Official Kendall Hanley to Help Grow and Educate Pool of Officials in Role with NAHL and NAPHL

“Kendall has obviously been involved in our programs for a long time, both on the coaching side, on the hockey director side and then certainly, most recently, on the officiating side as she pursued her goal of working an Olympic Games,” said Matt Leaf, USA Hockey’s director of the Officiating Education Program. “She’s put in a tremendous amount of work. She’s extremely dedicated and committed and goal oriented. So, once she established that goal, she was going to make darn sure that she was going to get that.”

Hanley wants to make sure that young people who might be wrapping up their competitive hockey careers know that there is another step they can take in order to build the game.

“I was officiating, coaching and director of hockey [for the city of Allen] all at the same time,” said Hanley, who then moved to Colorado to lead a select girls program. “As I went down the pipeline, I kind of had to take a step back and realize that I really just wanted to pursue my dreams on the officiating side and figured I can always come back to the coaching side of things. But as far as an on-ice career, it’s only going to last so long. That transition to focus solely on the officiating around 2016, ’17. Then kind of went from there.”

Among Hanley’s barrier-breaking firsts as a female on-ice official are working the NAHL’s Robertson Cup Championship, NAHL Top Prospects Tournament (2019, 2021) and NHL Prospect Tournament (2019 as one of four women, then again in 2021). So being a woman named to a new role with the NAHL-NAPHL was another step forward in hockey.

“I’ve had some incredible role models in my life, whether they were current officials, officials that came up before us, supervisors, coaches, other individuals who had incredible careers that stepped away to help give back,” Hanley said. “I think that’s a critical part of what we do, is doors are opened for us by other people that come before us and then be able to push yourself as far as you can with your goals. Then that next generation will come up behind us and continue to open more doors and achieve and break through levels that we haven’t to the stage been able to do so.”

It is that type of philosophy that everyone who has come in contact with Hanley knows will make her a success as she transitions into the next phase of her career.

“I think she’s a fantastic hire from a USA Hockey perspective because she brings the knowledge, she brings the passion, she brings the expertise to be able to help the entire game get better and grow and provide opportunities,” Leaf said.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.

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