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3 American Officials Named for 2015 Men's Worlds

03/17/2015, 5:30pm EDT
By IIHF.com

The IIHF has selected 16 referees and 16 linesmen to officiate in the Czech Republic

Timothy Mayer, Fraser McIntyre and Paul Carnathan will represent the United States while officiating at the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. Mayer will officiate as a referee while McIntyre and Carnathan will serve as linesmen.

Of the 16 referees, five will officiate as a referee at this level for the first time, although two of them, Swiss officials Daniel Stricker and Tobias Wehrli, have previously officiated at IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships as linesmen.

Wehrli did the gold medal game of the 2010 Worlds as a linesman, and as a referee at the finals of the recent 2015 World Juniors in Canada and at last year’s U18 World Championship while Stricker called the gold medal game as a referee at the 2014 World Juniors.

Among the World Championship rookies is a local ref, Pavel Hodek. The most experienced referee will also coming from the host nation: Czech ref Vladimir Sindler has officiated in 11 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships and two Olympic Winter Games.

Sindler’s most famous moment came at the 2003 Worlds in Finland when he officiated the gold medal game. Anson Carter scored the overtime winner for Canada against Sweden although barely anybody was able to see whether the puck crossed the line or not. Sindler went to the off-ice officials’ bench calling for a video review and after five minutes and finding the right angle it was called a goal.

Other veterans include Vyacheslav Bulanov from Russia, who officiated in nine World Championships (eight as a referee) and two Olympics while and a trio who has done six Worlds before with Daniel Piechaczek from Germany, Jyri Ronn from Finland and Marcus Vinnerborg from Sweden. Vinnerborg, who became the first European NHL ref in 2010, called the gold medal games in 2007 and 2008, and most recently the gold medal game of the 2015 World Juniors, while Ronn worked the gold medal game in 2009.

Russian ref Konstantin Olenin has experience working five World Championships, calling the gold medal game of the 2013 Worlds. Olenin was also the only European ref who remained active at 2014 Olympics in Sochi during the last three days by calling the Sweden-Finland semi-final and the bronze medal game.

Of the 16 linesmen assigned, seven will work at the top-level World Championship for the first time after having worked at other tournaments such as the World Juniors before. Anton Semjonov from Estonia is the most experienced linesman with eight World Championships.

The Czech trio of Vit Lederer and World Championship rookies Miroslav Lhotsky and Rudolf Tosenovjan will have the honour of officiating the World Championship in their native country.

Click here for the referee assignments of all tournaments.

Photo courtesy of IIHF.com

Referees Linesmen
Bjork, Tobias  SWE  Carnathan, Paul  USA 
Bulanov, Vyacheslav  RUS  Dahmen, Jimmy  SWE 
Gofman, Roman  RUS  Fluri, Nicolas  SUI 
Hodek, Pavel  CZE  Kilian, Jon  NOR 
Kubus, Jozef  SVK  Lazarev, Gleb  RUS 
Mayer, Timothy  USA  Lederer, Vit  CZE 
Nord, Mikael  SWE  Lhotsky, Miroslav  CZE 
Olenin, Konstantin  RUS  McIntyre, Fraser  USA 
Piechaczek, Daniel  GER  Mills, Bevan  CAN 
Rantala, Aleksi  FIN  Pihlblad, Henrik  SWE 
Ronn, Jyri  FIN  Puolakka, Masi  FIN 
Sidorenko, Maxim  BLR  Schrader, Andre  GER 
Sindler, Vladimir  CZE  Sefcik, Peter  SVK 
Stricker, Daniel  SUI  Semjonov, Anton  EST 
Vinnerborg, Marcus  SWE  Suominen, Sakari  FIN 
Wehrli, Tobias  SUI  Tosenovjan, Rudolf  CZE 

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