AHL players are seeing a new face working the lines, conducting face-offs, and breaking up skirmishes this week.

Finnish linesperson Onni Hautamäki made his AHL debut this past Tuesday night when the Laval Rocket hosted the Providence Bruins at Place Bell. Hautamäki, who works Liiga games, had his next assignment in Wednesday’s Toronto-Marlies-Belleville Senators contest. He remained in Belleville for Friday night’s game when the Rocket came to CAA Arena. His next games come Saturday and Sunday in Toronto for a pair of Marlies-Grand Rapids Griffins match-ups.

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These AHL assignments are the latest career achievement for Hautamäki, who has earned work at the IIHF World Championship and IIHF World Junior Championship. He has also been selected for the 2026 Winter Olympics men’s hockey competition in Italy this February. He also was chosen for the Liiga final last spring and won the Pentti Isotalo Award as the league’s top linesperson.

These types of officiating “exchange programs” are not completely new. In 2010, Swedish referee Marcus Vinnerborg began working games in both the NHL and AHL. According to the NHL Officials Association, Vinnerborg ultimately officiated 36 NHL regular-season games across two seasons. Russia’s Evgeny Romasko arrived in 2014 and logged four seasons in North America as a referee before returning home. Czech linesperson Libor Suchanek, who spent time in the AHL, later became the first full-time NHL official from outside of North America.

In 2018-19, long-time AHL referee Terry Koharski went the other direction across the Atlantic Ocean for a brief assignment in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga.

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