‘It’s a dream come true’: Two Sask. female hockey officials heading to the 2022 Olympic Winter Games

By Ian Gustafson

After years of continued hard work and passion for the game, a pair of Saskatchewan female hockey officials will be heading to the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

Cianna Lieffers and Alex Clarke will have their dreams become reality when they head to China at the end of the month to officiate the women’s hockey tournament. The news, which was announced on Friday, will make them the only two out of five selected from across Canada to be from Saskatchewan.

Clarke and Lieffers know each other well after going through the Saskatchewan officiating program and officiating games together.

Lieffers said it’s a huge accomplishment for her and Clarke to be the only Saskatchewan-based referees to be going to the Olympics.

“It just shows how much growth we’ve had over the last couple of years to now be able to produce two officials going to the Winter Olympics and that we’re both on the female side is just something that we are so proud of, and I think it’s a great reflection of our program back home,” she explained.

Lieffers also had high praise for Clarke saying she’s a great person to have in your corner and awesome to be around both on and off the ice.

“She is such a determined and hardworking person, and this shows in her performance on the ice…I know when she steps on the ice, she’s going to do her job to the best of her ability every single time,” Lieffers explained. “I know she’s always going to have my back and I always look forward to working with her that familiarity I know is going to be really nice when we have a game together in Beijing.”

Clarke echoed many of Lieffers’ sentiments and said she’s much more excited to go knowing she gets to share the experience with Lieffers than to go alone.

“To be able to share that opportunity with somebody I know closely and have seen the effort they’ve put in as well,” Clarke said. “I would say she’s the happy-go-lucky, calm, cool, collected person and official. I don’t think she can get too frazzled as a person or an official and tends to kind of keep her calm regardless of the situation that comes her way.”

Lieffers

Lieffers, 27, now lives in Saskatoon working as a teacher after graduating from the University of Saskatchewan.

Growing up in Cudworth she played many sports, including hockey, which has always been a part of her family. She liked to follow with whatever her brother was doing so when he began playing, she wanted to give it a try. She ended up playing on the local boy’s hockey team being the only girl on the team.

Her brother also led her to try officiating, which she now has been doing in leagues across Saskatchewan, including in men’s and women’s AAA, and the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, as well as nationally and internationally.

“When I was in high school, I would play hockey and officiate at the same time, but I was a much better and more successful official than I ever was a hockey player. So once I moved to Saskatoon for university, I no longer played hockey and just focused on officiating and that was sort of my journey through hockey,” she said.

What makes her passionate about being a referee is being a part of the game, being on the ice and giving back. She added it has also taught her valuable life skills and provided her experiences she won’t forget.

“A lot of my best friends now are from the officiating and the hockey world, and it just becomes more so a community and less about the money than it was in the start. Whereas now I’d still probably be officiating even if we didn’t get paid for the games,” she explained.

All of the time and effort put in has led her to the world’s biggest sports stage, the Olympics.

“It’s an incredible feeling of accomplishing a goal I’ve essentially been working towards and dreaming of for the last 11 years of my officiating career and I’m very excited and proud to be officiating at the highest event in women’s hockey,” she said. “It’s a pretty surreal feeling especially getting that phone call and knowing that I’m going.”

She’s looking forward to stepping on the ice in Beijing and taking in the moment and experience. As well as being surrounded by some of the best players, coaches, and officials in women’s hockey.

“Just to take in that very first game, that feeling of accomplishment that I made it, I accomplished this goal, and I am now skating at the Winter Olympics.”

Clarke

Clarke, 28, who now lives in Weyburn, said her dream to officiate the Olympics came prior to the 2018 games after she refereed a Canada versus United States preliminary game in Edmonton in 2017. Since then, it’s been four years of hard work to make it happen.

“As cliché as it sounds it’s a dream come true but ultimately it’s just validation of the last several years of effort I’ve put in and a journey I’ve gone through to get here,” she said.

Growing up in Drake, Clarke said she played hockey since she first started skating as a youngling and played on many levels, including four years of hockey in college in Minnesota. Hockey challenged her unlike any other sport could and that’s what she loved most about it. It wasn’t until after she was done playing when she found her passion for officiating and has been doing it now for 11 years.

“There’s something about stepping on the ice for me that just makes everything else go away and when I get on the ice as a player or as an official now, I just forget about everything else that’s going on in the world and I would like to say that it’s that that draws me and keeps me coming back over and over again,” Clarke explained.

Clarke became the first woman to officiate in the Western Hockey League in September 2021 and has officiated plenty of high-level hockey throughout her career.

She is most looking forward to stepping on the ice surrounded by the best in the world and the camaraderie of the officials who will be there at the Olympics.