Foxcroft Award for Pare

Sports Officials Canada announced today the winners of its' annual officiating awards. The group presents four awards annually to the best officials in the country.

One of the Awards presented by Sports Officials Canada is the Ron Foxcroft Award, recognizing excellence from an official in a professional sport. The award is in honour of Ron Foxcroft, Founder and Chairman of Fox 40 International, for his personal achievement as a basketball referee at the international level, the NCAA level and as an NBA league observer. The award also honours Ron’s considerable ongoing support of officiating development in Canada and to Sports Officials Canada.

The 2010 honouree for the Ron Foxcroft Award, for excellence in a professional sport environment comes from the ranks of the National Hockey League. Mark Pare of Windsor, Ontario began his officiating career working minor hockey around the city of Windsor and then Junior hockey and Major Junior hockey for the Ontario Hockey Association. In 1976 he was hired by the International Hockey League where he worked for three years. In 1979 he completed his apprenticeship and was hired by Mr. Scotty Morrison of the National Hockey League that summer.

He joined the National Hockey League Officials Association in September of 1979, working his first regular season game October 1, 1979 between Washington and Buffalo with referees Ron Wicks and Ray Scapinello. Since then he has worked over 2070 games, including 30 playoff games in a career that has spanned 32 years and ranks him third all-time in NHL games by a linesman. Prior to his retirement this past April, Mark had worked more games than any active linesman in the league. He was selected in 1997 to officiate in the pre-season games in Austria and again in Helsinki and Stockholm in 2003. He worked his final game April 11th between Detroit and Chicago.

The NHLOA would like to congratulate Mark on being recognized with this most prestigious award. It is a well-deserved honor for Mark.