Heather Weems saw an example of how tight-knit the hockey community is when she attended a memorial service earlier this fall for former NCHC officiating supervisor Brent Rutherford.
The NCHC’s commissioner had traveled from her home base in Minnesota to Madison Heights, Mich., a northern Detroit suburb, to help celebrate the life of Brendan “Brent” Francis Rutherford, who died Sept. 20 at the age of 73, following an illness.
“I flew out and met his family, and the cool thing that I see among the officials is that there’s a brotherhood, just like there’s a brotherhood on teams and among the coaches,” Weems said. “His family, including a couple of his nieces who he was really close to and a sister, they were so blown away by the number of phone calls and visits, and people who had flown in to talk to him and spend time with him.
“(Family members) knew that he did this officiating stuff but were blown away by the level of care, concern and friendship that had developed over time. It’s a behind-the-scenes thing in sports, but that whole brotherhood of officials and people who support the sport, it’s so great to see.”
Rutherford was a supervisor of officials for the NCHC for nine seasons, from 2015 through this past 2023-24 campaign. All told, he served as an officiating supervisor in college hockey for nearly 25 years, including over a decade between the former CCHA and WCHA conferences. He had also joined the officiating supervisor staff for the Federal Prospects Hockey League, a single-A minor league, ahead of the FPHL’s 2023-24 season.
He previously was an on-ice official in NCAA hockey for 20 seasons, refereeing for 18 and working another two as a linesman. He was selected to officiate conference playoff games across 12 consecutive seasons and worked several NCAA tournament games.
The NCHC has six largely geographically-based supervisors of officials, plus Mike Schmitt, the conference’s director of officiating. Owing to the NCHC’s increasingly large reach, Rutherford primarily worked closest to home with games at Western Michigan and Miami. Weems said that the conference will likely intend to find a successor to Rutherford in that area of the country, although for now, the NCHC is flying officials out to work games in Kalamazoo, Mich., and Oxford, Ohio, respectively.
Throughout this season, NCHC officials are sporting helmet decals that feature the initials of Rutherford, who would’ve turned 74 last Friday.
“Obviously you want to be thoughtful about the process, but also you want to be able to honor him,” Weems said of the helmet decals’ creation. “It came up at that point that, ‘How do we make sure that Brent knows he’s being thought of?’
“The stickers are our way of recognizing him and the challenge he was going through. When we were at an officiating camp, shortly before he passed, that was a discussion among all our officials, and they did a nice ad hoc video for him, as well, just to talk to him and thank him for his service and let him know how much they appreciate and were thinking about him.”
Conference officials moved quickly to make sure that this season would run in Rutherford’s memory, but his influence is bound to extend much further into the future.
“What’s special about our league is the supervisor relationship with all of the officials,” Weems said. “I think it’s so beneficial that the guys, as they’re going out there, essentially have a coach. During the game, in between periods if anything goes wrong, or after the game, there’s a critical feedback loop that gives the officials a level of support, and a time of reflection about what happened with the game.
“Brent was passionate about the game. He’d been an official, he knew what it was to live that life, and they identify with each other, and they know what it’s like to get screamed at by the fans or get criticized by the coaches and the student-athletes. He was passionate about the game, and he understood the officials and the need to support them and help them be their best.”
