To join SHOA and become a member of our officiating family, you must:

1. Be completely registered with USA Hockey and have received a current USA Hockey card and crest.
2. Attend a new member meeting (preferred). Meetings will be scheduled soon (usually early fall), so please keep checking this page for information. The schedule will be posted as soon as meeting dates and locations are known.
3. If you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT attend a new member meeting, read and review the New Member presentation on SHOA and successfully pass the related questionnaire. The questionnaire is a Microsoft Word document. Click here to download it. Fill it out, answering all the questions, and send it back to the address indicated in the document.
4. Submit a SHOA membership form, click here to access the membership form. Please DO NOT fill out a membership request until you have received your USA Hockey Referee card and crest, indicating that you are fully registered with USA Hockey.
   
5. After your membership form has been processed, you will receive a confirmation email that your membership has been activated.  You may now log in to the members only page of the web site. The email will have instructions on how to submit your Independent Contractor Agreement (Item 8).
6. Fill out a W-9 form. You need to send the W-9 to the SHOA Secretary at the following address: SHOA Secretary, P.O. Box 3194, Oakton, VA 22124.
7. SHOA will then admit you into membership and give you access to the members only section of our web site.
8. Log into web site and submit an Independent Contractors Agreement (ICA) electronically.
9. After you have submitted your ICA, you will be able to subscribe to the SHOA mailing list.  The confirmation email mentioned in item 5 will contain also instructions on how to subscribe.
10. SHOA will establish an account for the new member in Arbiter, the web-based system used by SHOA for scheduling officials. As soon as your account is created in Arbiter, you will receive an email from Arbiter with all the instructions you need to use your account, the first time and on subsequent logins. Follow the instructions to log into Arbiter, update the personal information and phone numbers, and click on the "Ready" button.
11. The Arbiter system also includes something called RefPay, which allows SHOA to pay you seamlessly for the games you work. In order to use RefPay, you must first register with RefPay (this is separate from the registration with Arbiter, which is done by SHOA, and you can do this once you are set up in Arbiter). From the Arbiter home page, click on the PAYMENTS tab. You will see the RefPay logo in the middle of the page. Click on the logo and you will go to the login page where you can create a RefPay account. Click on the Sign Up! button and follow the prompts. You will need your banking account information (Name and address of bank, Routing number, Account number). When SHOA starts using RefPay, the payments for your games will be automatically deposited into your RefPay account every month. After the money is in your RefPay account, you have the option of leaving it there or transferring it into your bank account (which is why you need to enter your banking information when you create your RefPay account).

Have you completed steps 1 through 11? Congratulations! You are now a member in good standing of SHOA and you can start officiating games under SHOA’s jurisdiction. Check the list of schedulers in the members only section of our web site and start contacting them in order to get games.

Good luck and see you at the rink!
For more information, please contact:
Didier Devynck
SHOA Webmaster
webmaster@shoarefs.org