For more information regarding the AHRA please visit our web site link below.

Each season, all officials must register with USA Hockey as an on-ice official and complete several steps in order to become or remain a certified on-ice official. The registration season for the Officiating Program begins in early June of every year and Seminars are typically offered from August to October. New officials therefore need to register as an official and attend a seminar at the beginning of the season! Make sure that a seminar is scheduled and you are able to attend before registering as an on-ice official.

This link will take you to the USA Hockey Officiating page explaining the process and providing links to all of the steps necessary to become an Official.

USA Hockey does not officially have a minimum age to start officiating. It is however recommend that young officials wait until around age 14 to begin officiating. This is because officials are limited to working games below their own current age level. This automatically limits the number of games available to younger officials and these are the games that ALL new officials will work regardless of age. 

The result is a lot of competition to get assigned to these games and young officials are limited to this group until they age up. So regardless of a young official’s development and ability they will not be able to move on to higher levels of hockey because they are restricted by their age.

This is not meant to dissuade any young official from registering but serves to set realistic expectations to the number of games a young official may be able to work. Across the years we have seen new officials have a more positive first year of officiating and a higher chance to continue past their first year if they start officiating around the age of 14.

All USA Hockey officials are independent contractors who are scheduled for games by a local officiating association. In Arizona, the local officiating association is the Arizona Hockey Referees Association (AHRA). Once you receive your card and crest in the mail you should:

1. EMAIL AHRA to get setup with a game scheduling account
2. Set your availability in the game scheduling system
3. Contact the schedulers at the rinks you want to work to introduce yourself
   • Arcadia:                         Paul.Withee@ahoa.us
   • Flagstaff:                       Kyle.Curtin@ahoa.us
   • Gilbert AZ Ice:            Paul.Withee@ahoa.us 
   • Ice Den Chandler:    Bob.Brown@ahoa.us
   • Ice Den Scottsdale: Mike.Sarter@ahoa.us
   • Oceanside:                   Mike.Sarter@ahoa.us
   • Peoria AZ Ice:             Travis.Smith@ahoa.us 
   • Prescott:                        Mike.Sarter@ahoa.us
   • Tucson:                           Mike.Sarter@ahoa.us