CAMPBELL'S OLYMPIC ENCORE

By MARIO ANNICCHIARICO

BC Hockey officiating product Mike Campbell will take part in his second-straight Olympic Winter Games in February in Italy, one of 10 Canadian ice hockey officials selected for the international event.

The Cloverdale MHA product and Surrey resident, who regularly works the American Hockey League and Western Hockey League, also officiated in the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.

Campbell is also very involved with BC Hockey’s Officiating Program, with the Officiating Program of Excellence, along with junior hockey in the Lower Mainland. He is the lone B.C. official selected to work in the Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo Games.

“Yeah, I'm pretty excited for it. It's going to be a pretty big difference and experience from last time. Last time we had COVID and all the restrictions going on there. We were really only allowed to be in our hotel and our arena,” he said.

“This time things are, obviously, open and with the NHL going, that adds another layer of excitement. The games will be, I'm sure, a faster pace and there will be more eyeballs on the hockey, so it'll be good. It'll be a lot of fun once we get over there.”

In his first Olympics experience, Campbell – now 36 and the father of three children aged four, two and a newborn - worked three games, two in the men’s round-robin and a quarterfinal game.

“They had brought a few extra bodies along for that one just because with COVID and the restrictions they were a little hesitant to make sure that everyone got into the bubble safely and made sure they had enough bodies to service the tournament,” said Campbell.

“This time around there'll be the normal amount of officials, so whether the game-counts change, I don’t know. That remains to be seen. It's performance based as well, so there's no guarantees when you get over there for how many games you get. So we'll just kind of take it game-by-game and see kind of how I perform and hopefully get more than the three I did last time.”

Campbell is one of five Canadian referees, but the lone male, while five Canadian linespersons will also attend.

“Officiating at the Olympic Games is the pinnacle of an amateur official’s career,” Dan Hanoomansingh, officiating manager for Hockey Canada, said in a news release. “These officials have been working tirelessly towards this goal for the last four years, and it is a credit to their determination and skill that they have made it a reality.”

The officials participated in an evaluation process beginning in 2023 as part of the IIHF’s “Road to Milano” program. Officials were evaluated in domestic competition, professional hockey and multiple IIHF tournaments prior to their final selection.

Campbell worked the 2023 World Juniors in Halifax and the 2024 World Championships in Prague. Last year he participated in the 2025 World Juniors and the 2025 World Championships, which were all part of the “Road to Milano” program.

“They identified a group of 30 officials that they had put on a long list that were essentially competing for the seven referee and six linesperson spots for the men's side of things to go to the Olympics,” said Campbell.

“So we had a camp in August where we got the whole group together, spent a few days together, just kind of discussing what the Road to Milano program looked like - just kind of getting everybody together with some ice sessions and talk about hockey and talk about just being a good group together and kind of supporting each other through that process. Then we split off from there.”

Campbell’s efforts eventually led to working both the gold-medal games at the World Juniors and World Championships.

In Italy he will not know his set of assignments until he’s on site and then it's usually only the first two days of assignments that come initially out.

“They want to see how officials are performing, which games are important and for standings and that sort of thing. Everything's so fluid throughout a tournament that they just got to make sure that they got the right bodies going into the right game,” he said.

And Campbell still works with BC Hockey as the Lower Mainland Junior Hockey Officiating Lead.

“My role and responsibilities are to overlook the officiating staff that works the Pacific Junior Hockey League,” he explained. “I'm administratively doing stuff there and then also working on development stuff.

“We do video work with our officials. We have officiating coaches going into the buildings, making sure that we're developing officials on-site. There's been a lot of emphasis on that in the last two seasons, especially with the change in the junior landscape.

“We’ve become the stepping stone league for officials in the Lower Mainland and on the Island to showcase themselves that are looking to make the jump into the Western Hockey League, so we're trying to be that kind of last ground of development to get those officials ready to make the jump.”

Campbell’s goal all along was to make it to the National Hockey League.

“I mean, yes, I would love to work the National Hockey League - like that's obviously a goal, but I'm getting kind of long in the tooth, I guess you could say, with where I'm at in my career,” he said. “I've had a lot of years working pro hockey - 10 years of pro hockey in the American League and, I think, this is year 15 in the Western League.