Preparing for finals ...

The last few days have been filled with emotion and “Olympic moments”.  As the Olympics enter the final week, we move into the final stages for the women’s tournament.  For some teams the dream of an Olympic medal is over, and they are playing in classification games.  For other teams, all is left to play for…

Moving to the men’s arena for the semi-finals and the gold medal game

The semi-finals and the Gold Medal Game for the women’s tournament are scheduled to be played in the men’s arena – the Gangneung Hockey Centre at the Olympic Park.  This is part of a directive from the International Olympic Committee because these games are classified as prime events.  As prime events the games need to be played in the larger arena, so more people can attend.  However, outside of the International Olympic Committee, there is also a desire for the women’s games to be given parity with the men’s games and so the move to the larger arena for these games is well supported across the female hockey community.

The challenge though is to manage the logistics for the venue move.  We have eight teams competing in the women’s tournament and twelve teams competing in the men’s tournament.  Each team has their own dressing room set-up at their venue.  To enable the women’s semi-finals and the gold medal game to be played at the men’s arena a switch of venues for four women’s teams and five men’s teams is required. 

With the venue switch, there are a few complications that needed to be worked through by the organising committee.  For example, the location of the coaching staff rooms for each of the teams.  Each of the changing rooms is equipped with a coaching staff room. At the women’s arena the coaching staff room for each team has two doors – one into the main player’s changing room for the team and one directly out to the corridor.  This enables male coaching staff to enter the coaching room without needing to walk through the female players’ changing room.  At the men’s arena the coaching staff room only has one door which is from the main player’s changing room – this means to access to coaching room the coaching staff need to walk through the main players dressing room.  Many of the women’s teams have male coaching staff and so this is a challenge to work through in terms of moving the women’s teams into appropriate changing rooms at the men’s arena.  Additionally, at the men’s arena the changing rooms are decorated in a more permanent way with wall art and player’s names above changing stalls.  This could mean a women’s team will be changing in a room which is decorated with flags from a different country.

Office of organisers at the ice rink - with a bed in the middle

The organising committee and the IIHF staff worked on the logistics for the move and over one evening managed to solve the challenges and get all the teams moved into appropriate changing rooms to enable them to play their games.  It was a long night for them and for the equipment managers of the various teams.  Everyone here is working extremely hard, so the players get to have their Olympic moment, and so the millions of fans around the world can enjoy the spectacle of Olympic hockey.  They are working around the clock so much that in their office at the rink they have a bed in the middle!

Again, it is difficult not to feel humble – a venue change of this scale has the potential to be a real logistical challenge but in reality, the movement of nine teams across two hockey venues is such a small part of the whole Olympic event in terms of logistics, transport and venue management.  The magnitude of an Olympics is difficult to comprehend, and it should be recognised that hosting an Olympics is a complicated task … again Pyeongchang has shown itself more than capable.

Facilities

Large washing machines at men's arena

Moving into the men’s arena for the officials is a much easier task.  The officials working the game just stop by the women’s rink to pick up their equipment bags and then head to the men’s rink for the game.

The facilities at the men’s arena are world class.  To give an example of the sheer magnitude and scale of this event you only need to look at the laundry service provided.  They run a laundry service for all the teams throughout the tournament, for jerseys, socks, undergarments and towels.  This would be after each practice, after each game and whenever the team equipment managers need it.  The washing machines are big enough for a person to fit inside …

Store of paper at the ice arena

It is great to see the scale of the event and to have the opportunity to work in the bigger arena.  Even the office space and the printing paper they have on hand is second to none!

Picking the officials for the final games

As we enter the play-off rounds and the medal games for the teams, we enter a challenging and emotional time for the officiating team.

Our motto is “one team, one goal”.  As a team we are unique in almost every way.  I mentioned before that our team of 19 officials come from around the world.  The team spirit is created over the years at various world championships. The officials perhaps have a chance to see and work together once or twice a year for an intensive one to two-week period at most before they are selected as an official for the Olympics. 

Most Olympic hockey teams will have spent time training together intensively for months prior to coming to compete at an Olympics.  Olympic hockey teams come as a team and they finish as a team … if they are knocked out then the whole team is knocked out … if they make it through to a medal game then the whole team make it through.  Win or lose they do it as a team. 

Female officiating team - one team one goal

For #teamstripes we have to have team spirit to be successful overall but sometimes there is individual success and individual failure with in the team.  There can only be 2 referees and 2 linesman that get to work the gold medal game, and this means some members of our team won’t skate a medal game while others will.  Handling the emotions of being selected as an official to work a medal game at an Olympics is difficult.  The officials we have here are the best of the best.  They are all capable of working the final games.  The reason they have made it this far is because they have the drive and ambition of world class athletes.  Being in the top 10 for them is not enough ... they want to be the very best.  The reality of the situation is that selection for the Olympics in itself is an achievement.  But once an official is selected for the Olympics, they set a new goal of officiating the medal game.  

I know from my experience as an official that the last few days of any IIHF tournament are emotional for the officiating team.  Getting selected for the medal games is a huge honour … and anything less than this leaves the official feeling empty.  The feeling of not being selected crushes the dream.  I have however also worked enough tournaments as an official to know that there are only two medal games and not everyone can work them.  Being strong and managing your emotions is important.  All world class officials have had to learn the art of being personally disappointed, but supportive of team mates who did get selected.  Being an official at an Olympics isn’t something that lasts forever, and it is important that regardless of the final selections, every official here allows themselves to enjoy their moment at the Olympics.

We have a great group of officials here and a strong team ethos which has been built up over the last few years of world championships and selection camps. 

Female Officiating Supervisor Team

I am now on the supervisor team.  I am supervising officials who I have worked with and officiated with over the years and who are friends.  Our challenge as a supervisor team is to assign the officials to the games throughout the tournament; evaluate their performance and provide them with feedback; and then in the last few days make the selections for who will officiate the medal games.  We have watched all the officials this week and the medal games need to go to the officials who, in our opinion, performed the best over the course of this tournament.  The differences between the officials at this level is slight and choosing between them is difficult.   


Once we make the selections we will then have a role to play in leading the team and supporting them finish the tournament as one team.  It has been an emotionally tiring few weeks for the officials and for the supervisory team.  We have shared hard work, laughter and tears together – not just for the last two weeks but for some of us for many years.  We need to finish this tournament as a strong team.  This will require leadership from us, and support and respect from all the officials to each other.