Sports
St. Clair Shores Woman Refereeing At Olympics
After playing college hockey, Melissa Szkola found a second career as a referee, and is making her Olympics debut this week in Pyeongchang.
St. Clair Shores resident Melissa Szkola will serve as a women’s hockey referee at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
“It’s been a goal of mine for the last 13 years,” Szkola told the Detroit Free Press. “I’m definitely very excited.”
Szkola began skating as a toddler, and says she was on the ice at 19 months. Szkola grew up around hockey - her brother, Sean Orr, played on a travel team, and Szkola worked at an ice rink in Port Huron, where she grew up. After playing hockey for Oakland University, Szkola, who graduated with a master’s in kinesiology and who owns and operates a local crossfit gym, got certified to ref international events in 2010.
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Szkola isn’t sure how many games she’ll officiate at the Olympics, saying that is “performance based.”
For full coverage, follow this story in the Detroit Free Press.
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Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images.
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