Two WHL officials work IIHF World Women’s Championship gold-medal game
Utica, N.Y.- A sellout crowd of more than 4,000 people crammed into Utica’s Adirondack Bank Centre to watch Danielle Serdachny bury the overtime winner to clinch gold for Canada at the 2024 IIHF World Women’s Championship, but few had a better view of the action than referee Cianna Lieffers and linesperson Alex Clarke.
“It was an incredible feeling,” Lieffers said. “You have the big pregame nerves leading up to it, and you get that first lap and you’re still feeling it, but once that puck drops and you get to blow your whistle for that first time you just ease into that routine and hockey is hockey. We had everything- lots of excitement with the goals back and forth to penalties and overtime. It was so loud and the energy in the building was electric. It was really surreal, actually to be on the ice and after the game in the dressing room we were all kind of sitting there just enjoying the moment and soaking it all in.”
The Western Hockey League officials worked a total of 11 games at the prestigious event.
Clarke, from Drake, Sask., made history in September of 2021 when she became the first woman to work lines in a WHL and broke another barrier on October 22, 2023, when she became the first woman to referee a WHL game.
Cudworth, Sask.’s Lieffers followed suit just two days later when she donned her stripes and orange referee’s armband for a tilt between the Saskatoon Blades and Moose Jaw Warriors.
“It’s almost indescribable,” Lieffers said. “It’s one of those goals that you want to achieve for so long and then it finally happens and you just feel all the emotions come flooding in all at once. You’re excited for what’s to come. You’re so grateful to be there. I think it was even more special that we got to do it together. We’ve had a lot of firsts that we’ve shared in our careers, a lot of tournaments, going to the Olympics together, sharing nationals and internationals and now this.”
The officials debuted together at the IIHF World Women’s Championship in 2021 but hadn’t worked a gold-medal game until now.
Adding to their already impressive resumes, Clarke and Lieffers also hit the ice at the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games, with Clarke on the lines and Lieffers as a referee.
In addition to regular season WHL assignments, both officials are currently working in the American Hockey League (AHL), Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) and multiple junior leagues.
Prior to Worlds, the duo recently reunited for the 2024 U SPORTS women’s championship match in Saskatoon and the 2024 Canada/USA Rivalry Series stops in Saskatoon and Regina.
Lieffers and Clarke hope to return to the Winter Olympics for Milano-Cortina 2026 and, eventually, see a woman don the stripes in the NHL.
“Seeing women start to officiate in the Western League and in the QMJHL and in the OHL and then having the American League having us on staff as well, with the progression that it’s taken in the last three to five years, I do think very soon the NHL might follow suit,” Lieffers said.