Officials named for 2022 Warrior/ECHL All-Star Classic

The ECHL on Thursday announced that Jake Rekucki and Riley Yerkovich have been selected as the referees and Scott Senger and Ben Shiley have been chosen to be the linesmen for the 2022 Warrior / ECHL All-Star Classic, to be hosted by the Jacksonville Icemen on Monday, Jan. 17 at 7:30 p.m. ET at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena. The game will air LIVE exclusively on NHL Network and be streamed via FloHockey. “I would like to congratulate the four officials chosen to represent the ECHL Officiating Team for this year's All-Star event in Jacksonville,” said ECHL Manager of Officiating Operations Stephen Thomson. “All of their hard work and dedication to the ECHL throughout the many years, and especially for working through last season with all of the unique challenges faced, they all couldn't be more deserving. The All-Star event is on every officials’ radar and a huge accomplishment for each of them. “At this year’s event, the officials will present our largest donation ever to Ascension St. Vincent’s Foundation and their Mobile Health Pediatrics Program,” Thomson added. In this year’s All-Star event, the host Jacksonville Icemen will take on a team of ECHL All-Stars representing the other teams in the League, as well as feature several Skills events which will count as a goal towards the winning Player’s team score. Each team will also have a representative from the Premier Hockey Federation and Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association. A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Rekucki is in his fourth full-time season as a referee in the American Hockey League and ECHL. Last season, he was selected as one of the referees for the Kelly Cup Finals. Rekucki has also spent time this season refereeing in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL) in Germany. He has also officiated the 2021 International Ice Hockey Federation U18 Championship in Texas, and will work the 2022 IIHF U20 World Juniors in Edmonton. Rekucki previously worked the 2017 North American Hockey League Top Prospects Tournament, 2017 NAHL Robertson Cup Final, 2018 United States Hockey League Top Prospects Game and the 2018 USHL Clark Cup Final. Yerkovich is in his third season as an ECHL referee, while also currently working games in the AHL and for the IIHF. He has been a member of USA Hockey’s Officiating Development Program since 2015, and refereed the 2018 and 2019 NAHL Top Prospects Tournaments and the 2019 NAHL Robertson Cup Final. Yerkovich attended the NHL Officiating Exposure Combine in 2019 and worked the 2019 Traverse City NHL Prospects Tournament and the 2021 Kelly Cup Playoffs. Senger’s officiating career began in 1989, working youth hockey games in North Dakota, and he continued working youth and high school games in North Dakota and Minnesota during his college years. He made his ECHL debut in December 2005, while also having experience in the SPHL and in the American Collegiate Hockey Association. Shiley has worked nearly 400 games in the ECHL since beginning his career in 1998-99. In addition to his time in the ECHL, he currently works games in the AHL, and has worked previously in the Southern Professional Hockey League and the former United Hockey League. Current NHL officials who have worked the ECHL All-Star Game are referees Ian Walsh(1997), Brian Pochmara (2001), Justin St. Pierre (2002) and Tom Chmielewski (2011) andlinesman Brian Mach (1999) while former NHL referee Jeff Smith worked the 1998 game.There are 41 former ECHL officials who are scheduled to work as part of the NHL officiating team in 2021-22 with referees Reid Anderson, Jake Brenk, Francis Charron, Tom Chmielewski, Mitch Dunning, Trevor Hanson, Beau Halkidis, Ghislain Hebert, Jean Hebert, Marc Joannette, Pierre Lambert, T.J. Luxmore, Peter MacDougall, Michael Markovic, Wes McCauley, Jon McIsaac, Dean Morton, Dan O’Rourke, Brian Pochmara, Kevin Pollock, Kyle Rehman, Chris Rooney, Carter Sandlak, Graham Skilliter, Furman South, Justin St. Pierre and Ian Walsh and linesmen Steve Barton, Ryan Daisy, Julien Fournier, Brandon Gawryletz, Mitchell Hunt, Trent Knorr, Matt MacPherson, Jesse Marquis, Kilian McNamara, Bevin Mills, C.J. Murray, Kory Nagy, Ben O’Quinn and Bryan Pancich. Thirty-eight of the 71 referees working in the American Hockey League, came from the ECHL, while 95 of the 169 linesmen in the AHL have worked games in the ECHL. The 14th class of the ECHL Hall of Fame will be officially inducted at a luncheon, presented by BFL CANADA and Sutton Special Risk, on Monday, January 17 at 12:00 p.m. at the DoubleTree by Hilton Jacksonville Riverfront in Jacksonville, Florida, the Official Host Hotel of the 2022 ECHL All-Star Classic. About the ECHLBegan in 1988-89 with five teams in four states, the ECHL has grown into a coast-to-coast league with 27 teams in 20 states and two Canadian provinces for its 34th season in 2021-22. There have been 712 players who have gone on to play in the National Hockey League after starting their careers in the ECHL, including 14 who have made their NHL debuts in the 2021-22 season. The ECHL has affiliations with 27 of the 32 NHL teams in 2021-22, marking the 25th consecutive season that the league has affiliations with at least 20 teams in the NHL. Further information on the ECHL is available on its website at ECHL.com as well as on Twitter and Facebook.