IIHF – The globetrotting official

Referee Davida Paul reflects on her IIHF journey

When Davida Paul stepped on the ice to officiate the gold medal game at the 2023 IIHF Women’s Asia and Oceania Championship, the crowd was so loud that she couldn’t hear her whistle. It was a surreal moment, one that made her reflect on everything that had happened to get her to that point.

“Every time Thailand would score—I have never experienced this before—it was so loud!” said Paul. “I got this really high-pitched ringing in my ears. I just remember being like, ‘Oh my God, this is unreal.’ I didn’t even know that this is an experience that you could have.

“I was overfilled and overjoyed with so much gratitude that I’ve been able to have officiating cross my path. What are the odds of us moving to Canada and then me becoming a ref? And then down the line, 13 years later, to be in Thailand reffing a gold medal game?”

Paul’s hockey story began in British Columbia, Canada, where she moved from Australia with her family at age 10. Her father introduced her to refereeing. He drove Paul and her sister to a BC Hockey summer officiating camp several hours outside Vancouver after learning about the Western province’s need for officials.

“I couldn’t skate backwards at all, and we were still very new to the hockey scene,” said Paul, who was 12 at the time. “It was obviously super-intimidating. But through that camp, I met really key people that were quite formative to my refereeing development, and also playing.”

Doubling as a goalie, Paul quickly found herself on a trajectory towards high performance sport, competing in the BC Winter Games and joining the Britannia Hockey Academy. She had her sights set on making the jump to one of BC’s AAA teams. But shortly before tryouts, a concussion (her second) put her in the hospital. It was at this moment, at age 16, that she made the difficult decision to stop playing and focus solely on officiating. 

“I was already reffing female major midget at the time,” she recalled. “I met everyone in the female high performance program and I just felt at home with officiating. It felt more natural to me. I loved that perspective on the ice more than I did being a goalie.”

It wasn’t long until Paul starting lining U Sports games, as well as a game between Czechia and the University of British Columbia in the lead up to the 2016 IIHF Women’s World Championship in Kamloops. That was her first look…