Surrey whistle-blower wins WHL top hockey official award for 1st time
Published 12:00 pm Thursday, April 23, 2026
Surrey-raised Mike Campbell has won the Allen Paradice Memorial Trophy as 2026 Official of the Year in the Western Hockey League (WHL).
Campbell, 36, has reffed at rinks around the world including 600 WHL regular-season games and nearly 100 playoff games during his 15 years in the junior league, starting in 2011.
This is Campbell’s first WHL Official of the Year award, the league announced April 21 and posted video on Youtube.
He has served “as a steady presence within the WHL officiating team,” having worked through WHL conference championships for five consecutive seasons including 2026 playoffs, league officials note.
Picked by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) for the officiating crew at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy, Campbell worked the men’s hockey bronze-medal game between Slovakia and Finland on Feb. 21.
Also for the IIHF, Campbell has called two Men’s World Championships (2024, 2025) and four World Junior Championships (2020, 2021, 2023, 2025).
Away from the ice, he once worked at The Hockey Shop in Surrey.
He began officiating at age 12, playing rep hockey at the time in Cloverdale.
“It was that or doing a paper route or getting a small job doing odds and ends for me,” he says in Mario Annicchiarico’s feature story posted on bchockey.net.
“At the time, I obviously loved playing rep hockey and I saw it as a way to get extra time on the ice. The pay wasn’t bad, either. When I started at 12, I wanted to earn some spending money and it provided me more benefits than walking around the neighbourhood putting newspapers on doorsteps.”
Named in honour of former WHL referee Allen Paradice, the Allen Paradice Memorial Trophy is voted upon by general managers in the 23-team league. Other winners over the years include Mike Langin, Jeff Ingram, Chris Crich, Brett Iverson, Chris Schlenker, Reagan Vetter, Nathan Wieler, Pat Smith, Matt Kirk and Chris Savage, dating back to 2010.