hired by the NHL and will be officiating games in the AHL next season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-17088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}