Hamish Young couldn’t predict where hockey would take him after he first stepped on the ice on the other side of the world.
As a teenager in Melbourne, Australia, Young set out on an unlikely path to play hockey in a city better known for its world-renowned culture and southeastern coastal setting than for producing elite hockey players. Unlike in North America and parts of Europe, hockey has a much smaller presence in Australia, making Young’s pursuit of the sport all the more unique.
“It’s definitely not something common you see in Australia,” the third-year GTHL official said.
Summer sports are dominated in Australia based on the country’s climate and cultural preferences.
“I can never walk into a rink without being stopped… that’s pretty cool to still know all these people years later”, Young explained.
Young started skating at 12 years old when a friend introduced him to the sport. He only knew about hockey because of the Olympics, but wasn’t aware of the opportunities there were to play near home. During the Christmas break, he headed down to a rink in Docklands, a neighbourhood in Melbourne that had received an infusion of funding from the government to build a winter sports facility, eventually named the Icehouse. It opened in 2010, and Young was able to make the most of the facility a couple years later. He loved how distinctive being on the ice was compared to other sports he grew up playing.
“[I] loved the new challenge. It was something a bit different,” Young said.
After his first skate, he would go to the rink as a social activity with friends and joined an accommodating and accessible hockey school as well. The hockey school was realistic about parents pouring immediate resources into a sport they had never heard of before. They provided gear that they could borrow and start out with. Another accessible factor was the rink being close to Young, about 30 minutes on a good day of traffic in Melbourne.
A few years after starting the sport, he noticed a local association post on social media looking to hire officials. He figured he’d rather get paid to skate than work a retail job.
“Being 14, I needed a job. Might as well get paid to skate rather than flip burgers,” Young said.
From there, Young took the time to refine his skating and worked to improve as an official. Getting to higher levels for Young didn’t happen overnight, and there was a process of building skills season by season using the resources that were around him.
“I did a lot of work with figure skating coaches,” Young explained. “I identified that’s the skill that translates the most to officiating, in my mind.”
The work paid off, and he continued to work towards more competitive hockey in Melbourne. Young made his officiating debut in the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL), Australia’s top men’s professional tier after the pandemic lockdown had ceased. Remarkably, he also attained a International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) officiating card to work at international events.
For Young, GTHL officiating came into the picture when he was prepping for a IIHF tournament. Since international tournaments follow the North American and European hockey calendar, he would have been off the ice for several months since the hockey season is flipped in Australia, occurring during Canada’s spring and summer months.
He initially thought he would head to the United Kingdom to stay on the ice, but Young’s friend who officiated in the GTHL convinced him that Canada was the best option to develop as an official.
“In his opinion, the GTHL was the place to be,” Young said.
Young leaped at the opportunity to officiate in Canada. For three seasons, Young has gone back and forth between Toronto and Melbourne for hockey season. While back in Australia for their country’s hockey season last year, he officiated the Grand Final in the AIHL.
“I accomplished everything I set out to accomplish in Australia when I started, so that’s quite nice to get that opportunity,” Young remarked.
Young has officiated in lower tiered IIHF tournaments in New Zealand, Thailand, Spain, and most recently South Africa. It’s been a great way for him to discover countries he didn’t realize had hockey programs. It’s also been a vessel to meet great people, while taking him to countries and hockey settings that look a little different than a traditional Canadian rink.
In his most recent trip to Cape Town, the tournament was played inside a casino.
“It was separate from the gambling section, but they have a 400 or 500 seat rink in there,” Young said.
Working in these tournaments has been a test of communication for Young. Many of the teams at lower tiers of IIHF hockey often speak little to no English, therefore, innovative communication strategies are adopted during these tournaments.
At his most recent IIHF tournament in South Africa, a Turkmenistan player was ejected from the game for a disorderly penalty at the end of the second period. The player didn’t understand, however, and came back out for the third period.
“I had to try and communicate with him that he had to leave the game,” Young explained. “With neither of us having a language in common, I had to employ signals to convey that across to him.”
Communication is a part of Young’s life on the ice and off the ice. As he officiates year-round across the world, he’s also concurrently enrolled in law school. Young thinks officiating could help him later in his career.
“It’s great to work in a job where you’re actively applying and interpreting rules every day, as well as hearing different interpretations of rules every day,” Young explained. “If I can argue half as good as some of the coaches that I’ve met over the years, I’m sure I’ll make a great lawyer.”
Young isn’t quite sure what the future holds for him with officiating, and where he will be after his visa is set to expire next year. However the dust settles, though, Young doesn’t have any regrets jumping at opportunities to officiate hockey across the world.
“I feel very lucky that I got to come over here and challenge myself at levels I never thought I’d be able to. I’d love to keep pushing myself to go as far as I can in officiating,” Young said. “And wherever that is, I’m sure I’ll always be happy to go home and take back anything I can back to my friends like they did for me when I was young, and just keep enjoying the game for as long as I can.”
