Abstract
Sport officials are often maligned, abused, and ridiculed; yet, their presence on the playing surface is indispensable. Understanding why officials become involved in such a negative environment becomes necessary if we are to retain and attract individuals into this essential role. The purpose of this study was to examine ice hockey officials' motives for becoming involved. For this purpose, 22 hockey officials (7 women and 15 men), were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format and asked why they started officiating. It was found that financial motivation was a major encouraging factor in becoming an official as 54.5% mentioned this motive. The influence of relatives, friends, and coaches was another major motivating factor for entering into an ice hockey officiating career (45.5%) with more women citing this motive (85.7%) than men (27%). Other motivational factors detected in the study were the desire to stay involved with the sport (40.9%) which men stated (53.3%) more often than women (14.3%) despite the fact that every official had participated in hockey as an athlete; the desire to stay active (13.7%); and also motives related to skill development (13.7%). It appears that there are intrinsic, extrinsic, and socially-related motives for becoming an ice hockey official that may differ between genders. Implications for recruitment and retention, given the potential for gender differences, will be discussed.
