Weyburn’s Alex Clarke found herself in Saskatoon last week, where she was one of the officials working the Four Nations Cup, an annual women’s hockey tournament featuring Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland.

For Clarke, it was more experience working at the international level. This comes after officiating a pre-Olympic game between Canada and the U.S. last year, and a tournament in Mexico.

“It was really fun,” Clarke said about the tournament in Saskatoon. “It was a good experience, I think, to be on the ice with a bunch of Olympians from multiple different countries, and I think even the learning experience for me, officiating at that level, at that speed, at that calibre, will be helpful going forward.”

For Clarke, who referees minor and junior hockey in the province, as well as working the lines in the SJHL, she has seen her fair share of rivalries and shenanigans on the ice. This includes being one of the officials during the Weyburn Red Wings - Flin Flon Bombers brawl early this season.

Feeling the tension on the ice when Canada played the U.S. at the tournament was completely different. The rivalry between the top two teams in the world was something she felt as soon as she took the ice.

“I worked their pre-Olympic game their pre-Olympic game last year in Edmonton, and that was my first time I kind of ever experienced that, so seeing it again this year on the ice just intensified it even more, and you could see it multiple times and really sense it is a lasting thing,” Clarke said, trying to describe the atmosphere on the ice.

During the tournament, Clarke also made a name for herself, even if it wasn’t in a way she would have expected, or wanted. While retrieving the puck after an icing call, she tripped up over a player's stick. She ended up sliding into the boards on her bottom. She bounced right back up and skated the puck back down. The camera crews from TSN, though, caught the slip.

“The camera stayed on me for about 30 seconds while I skated all the way down to the other end, did a couple of transitions in the neutral zone while I waited for my partner to drop the puck,” Clarke chuckled, recalling the event. “My butt got a lot of airtime over that.”

After working the lines at the Four Nations Cup, Clarke will be stepping back into her role officiating minor hockey in the province. She referees boys’ and girls’ hockey, from Bantam all the way to senior. She also wears the armbands for Junior B hockey and works the lines in the SJHL.

After spending some more time on the rinks in her backyard, Clarke will be off on another international adventure in the spring. She has been selected to referee the Division 1 Group B tournament of the Women’s World Championships in Beijing, China. This will see her work games feature teams such as China, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland and South Korea. These are teams which are two steps below where Canada and the U.S. are in terms of development in female hockey.

“There’s definitely a huge difference in the calibre, just because of the number of years that those countries have had national teams doesn’t compare to the number of years Canada or the U.S. have had women’s national hockey teams, but they’re getting there, and it’s improving, and I think that every year they get better and they get closer to those levels, but there is a bit of a gap,” Clarke said, describing the difference between the Four Nations Cup, and the lower tiers of the IIHF rankings.

As for her goals in her career on the ice, she is hoping to work the World Championships themselves, or the Under 18 World Championships. Working the top IIHF tournament would help clear the way for her to have the experience for working the Olympics, her top goal.

As for whether or not she would want to take her talents as an official to the NHL?

“I don’t think it’s the lifestyle I want, so I don’t really have that goal for myself,” Clarke replied.