BC Referee to make Northern Super League Debut
This Kamloops referee took the BC Soccer Entry-Level referee course in 2019 and not even six years later, she’ll be making her professional debut in the Northern Super League.
Heather Lloyd picked up officiating after playing for Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops for 4 Years. She took her first referee course in 2019, but due to the Pandemic, she wasn’t able to properly begin her refereeing career until 2021-22.
“For me, it is more fun than it is work, I love being involved in a sport that I’ve loved since I was a kid,” says Lloyd.
By day, Lloyd is a family lawyer in Kamloops, but this Sunday, she will be Assistant Referee #2 in Calgary for the NSL match between Calgary Wild FC and Montreal Roses FC.
Lloyd says, “Lawyers are attracted to refereeing because it’s an opportunity for us to be the judge and call the shots.”
In just three years, Lloyd has gone from officiating grassroots levels to now a professional match. She joined BC Soccer’s Referee Provincial Program in 2022, which has given her access to high level training and game environments, including League 1 BC, Provincial, and National Tournaments.
“Heather's maturity, professionalism, and coachability have been her greatest strengths since day one in the Provincial Program. She has worked very hard to earn an appointment at the professional level in a relatively short timeframe,” says Hagen Herold, BC Soccer’s Referee Development Coordinator.
The learning curve has been very steep, but combining the sport she loves with some new friends makes the whole journey that much more fulfilling.
“The sense of belonging and the support you get from other referees, it’s like a whole separate family you get,” says Lloyd. “Not even just locally, but across BC and now across Canada, I’ve made some really good friendships and for me, that’s the best part about it.”
The Northern Super League, Canada’s new professional women’s soccer league, has made it a mission to use an all-female team of officials whenever possible, and therefore opportunities in soccer are more plentiful than ever before, something Lloyd is very proud of.
“To have those opportunities to keep Canadian female players in Canada is huge,” says Lloyd. “It’s a real point of pride for me to be able to say that we have that in Canada now.”
Heather Lloyd and her team referees are busy doing their homework ahead of the match in Calgary. The match itself is just a small portion of what goes into officiating. The homework and administrative aspect of the job is something Lloyd says is often undervalued. The referees will often connect days or weeks before the game and start watching clips of the teams they will be refereeing.
“We look for players that stand out. How teams play, such as how they take their goal kicks or how they take their corner kicks. Who are their key players, who are their problematic players, what are their coaches like? Is the team physical or a bit more technical? Those types of things,” explains Lloyd.
All of these aspects of a given team need to be considered by the referees before they even step foot on the field.
This Sunday, May 18th, watch Kamloops’ own Heather Lloyd make her Northern Super League debut officiating the match between the Calgary Wild and Montreal Roses from McMahon Stadium in Calgary, Alberta live on TSN+ or streaming live at nsl.ca
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