Take 5 with… Paul Shipman

Take 5 minutes to get to know our officials supervisors, on-ice officials, shot clock operators, and more.

Our next installment of 2025 features Paul Shipman, our NOCP Education Lead, and an Officials Supervisor at this year’s CRC.

 

1. Where did your officiating journey begin?

We joke that it’s the family business. At the time, five of the six members of my wife’s family (everyone but my wife) officiated in one capacity or another, and I had to step up to take my wife’s spot…

But the real story is that it was a time of transition. My wife and I weren’t married yet; rather, we were graduating from university and figuring things out. She had grown up playing club ringette, simply registering for the team at home, and then moved on to university and played on the University team. She was graduating and didn’t know how to find a Ringette team as an adult. It was a regular point of conversation about how she still wanted to be involved in Ringette but didn’t know how.

One weekend, we watched her brother play in a tournament. After his game, we grabbed a bite from the arena restaurant and sat down to have lunch with a Referee the family knew. The referee was exhausted because there weren’t enough referees, and he was scheduled for eight games that day. That sounded like an opportunity to me.

I stewed on it for a few days before suggesting to my wife that we could referee together. This was a way she could “still be involved in Ringette.” And, I figured, “People ref. I’m a person, so…” 

She said absolutely not. I asked if she was ok if I did it alone, and here I am.

At the time, I was 24 and had never been ice skating. So I bought a pair of two sizes too big skates at Canadian Tire, and the family started bringing me to public skating. I took the Level 1 clinic and read the rulebook front-to-back. My first game was a Bunny game with a mentor. I didn’t know how to stop, so I skated to the boards and used them to stop. I started taking Adult Skating lessons while I did a grand total of 8 games in my first two years as an on-ice official.

In my third year, we moved house, and my new association had considerably more games to do. I did 150 that season.

2. What does your role as NOCP Education Lead encompass?

As NOCP Education Lead, I’m one of the members of Ringette Canada’s Officiating Leadership team governing policy and direction as to the development, selection, classification, and assigning of Officials.

I oversee the education portfolio, and my role is leading the charge to modernize our learning material and how we develop officials. This long-term project started in 2020, when we needed to pivot to online learning for the first time. That effort demonstrated the gaps in our training. 

Around the same time, Ringette Canada’s Officiating Master Instructors attended a development session where we explored the possibilities of Facilitated Learning that has long been a component of Coach training. Together, these experiences have driven a ground-up rebuild of our officiating programming.

3. What does a game day look like for you?

This depends on the day and the role!

A regular officiating day is just part of the week. I’ve probably spent part or most of the day working and have the added responsibility of preparing for one or more games. Any game requires a commitment of at least three hours, including planning for nutrition, travel time, and time to dress and warm up. Then it’s game time, and I’m psyched that I get to be Referee Paul for an hour or two.

If it’s a tournament, an NRL Hub, or Provincials, it’s performance time and Game Day is all day! The planning has to be done days earlier because my day usually starts with the first game and ends with the last. If I’m lucky enough to spend part of the day on the ice, I need to plan nutrition appropriately, allow time for warm-up and have enough socks, underlayers, pads, etc., to get through the day comfortably. 

Whether or not I’m on the ice, I will spend most of the day watching and coaching officials as they perform. We call this “supervising,” but it’s no different from coaching a team. Everyone can benefit from some pointers and feedback. It makes our officiating team better.

4. What would you say is the most rewarding part of being an official?

As an on-ice official, it’s overcoming challenges. Every game is its own reward. It doesn’t matter if it’s a great Ringette game; it doesn’t matter the age level or the calibre. Every game offers an opportunity to overcome. How do I call the penalties that fit this game? How do I skate to beat these players to the net? How do I foster a game environment where the players know they’re safe and have the opportunity to compete fairly?

As a supervisor, it’s watching officials get it. Officials talk about officiating a lot. We learn about it in clinics; we read the rulebook. But that’s all theory until you get on the ice and figure out how to do it. My job as a supervisor, as a coach, is to help them get it. There’s a moment where you can see them get it for the first time. Most of the time, it’s figuring out reading the play or how a penalty fits the game. But you can see the moment it clicks, and you know they’ll be able to do it.

5. What advice do you have for officials who are just starting and don’t know where they can go?

There’s a place for you, and we value having you as part of our team. There is so much opportunity as an official, and you don’t have to know what you want to do with that yet. There’s a place for the officials who do it as a part-time job, those who want to give back, those who include it as part of their recreation, those who use it instead of a gym membership, and those who need an outlet as an elite athlete. You can go to CRCs, CWGs or World Ringette. You can do the same two games every Friday night. You can do both!

At some point, someone is going to yell at you. At some point, a young girl will cry when you call a penalty. It will be hard, but you’ll have to learn to not take these things personally. They’re part of the job. They’re especially part of the job when you’re doing it well. The people who yell at you? They don’t know what’s expected of you. They don’t know if you’ve done a good or bad job. The frustration isn’t actually about you.

It gets fun when you can get past that. And when it’s fun, it’s really fun.

6. What are you most looking forward to at the 2025 CRCs?

The unexpected. It’s crunch time, performance time. Things that don’t happen in the regular season happen now. We’ll get to see amazing Ringette, with amazing Officials. 

Throughout the regular season, 1500+ officials across Canada make up the officiating team leading games. They are distributed and disjointed, coming together in short-term partnerships every game. At CRCs we bring together the top-performing Elite Officials from across Canada and work as one team for a whole week. 

7. What was your most memorable officiating experience?

If I’m completely honest, the first thing that came to mind was being young and brash and ejecting all of the fans at a tournament game. It’s not a memory I’m proud of; it’s just a moment that really stands out. I think that’s what does it for me the most – all of the little memorable moments. Driving three hours to Souris to do a AA series with the family and quizzing each other on the rulebook. That moment when you start applying the brakes as you come in to Net position, and you know you’ve won the race. Teaching my first Introduction to Officiating Clinic. Writing the last Level 4 Evaluation for someone I mentored on their first game.

8. What’s something you wish more people knew about officiating?

• It’s fun. 
• It’s athletic. An official gets more ice time per week than any player. They don’t get a break during the game. And the skate is hard when you’re doing it right. The challenge: leave the free play line (ringette line) soon enough, fast enough, hard enough, to get ahead of the players, turn backwards and beat the passes up the ice to arrive at the net (still skating backwards) before the ring does. And if the ring doesn’t keep going, hard stop and skate back to the line. All game long.
• It’s like being in Hamlet – a sport within a sport/a game within a game. Performing as an official has its own goals, rules, and mechanics. Our field of play is not the ice; it’s the Ringette game. It’s different every time. Every decision – where to be, how to skate, what to call – depends on how it fits the game we’re working.

 

Thank you for joining us for this issue of Take 5! Don’t miss all the action of #CRC2025 in Ottawa, Ontario, from March 30 to April 5, 2025, live or on the Ringette Canada YouTube channel.