Sports Officials Canada Awards

Sports Officials Canada announced today that Figure Skating judge Beth Crane (Burnaby) and Athletics official Dennis Beerling (Saskatoon) have been named Canada’s top Female and Male Officials of the 2014 SOC Awards of Excellence.

They are two of a slate of 4 winners announced by Sports Officials Canada for its annual awards and Hall of Fame inductions.

Beth Cranes’ career as a Figure Skating judge is more than 30 years and her record includes 2 World Championships, 16 International Figure Skating (ISU) event and 6 Canadian Championships.

Beth is a qualified ISU Judge and Referee in singles and pairs, an ISU Technical Controller in singles and has been nominated for promotion as the latter for pairs as well.

Her peers look to her for technical information and guidance when officiating any event at any stage as well.

She is involved in skating from local club competitions to the World Championships, as well as through education initiatives for officials of all levels and currently serves as the Chair of the Skate Canada Officials Development committee. .

Dennis Beerling has been officiating Athletics for 50 years and has officiated at the ‘76 Olympics, ‘78 and ‘94 Commonwealth Games, ’83 World Student Games and the 2001 World Championships.

As an IAAF Area Technical Official for NACAC (North America, Central America and Caribbean Area) he has supervised officials at meets in the NACAC region. He will also be officiating at the 2014 World Youth Games in Columbia.

On the local front he has also officiated at numerous Canada Games, 7 Western Canada Games, the Saskatchewan Summer Games and the 2004 Junior Nationals.

He was also a registered softball umpire for over 15 years and served on numerous boards and leagues in fostering softball locally and internationally.

Dennis has mentored many officials over the years and has been instrumental in the development of the Officials Mentoring Program and served as an instructor.  As a level 5 Starter, Dennis has mentored and guided many new starters.  He has served on the Athletics Canada Officials Committee for 8 years.

He is the recipient of many awards including the 2013 Saskatoon Citizen of the Year, 2001 Saskatchewan Athletics Official of the Year, 2000 Athletics Canada Official of the Year, 1987 Athletics Canada Officials Wall of Honour and, the 1982 Saskatoon Kinsmen Sportsman of the year.

Dennis worked as an educator and administrator for the SK schools. He continues to volunteer his time to the arts community in Saskatoon where he founded the Saskatoon Gateway Players and Theatre for Children.

Wayne Pomario (Vancouver) from the sport of Cycling is this years’ inductee in the Builder Category and winner of the Allen G. Rae Builders Award.

Wayne has been involved in the sport of cycling for 23 years as a competitor, organizer, administrator and official.  As an official Wayne has served at all levels.

He qualified as an International Cycling Union (UCI) official in 1997 with the highest marks in the class.

He is qualified internationally in the Road and Track disciplines, as a national Cyclo-cross official and as a provincial A level MTB official.

He has served as a member of the panel and chief commissaire at many international, national and provincial level events, including numerous Road, Track and Cyclo-cross National Championships.

Highlights include being the chief official at five separate World Championships and being appointed to the panel at three others; his selection as the chief official at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games; being the number two official at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, and in 2010 being the chief official at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India.

Wayne is the first North American official to be appointed as the chief official for a Pro Tour event and has been selected as the International Technical Delegate for the road and track cycling events at the 2015 Pan Am Games.

Wayne is involved in the development of rules and regulations for the International Cycling Union. He has served, and continues to serve on a number of working groups in this regard.

He designed a training course that has been used to train national level officials in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Namibia and has presented this course a number of times in South Africa.

He also designed the current British Columbia official’s course, which has been used since 2000 in BC.

Sports Officials Canada also presents the Award for Professional Excellence and the award this year goes to NHL Hockey referee Don Van Massenhoven of Strathroy.

Don started when he was 15 and began officiating in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) where he was first a linesman and in 1989 became a referee.

Before coming to the NHL, Don served as an officer with the Ontario Provincial Police for 10 years.

More than two decades after getting the call informing him he would be working his first NHL game, he still sees numerous parallels between his careers in officiating and law enforcement.

His first game was November 11, 1993.   With less than 24 hours’ notice, and while on duty with the OPP, Don was asked to fill in for another official.

The rookie headed to Boston, where the Bruins hosted the Edmonton Oilers.  He handed out 56 minutes in penalties during a game which included 4 fights.

From there, Don went on to have a spectacular career spanning 23 years with the NHL. He refereed 1277 regular season games, 89 playoff games and 5 conference finals.

Don has refereed at all levels for the NHL representing them in World Cup, Challenge Cup and All Star Game play.

He was selected to officiate at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy and was chosen to referee at the first Winter Classic between Pittsburgh and Buffalo in 2007.

Don has been involved in the community on different levels including hosting a ball tournament for years, raising funds for great causes.

He also has been part of management and most recently President of the very successful Strathroy Rockets hockey team.

He was an NHLOA executive member for many years and also was one of the founders of the association’s website showing his passion and commitment to the group and career.

With nearly two decades of NHL service under his belt, Don has earned quite a bit of respect around the league not only from his fellow officials, but also from the players and coaches.

He worked his final game on April 4th 2014, at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit in a game between the Buffalo Sabres and the Detroit Red Wings.  He isn’t done with hockey, as he will continue as President of the Strathroy Rockets Junior B team.

The awards will be presented on Saturday September 27, 2014 at the Sports Officials Canada Hall of Fame Dinner, being held in conjunction with their annual conference at the Delta Ottawa City Centre in Ottawa, Ontario.

Sports Officials Canada is a federally incorporated national organization dedicated to promoting excellence in sports officiating. SOC represents Canadian technical officials as a national voice.

Special thanks to www.sportsofficials.ca or contact them at info@sportsofficials.ca

Visit the virtual Hall of Fame via the SOC website.