The 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship will be the first IIHF women’s tournament that will be officiated with four officials calling each game – two referees and two linesmen.

Until 2014 only the top-two levels in the men’s senior category and the top level of the U20 and U18 categories as well as the Olympic men’s ice hockey tournaments have been officiated with four instead of three officials assigned for each game.

Speed has been the determining factor in increasing the number of officials to allow a high quality of officiating and after the development of top-level women’s hockey in the recent years, the annual flagship event in international women’s hockey will also be officiated by four officials.

The IIHF Officiating Committee suggested the change earlier this year and the system was successfully tested in July during the 2014 IIHF Women’s High Performance Camp before the change was approved by the IIHF Council following the evaluation process.

With the change the IIHF assigned ten referees (up from six) and nine linesmen to officiate at the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship including three from the host country with referees Gabriella Gran and Katarina Timglas, and linesman Veronica Johansson.

The start of the new Olympic cycle with the four-man system means many fresh faces. Only three referees have officiated at top-level Women’s Worlds or Olympics before with Nicole Hertich (GER, 7), Marie Picavet (FRA, 2) and Anna Eskola (SUI, 1) while the other referees gave their recommendation at the 2014 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 Women’s World Championship or at lower divisions of women’s senior events.