Re the pay: it generally takes 20-30 mins to get to the rink and again 20-30 to get home. You need to be there 20 mins beforehand at least. You need to pay for certification, registration, getting to training sites, helmet w half visor, whistle, pants, shirt, skate sharpening. If you don’t drive, your parent has to spend all that time and gas $ driving to the rink. If you get hurt, you pay the copay and the related injury costs. It’s $50 but it is literally 2.5 hours all in. The only way to actually make money is to get lucky enough to get multiple games in a row in the same rink. It is not easy to do this because refs sign up first come first serve. So sometimes you have an hour or two in between games. Oh, and some games pay $30! Some are $35, $40 and $45. I also stay with my son while he refs bc a) where am I going to go in an hour and b) want to make sure I have his back if anything goes left or he gets hurt.
Pretty sure most jobs require an unpaid commute you communist.
Re the pay: it generally takes 20-30 mins to get to the rink and again 20-30 to get home. You need to be there 20 mins beforehand at least. You need to pay for certification, registration, getting to training sites, helmet w half visor, whistle, pants, shirt, skate sharpening. If you don’t drive, your parent has to spend all that time and gas $ driving to the rink. If you get hurt, you pay the copay and the related injury costs. It’s $50 but it is literally 2.5 hours all in. The only way to actually make money is to get lucky enough to get multiple games in a row in the same rink. It is not easy to do this because refs sign up first come first serve. So sometimes you have an hour or two in between games. Oh, and some games pay $30! Some are $35, $40 and $45. I also stay with my son while he refs bc a) where am I going to go in an hour and b) want to make sure I have his back if anything goes left or he gets hurt.
Tell you son, Welcome to the fraternity. I can guess the assignor he's working with based upon the post so I'll offer this first tidbit, find a different assignor.
Posted on the other thread, start your son w/ Valley League if you can. Get accepted into their system by following the link on the Valley website and have him open up his schedule as wide as possible. It'll take a bit to get games as VHL typically schedules out a few weeks in advance but they will always do a 2 or 3 game set. In addition, they typically will limit a first year ref to Mites/Squirts until a more experienced ref says he can handle it. Which brings up, outside of xice mites, VHL does a good job of pairing new ref's with more experienced ref's in my experience. This is all I would allow my boys to do their first year.
If the pay isn't enough, just Google Referee Crease. Same thing, open your schedule up and let them assign the games, more open the schedule, the more games you get. Just beware, your son will get scheduled on games he very well may not be ready for and make sure you set the distance from home to something reasonable otherwise that 20 minute drive you are complaining about will be an hour plus. Again, I've never seen them assign one off games, typically 3 to 5 game sets based upon availability.
Last, although the coaches can be a bit much, it can be a great learning experience for young adults. Not every person they are going to run into in life is going to be nice, not every boss is even tempered. Learning to stay even tempered & deescalate the situation are valuable life skills. My 16 year old is in his third year and is even better than I am at this.
We need younger kids to stay with the program, it can really be a great part time job. My youngest only works games on Sunday's for the most part because of his HS hockey schedule but still pulls in $150 to $300 for that day.