The ice is theirs too: celebrating the Buffalo 2025 elite officials

Not only will the best Para ice hockey players in the world be starring in Buffalo next month for the 2025 World Para Ice Hockey Championships, but so will the sport’s top officiating crew. 

From 24-31 May at LECOM Harborcenter, five of the world’s most experienced referees and nine of the most qualified linespersons — who combined have 99 World Para Ice Hockey international tournament appearances between them — will officiate 20 games across the week.

The top five teams from the event will earn qualification spots for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games.

The referee lineup will include: Matt Fergenbaum (5th A-Pool), Kevin Webinger (5th A-Pool), Bobby Esposito (4th A-Pool), Jan Vanek (4th A-Pool) and Pat Myers (3rd A-Pool). 

Linespersons will include: Tony Rundstrom (5th A-Pool), Brendan Lewis (4th A-Pool), Marius Oswold Hermansen (4th A-Pool), Dylan Dauphine (3rd A-Pool), Tibor Fazekas (3rd A-Pool), Lari Niittyla (3rd A-Pool), Pavel Blazek (2nd A-Pool), Ryan O’Rourke (2nd A-Pool) and Alex Wiest (1st A-Pool).

Esposito, officiating his fourth World Championships A-Pool, will be heading back to the same city where his Para ice hockey career began. In 2016, he was tapped as a last-minute official to work the Pan Pacific Championships there.

“Buffalo is where it all started for me, so it will be nice to be back,” he said. “At the time, I thought it would be very neat to work some international hockey. Turns out, that event exceeded all of my expectations, and I fell in love with the sport. What stuck out to me most was the sportsmanship and the appreciation of the game by the players, spectators and officials and that motivated me to continue my journey.

Now going on 10 years of officiating the sport he’s fully engrained in what it takes to perform the job on the ice, noting the differences from a stand-up competition.

“Officiating Para ice hockey presents some unique challenges that are different from stand-up hockey, particularly understanding the minor nuances of Para ice hockey mechanics,” he said. “Fans might not realise the level of agility and speed involved which requires us as officials to be very vigilant and adaptive. Not to mention, there is much more contact in a Para ice hockey game than a stand-up game.”

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Kevin Webinger (centre) will be entering his 17th World Para Ice Hockey event in Buffalo

ⒸErica Perreaux / Hockey Canada Images / WPIH

Love at first puck

Webinger, entering his 17th World Para Ice Hockey event, has been around the sport almost twice as long as Esposito, having been introduced to it at a development camp in Alberta in 2008. Since then, he has worked at Winter Paralympics, World Championships, four-nation tournaments, and more.

“I fell in love with the sport and its athletes right after my first game,” Webinger said. “I was hooked after that first puck drop. The sport's talent, speed, and physicality were unlike anything I had ever seen. At that moment, I knew I wanted to stay involved in any capacity possible. This opportunity got me on the radar.”

When switching to officiating Para ice hockey, officials have had to step out of their comfort zones and break habits they’d developed over the years officiating stand-up hockey. They’ve had to adjust sight lines to consider players’ lower positions on the ice, learn various rule differences with athletes skating much closer to the ice, and practice being right on top of the play to allow for better visibility of the puck and athlete actions.

“Officiating Para Ice Hockey demands more mental and physical effort in skating and edge work than in stand-up hockey,” Webinger said. “While we still use the three-official system in Para ice hockey, most stand-up hockey utilises a four-official system. A key rule difference is related to ‘teeing,’ which is not present in stand-up hockey. If a player charges an opposing player or goalie using any part of the front radius of their sled, it’s called for teeing, which has a specific signal we use and the fact that the players are in a sled with two sticks.”

Off the ice, anyone who has attended a World Para Ice Hockey event knows the officiating crew is like a second family during tournament time — with the venues being their home away from home for days and weeks at a time in the sport.

“What I am most looking forward to is being around my officiating brothers,” Webinger said. “I only get to see these guys once or twice a year, as they come from all over the world for these events. It’s always a fantastic opportunity to catch up with my second family. Of course, the main reason we gather is to witness great competition; every year, the teams improve, becoming faster and more skilled, which makes our jobs more challenging, but that’s something we eagerly anticipate and look forward to.”