Referee Davida Paul reflects on her IIHF journey

When Davida Paul stepped on the ice to officiate the gold medal game at the 2023 IIHF Women’s Asia and Oceania Championship, the crowd was so loud that she couldn’t hear her whistle. It was a surreal moment, one that made her reflect on everything that had happened to get her to that point.

“Every time Thailand would score—I have never experienced this before—it was so loud!” said Paul. “I got this really high-pitched ringing in my ears. I just remember being like, ‘Oh my God, this is unreal.’ I didn’t even know that this is an experience that you could have.

“I was overfilled and overjoyed with so much gratitude that I’ve been able to have officiating cross my path. What are the odds of us moving to Canada and then me becoming a ref? And then down the line, 13 years later, to be in Thailand reffing a gold medal game?”

Paul’s hockey story began in British Columbia, Canada, where she moved from Australia with her family at age 10. Her father introduced her to refereeing. He drove Paul and her sister to a BC Hockey summer officiating camp several hours outside Vancouver after learning about the Western province’s need for officials.

“I couldn’t skate backwards at all, and we were still very new to the hockey scene,” said Paul, who was 12 at the time. “It was obviously super-intimidating. But through that camp, I met really key people that were quite formative to my refereeing development, and also playing.”

Doubling as a goalie, Paul quickly found herself on a trajectory towards high performance sport, competing in the BC Winter Games and joining the Britannia Hockey Academy. She had her sights set on making the jump to one of BC’s AAA teams. But shortly before tryouts, a concussion (her second) put her in the hospital. It was at this moment, at age 16, that she made the difficult decision to stop playing and focus solely on officiating. 

“I was already reffing female major midget at the time,” she recalled. “I met everyone in the female high performance program and I just felt at home with officiating. It felt more natural to me. I loved that perspective on the ice more than I did being a goalie.”

It wasn’t long until Paul starting lining U Sports games, as well as a game between Czechia and the University of British Columbia in the lead up to the 2016 IIHF Women’s World Championship in Kamloops. That was her first look into what opportunities could lie ahead internationally.

After high school, she took a year off from officiating to travel. That one year eventually turned into three, with Paul returning to Australia in 2020. The pandemic hit, and over the next two years, she went through a series of difficult experiences. Out of the blue, however, her father decided to send her officiating gear to her. While Paul had been unsure how to escape the dark place she was in, officiating was the answer.

“To get back into officiating, it really helped me a lot. It sounds so corny and cheesy, but it helped remind me who I am as a person.”

Paul discovered that female officials in Australia face similar challenges to those in Canada, and wanted to help behind the scenes with officiating development. She wasn’t looking to get involved at the elite level, but after moving to Sydney from Brisbane in 2022, she was drawn right into it, to her pleasant surprise. She has since refereed the highest levels of both women’s and men’s hockey Down Under.

That Australia’s referee-in-chief wanted her to apply to work with the IIHF was a surprise to Paul as well. But she obliged and obtained her license. In November 2022, she received her debut assignment to work at the 2023 IIHF Women’s World Championship Division II Group B tournament.

“It was a real full-circle moment for me,” said Paul. Upon learning that her first assignment would be in Cape Town, she was reminded of the Britannia Hockey Academy’s vice president, a South Africa native who had supported her both during her time in the program and in her decision to withdraw to pursue officiating.

“It brought me back to that hard decision that I had to make about stopping and not being a goalie anymore,” Paul said. “I was very nervous about it. I like to see things through and I just didn’t want to make it seem like I was giving up. But [that being the right decision] was really affirmed to me when I was told about my assignment.”

In Cape Town, Paul was one of three head referees, with the other two taking her under their wings to introduce her to the IIHF officiating scen. Shortly afterwards, she was assigned to the Women’s Asia and Oceania Championship along with fellow Australian official Sarah Kinninment. With this assignment, Paul could claim the distinction of having officiated on four different continents: North America, Oceania, Africa and Asia.

She added Europe to that list in 2024 when she officiated in Bulgaria at the IIHF U18 Women’s World Championship Division II Group B tournament. Her next assignment is in New Zealand at the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship Division II Group B in April.

Each IIHF tournament has been special in its own way, introducing Paul to different people and bringing new experiences on and off the ice. In Thailand, she was especially affected by the teamwork of the officiating group.

“It was just so beautiful, the support that we were able to provide for each other, in a really humbling way where it wasn’t competitive,” she noted. “Not once throughout the whole week did anyone talk about the gold medal game, because we weren’t there to compete against each other. We were all there to support each other.”

Even when reflecting on earning the opportunity to referee the gold medal game of an international championship, Paul doesn’t lose sight of her journey and the people who have helped her along the way. She credits her father, the Vancouver Female Ice Hockey Association’s longtime referee-in-chief, as playing a pivotal role in her officiating caree. Paul also attributes a lot of her own success to the grassroots development of officials in British Columbia and the network of women who have mentored her during each stage of her journey.

Paul summed it up: “I love officiating. I love what it has done for me, for my world, for my life. I without a doubt can say that I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t start officiating.”