OFFICIAL – HOCKEY – INDUCTED IN 2012
Bryan Lewis began refereeing as a teenager at Georgetown’s Memorial Arena, leading to a career that saw him become the third NHL referee to officiate 1,000 games.
With NHL expansion looming, Lewis attended a referee clinic in Detroit, where he caught the league’s attention. He made his NHL debut as a linesman in 1967.
After working in the minors for three years, he refereed his first NHL game in 1970 at the Montreal Forum, also the site of his first playoff game in 1973 and his 1,000th game in 1985.
Lewis refereed the 1981 All-Star Game in Los Angeles and later that year earned his first of four Stanley Cup final assignments. He also refereed in the 1984 Canada Cup.
Lewis would go on to referee 1,023 regular season games and 30 playoff games.
His final game was a 1986 playoff matchup between Edmonton and Calgary. Though he intended to return the following season, he was asked to join the league office. There he worked under fellow Georgetown resident John McCauley, the NHL director of officiating. When McCauley died in 1989, Lewis was asked to take over the role.
Over the next 11 years, Lewis ushered in two of the biggest changes in officiating, video review and the two-referee system, which he was instrumental in developing the positioning and responsibilities for the officials.
Since retiring from the NHL, Lewis has held positions with the ECHL, Central Hockey League, Ontario University Athletics and the Professional Women’s Hockey League. He continued to mentor young officials in a supervisor role with the Ontario Hockey Association.
Lewis was the Georgetown Hockey Heritage Award recipient in 2000, won the OHA’s Gold Stick Award in 2009 and was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 2023, the first person inducted solely as an official.