Topic summary
On-ice official
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Official (ice hockey).
On-ice officials
As the name implies, on-ice officials do their job on the hockey rink. They are traditionally clad in a black hockey helmet, black trousers, and a black-and-white vertically striped shirt. They wear standard hockey skates and carry a finger whistle, which they use to stop play. They communicate with players, coaches, and off-ice officials, both verbally and via hand signals. Starting in 1955 with the introduction of the black-and-white jersey, NHL on-ice officials wore numbers on their back for identification. In 1977, NHL officials removed the number and had only their surnames on the back of their jerseys for identification, normally in a single row across the shoulders. (Some officials with long names would have their name in two rows, the most notable example being Andy Van Hellemond.) However, in 1994, NHL officials returned to wearing solely numbers on their shirts, a procedure adopted by other sports leagues.