You think your commute is rough? Cody Beach worked 73 NHL games last season. To do it, he traveled 57,141 miles – more than twice around the Earth and more miles than any NHL team all season – just to show up for work.

He’s not an outlier. He’s part of a workforce that logged 3,104,683 combined miles last season: NHL officials. 

We ran the numbers on every assignment from the 2025-26 season to measure exactly how far the stripes travel:

Road Warriors

Referees averaged about 40,400 miles for the season; linespersons about 37,000.  Some officials racked up far more than that. Here are the most-traveled officials in the NHL for 2025-26:

Official

Games

Miles

Cody Beach

73

57,141

Chris Schlenker

76

56,949

Graham Skilliter

76

56,414

Tom Chmielewski

75

55,935

Jordan Samuels-Thomas

75

53,681

Trevor Hanson

76

52,671

Corey Syvret

77

52,239

Wes McCauley

77

51,366

Kiel Murchison

77

50,863

Travis Toomey

76

49,628

 

For comparison, the San Jose Sharks were the team that racked up the most miles, going 48,847 miles in 2025-26. The average NHL team clocked in at 39,321 miles.

Like the teams, some officials had a lighter load. Liney Dan Kelly traveled just 31,199 miles to work his 76 games. Next up were David Brisebois (77 games, 33,196) and Brandon Blandina (75 games, 34,362). The reason for the difference has a little bit to do with geography.

East vs. West

Mileage tells you how far the officials went, but the assignments tell you where they ended up. While all officials work in every building each year, it’s not necessarily an even balance.  Adding to the complexity is the fact that NHL officials’ home bases are spread out all across Canada and the US.

Some guys tend to see more time out west. A cluster of officials worked roughly two-thirds of their games in the Pacific Division last season: linesmen Caleb Apperson (68%), Joe Mahon (67%), Trent Knorr (65%), Bevan Mills (62%), Travis Toomey (62%), and Kiel Murchison (61%), plus referees Graedy Hamilton (61%), Graham Skilliter (59%), and Kyle Rehman (58%).

There’s a similar split for the east coast. Half of all NHL games are played in the Eastern Time Zone, but linesman Michel Cormier worked 86% of his games there. Tommy Hughes came in at 82%, Scott Cherrey 79%, and Jonny Murray 77%; referees Furman South and Chris Rooney – both based in the Eastern time zone – each sat at 74% of their assignments back east. 

Gimme a Break!

The officials do get time off, it’s just jammed in between all their assignments.  The average official got about six three-day breaks and three four-day breaks over the season.  A week off? Save it for the summer. Full week-long layoffs were rare; outside of the Olympic break, most officials never had more than two breaks of five or more days all season. 

Frequent Flyer Buddies

Officials travel alone… for the most part. There do tend to be some pairings that fall into place, especially for some western Canada and west coast swings.  The most frequent travel partners last season, based on game assignments:

  • Referee Cody Beach and liney Travis Gawryletz — seven shared legs, working the same back-to-back-to-back swings
  • Referee Trevor Hanson and liney Ryan Gibbons — six shared legs
  • Referee Kendrick Nicholson and liney Jonathan Deschamps — six shared legs

For guys who are typically on their own until the pre-game lunch, it’s nice to have a partner for some of the longer trips during the season.

DIY Road Trips

Nobody handles the logistics for these guys. NHL players travel on team charters with equipment managers to haul their gear. Officials get a schedule and have to do the rest themselves.  The league covers the costs for hotels, mileage, airport parking, and taxi or car rental costs, plus $20 a day each for laundry and internet on top of the per diem. The bills get paid by the NHL. The work, though – booking, packing, washing, hauling, dining – is up to the stripes. 

They book their own travel. Every official is their own travel agent during the season.  When Czech linesman Libor Suchanek came to North America, one of his biggest adjustments wasn’t the rulebook, it was that “he wasn’t used to booking flights and hotels as he has to do in the NHL,” according to NHL.com. 

They haul their own gear. Referee Dan O’Rourke packs a suitcase that weighs exactly 52 pounds — he knows to the pound when he’s forgotten something — and, as ESPN reported, “he never leaves for a trip without his black-and-white striped uniform, which he is responsible for transporting (and laundering) himself between cities, his skates, gym clothes, toiletries and a high-powered blender.”

They do their own laundry. Linesman Greg Devorski told NHL.com prior to his retirement: “We pack our own bags, do our own laundry and it all comes with us.” Hotel laundry isn’t always an option. “More often than not, my undergarments will go in the bathtub,” said Driscoll, taking a low-tech, manual approach. “I get some soap and water and wash them around then hang them up.” After some games, he skipped the tub entirely and opted for a post-game on-body wash: “I’ll take off my gear but leave on my tights and T-shirt and socks on and just go right in the shower and wash them that way. They were already wet anyway.”

They feed themselves. The league’s per diem is $110 a day to cover food and incidentals. There’s no guarantee of a postgame meal at the arena. “Some teams have gotten better over the years in how they treat us,” O’Rourke told ESPN. “Sometimes there’s a hot meal waiting for us after the game, with a protein and vegetables. But other arenas…”  If the rink doesn’t feed them, the officials are on their own.

They get themselves to the rink. The league reimburses taxi and rental car costs, but actually getting the ride is on the stripes. It’s the same way with flights, and when one gets delayed or cancelled, they’re often left fighting for a seat. “Maybe you had a flight delay and you’re stuck in an airport for eight hours,” linesman Tyson Baker told theScore. “Maybe you’ve got to hustle home after a trip because you have another plane to catch.”

The next time you see an official sprinting to keep up with a 3-on-2 in the third game of a four-night western swing, remember what it took them to get there, literally. They flew commercial to get to the game, they’ll book their own flight to the next city, and they’ll do it 70 more times before April. And they still have to do their own laundry. It’s all just part of the job.

 


Mileage was determined as the distance between consecutive assignments, arena to arena, in chronological order,  for all 1,312 games of the 2025-26 regular season. It does not include travel from an official’s home base to their first assignment or from their last assignment home. Breaks count consecutive days off between assignments. AHL/NHL officials’ data does not include miles traveled in the AHL or between NHL and AHL assignments. Team mileage uses the same arena-to-arena method based on each club’s 82-game schedule.