Dan O'Rourke

O’Rourke, a Calgary Alberta native played professional hockey until the age of 26. The former left wing played three full seasons in the Western Hockey League (WHL) from 1990 to 1993. He scored 8 goals and 20 assists in a total of 114 WHL games but was more known for his physical play ranking up a total of 438 penalty minutes over his three seasons in the Juniors.

O’Rourke began his professional career in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) with the Erie Panthers registering 30 points (9G-21A) and 296 penalty minutes in 64 games during his first season. He would spend the following season (1994-95) in the Central Hockey League (CHL), playing for the Tulsa Oilers.

He returned to the ECHL in 1995-96 with the now defunct Louisiana Ice Gators where he would spend his final two seasons as a player. In his final year, he also appeared in two International Hockey League (IHL) games, playing one with the Detroit Vipers and one with the Houston Aeros.

Now that his playing years were over, O’Rourke traded his stick for a whistle and attended the Ontario Hockey Association Officials Camp. His great skating abilities, extensive knowledge of the game and also his strong personality got him hired by the ECHL as a linesman for the 1997-98 season.

His on-ice performance as a linesman was quickly recognized by the ECHL officiating department as O’Rourke was selected to work the prestigious Kelly Cup Finals in his second season only. That same summer (1999), The National Hockey League offered him a minor league linesman contract (40/40). He would go on and work 54 NHL games and 26 AHL games during his first year under an NHL minor league contract. That same year he was also selected to work the lines in the AHL Calder Cup Finals.

O’Rourke was then promoted to a full time NHL linesman in the summer of 2000. Because of the two referee system being adopted by the NHL for all of its games around that era, there was a shortage in quality referees coming up in the different minor leagues in North America as most of them had already being hired by the NHL. O’Rourke then decided after his first full time NHL linesman season that he would rather be a referee than a linesman and decided give it a try!

The NHL and the NHLOA had a program then to encourage some linesmen to make the switch to the referee profession, they would go back in the AHL as referee under a minor league referee contract but would have the option of taking their NHL linesman job back after 4 years if the transition wasn’t successful. O’Rourke would not end up taking this last option, he would spend a total of 4 seasons as a minor league referee working primarily the AHL and his share of NHL games.

He was selected to work the Calder Cup Finals in each of his last three seasons in the minors. He was promoted as a full-time NHL referee in the summer of 2005. He would have been promoted a year earlier but because of the NHL lock-out that saw the entire 2004-05 season being canceled, he decided to stay in the minors to work while a peaceful resolution was found between the NHL and its players.