First European referee in the NHL

“A dream comes true”

Marcus Vinnerborg will be the first European referee in the NHL

COLOGNE – It’s not every day a hockey referee fields phone calls and text messages from people wishing him good luck, saying how happy they are for him, or how proud they are of him. On Friday, though, Marcus Vinnerborg did just that, as the hockey world received the news of his joining the NHL officiating team.

“It can’t get any bigger than this. Never before has it even been on the radar for a European referee to go to the NHL, but thanks to Konstantin Komissarov, the IIHF officiating manager, and Terry Gregson, the NHL director of officiating, it has now become true,” Vinnerborg said over the phone from Sweden.

The possibility was brought up during the Vancouver Olympics which were officiated by mixed IIHF-NHL teams, and a few weeks ago, Vinnerborg got the actual, official offer.

Professionally, it’s a no-brainer. But Vinnerborg is no 18-year-old kid from Sweden, who’s just been drafted to the NHL.

“I still have to pinch myself. It’s the best league in the world, and to be working with some of the most experienced and competent referees will be wonderful. However, I’m 37, have a wife and two daughters, so we had to sit down and talk it all through,” he says.

Vinnerborg will fly over to North America in August, find a house for the family, and prepare himself for the NHL training camp in September.

“We’ll move to Toronto, and I’ll travel from there. The camp opens on September 5,” Vinnerborg says.

“It will be a lot easier to stay motivated during the off-season, and push a little harder at the gym and on the running track,” he adds.

Vinnerborg - who’s been a professional referee in Sweden for the past four years - has a contract that covers the 2010-11 season, and 80 games. His first assignments will be in the AHL so that he can start getting used to the North American style.

“I’ll follow the NHL Playoffs from here, and get in touch with all the people I know there. I can’t stress enough how grateful I am for Konstantin and Terry for making this dream come true. This is not about me, this is the work of the Swedish federation, the IIHF, the NHL, and many, many people around me,” he says.

“The hockey family is getting tighter by the day, and we saw that in Vancouver, we had a really great group of people there,” he says.

Vinnerborg’s phone is still ringing, and the messages are flooding in.

“Everybody’s wishing me luck, everybody’s so proud of me. The only person not ecstatic about this, is my 83-year-old grandmother who thinks that we won’t be seeing often enough now,” Vinnerborg says.

He'll just have to make sure to call her.

http://www.iihf.com/channels10/iih….html?tx_ttnews[backPid]=4063&cHash=344110550c

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=529684

Vinnerborg to make NHL debut

good luck, marcus!

auf iihf.com ist ein interessantes interview mit marcus vinnerborg über seine erste nhl-saison.
leider darf man den link hier nicht reinschreiben, weil das word hockeyn.... vorkommt

viell schafft das ja einer der sich besser auskennt wie ich.....

danke #25

ich kopiers hier rein, der link von der iihf seite funktioniert nicht......

Vinnerborg returns to Sweden

NHL’s first European referee makes a family decision

ZURICH – After two seasons in the NHL and AHL, Marcus Vinnerborg, 39, has decided to go back to Sweden. Vinnerborg made history when he became the first European referee to officiate an NHL game. “It is a family decision,” says Vinnerborg, who will continue officiating in Europe.

European players broke the National Hockey League barrier in the mid-60s. The first Euro coaches to be hired to lead an NHL team happened in 2000. But it took until 2010, on November 16 to be exact, when Vinnerborg became the first European to officiate an NHL game.

The Swede did it in Dallas where he called the Stars vs. Anaheim game together with veteran Paul Devorski. But after two years, 40 NHL games and 150 AHL games including playoffs, Marcus Vinnerborg has decided to move back to his home town of Ljungby in southern Sweden.

“It all came down to a family decision,” said Marcus, who moved to Thornhill, north of Toronto two years ago with his wife and his two daughters. “When you are working in the NHL and AHL you are gone for 150-160 nights per season. You are on the road 8-10 days, back home for three days and then gone again.”

“I realized that it is very difficult to be a family father under those circumstances, especially when you have two teen-aged daughters who deserve more attention. It was a very difficult decision to take, the NHL people liked my development and they wanted me to stay, but at the end this was the decision for our family.”

Vinnerborg is quick to dismiss any thoughts that the reason for his decision was that he “only” was assigned to call 40 NHL games, none of them playoff games.

“Absolutely not,” said Vinnerborg. “When I came here I knew very well the conditions that you needed to work the majority of your games in the American league for three years before you could have a chance to be considered for the Stanley Cup playoffs.”

“Again, it was all based on what was best for the family and the decision would have been the same had the NHL offered me a new NHL contract,” said Vinnerborg.

He goes back to Sweden and Europe as a vastly improved on-ice official:

“No doubt. I have developed as a referee, I can handle the small rinks better than before, I have improved my positioning and I feel more at ease with the four-man system. And I am incredibly thankful to the NHL and to the league’s referee supervisor Terry Gregson for having given me the opportunity.”

So Marcus Vinnerborg returns to the IIHF system where he has been officiating in the Swedish pro league Elitserien since 2000 and where his international résumé includes all IIHF World Championships between 2006 and 2009 (including the gold medal games in Moscow 2007 and Quebec City 2008), the 2004 IIHF World U18 Championship, the 2006 IIHF World Junior Championship and lastly, the 2010 Olympic in Vancouver.

The most given question of them all – is the Sochi 2014 Olympics on your mind?

“I am very honest when I say that I really haven’t been thinking so far ahead,” said Vinnerborg. “I have only been focusing on this very difficult decision whether to go home or to stay. Yes, I know that want to continue my officiating career in the Swedish league and eventually I will start thinking about any international assignments.”

“But things haven’t been standing still while I have been away. Many good, young European referees have come up through the ranks. If I want to officiate on any international level, I know that I will have to be very good and to qualify.”