Swedish league gets two professional referrees.

The Swedish hockey league has had amateur referrees and line judges since its inception. The league has not really had the revenues to support the stable of referees required and have them all be professional, that is to say, be full-time referrees with no part time work in the off season or even during the season.

This year the league is going to experiment with two professional referrees. Perhaps this is in response to last year's scandal in which a referree got a job with a gambling concern. This proved quite embarassing to the league and they had to ban the ref, who was not too pleased. I think this is a good move and should help the reliability of the officiating.