From small-town Drake to the Olympic Winter Games, Alex Clarke has broken barriers and inspired young officials on what has been a unique hockey journey
If it wasn’t for a disgruntled cow, Alex Clarke might not have become one of the best and most respected officials in the world.
It was the spring of 2015 and Clarke (then going by her maiden name, Alex Blair) had just been drafted 53rd overall by the Calgary Inferno of the now-defunct Canadian Women’s Hockey League when was she kicked by a cow on her family farm, resulting in a lingering knee injury.
“I wasn’t able to properly train throughout the summer. So, the decision was kind of made for me not to go to [Inferno training] camp and try out that fall,” recalls Clarke, who played three seasons with the Weyburn Gold Wings of the Saskatchewan Female U18 AAA Hockey League (SFU18AAAHL) before playing NCAA Division III hockey at the College of St. Scholastica in Minnesota.
But when the door on Clarke’s playing career closed, another opened.
“I knew I wanted to stay involved in hockey,” she recalls. “I had previously thought that maybe coaching was a good avenue for me, but at the time I was 22 years old and my personality just doesn’t fit well with standing on a bench and being tied to a team schedule. So, I ended up pursuing officiating instead.”
Since then, Clarke has skyrocketed through the officiating ranks. A native of Drake, Saskatchewan (population 197), she has worked in her home province in the SFU18AAAHL and Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL), nationally at the Esso Cup and internationally at the IIHF Women’s World Championship.
In 2021 she became the first woman to officiate in the Western Hockey League (she also was the first woman to work a WHL game as a referee earlier this season) and on Dec. 5, 2021 she became the first woman to work a game in the American Hockey League.
“My love for the game is what inspires me to get out there,” Clarke says about being an official. “It’s a place where I get to go and forget about everything else that’s going on. I get to have fun. I get to be with friends.
“Since I’ve had success, and I’ve been a little bit more recognized, it means a lot more to me to go out there and know that I’m somebody that people see as a trailblazer as the only female in certain leagues.”
The past few years in particular have been quiet the ride for Clarke, who reached the pinnacle of international hockey when she worked as a linesperson at the 2022…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at News…