This is all true, but the referees don’t get paid to be great athletes or have great reflexes. At least they don’t get paid for all the things we’re talking about. Their job is to do the best they can to make sure nobody gets hurt. When they get it wrong, nobody gets hurt. That is truly “official hockey,” and it is why we love the NHL so much.
As any other professional athlete, NHL referees are paid a salary. In the case of the referee, that salary is about $250,000 per year. However, the most important part of their salary is to receive a share of NHL ‘s annual revenue. That is, a ref can earn as much as 10% of all salary hockey games and other activities are held each season.
The NHL uses the same referees for every game to ensure fairness, so the average salary for a referee is around $50,000 USD.
How Much Do NHL Referees Make Per Game?
In late 2018, an infamous picture of an online job posting for an NHL referee circulated on the internet, advertising a pay range between $193,174 and $224,569, a three-year working experience requirement, and a high school diploma. Sounds like a really fun and low-pressure job.
Hockey, as we know and as we love it, has been going through a bit of a shift. There is an increased focus on creating a safer environment for the players, which is both in the best interest of the players and the fans. It has been an important step forward in the right direction. It is our hope that the game, and its participants, continue to go forward as it has for the past 100 years.
In the National Hockey League, the linesman is a critical part of the system, since he’s in the middle of everything. But he has a very small role in comparison to the referee, who is always in-charge and is the only one who can stop the game. So, the referees are compensated accordingly.
Compared to the NHL and NBA, the NFL has the worst pay gap. For example, the league’s commissioner is paid $35 million, while the average NFL player is paid only around $1.5 million. This pay gap is largely due to the National Football League’s revenue-sharing system, which guarantees that the top 16 NFL teams receive approximately 50% of all revenues.
This discrepancy in the pay scale of professional sports has led to an increase of calls for a salary cap and/or a pay-to-win system in the NFL. Both concepts are generally disliked in the NFL due to the negative effects that would have on the league’s most popular team, the New England Patriots.
NHL refs are paid relatively well, thanks to a 1993 strike where officials demanded higher pay. The salary range then varied from $50,000 to up to $80,000 a year.
Are NHL Refs Full Time?
The NHL referees are full time employees of the National Hockey League and are salaried. Additionally, the referees receive travel stipends.
The NHL employs just 34 full-time referees (including head referees and linesmen) during any one season, requiring two referees and two linesmen per game. With a regular season of 82 games, several games in any given week, and required travel across the U.S. and Canada, NHL referees certainly have their schedules full.
The NHL is the original professional league. The players are the original professional athletes. The referees and linesmen are the original pro sports figures. The NHL is the most demanding job in professional sports and that’s why the players are the best at it.
Who is the Highest-Paid NHL Referee?
NHL referee salaries is set by the sporting league, so they do not have negotiating power that players do. That means that their salaries are not astronomically high and cannot vary too much from referee to referee.
The NHL works in a salary cap league, so a lot of the time the best players on the team can be bought out, or traded. This means that the teams may be able to get rid of a player or two who is no longer needed. This has happened to many teams over the past few years.
 Wes McCauley also refereed the Stanley Cup Final in 2010.  The NHL is currently reviewing the officiating in the playoffs this year, and  it’s a hot topic of discussion.  For that reason, I want to show my readers that I can make a pretty solid argument that theyâre on the right path in letting Wes officiate the 2017 Stanley Cup Final.
How do NHL Referee Salaries Compare to Other Major Sports?
The National Hockey League (NHL) is the premier professional ice hockey league in the world. The NHL has 30 teams, each of which plays 82 regular season games per year. The average salary for an NHL hockey referee is $275,000 per year.
In the NFL, games are called by professional officials who are employed by the NFL. Referees do fair better than their NBA counterparts, who are just part-time employees of the NBA. The NBA does not employ professional referees. The league just provides them a stipend of $30,000.
