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Steven Rouillard has always been a rink rat.

If ice time was available, the former Leavitt Area High School hockey forward and Maine high school referee was there.

“When (Rouillard) wasn’t playing, he was reffing,” said Mike Keaney, who worked with Rouillard as a referee in the area. “(He) was really involved in the game and whenever he had an opportunity to learn as a referee, always hung around the older referees, whether it was myself or other gentlemen.”

Seventeen years after he last played high school hockey, Rouillard will referee his second Frozen Four, the signature event in NCAA Division I men’s college hockey.

“When you first get that phone call of your first championship game or the first Frozen Four, it’s kind of surreal,” said Rouillard, 34, a Turner resident who’s worked for Hockey East for eight years. “I kind of went through a whole process of becoming a better official, not really knowing what would come of it. And I went through a lot of leads where I never worked that far into the playoffs and never worked the championship game until I got to some minor pro hockey.”

The Frozen Four, which will determine the national champion, begins Thursday with a pair of semifinals. Wisconsin will play North Dakota at 5 p.m., while Denver will play Michigan at 8:30 p.m. The winners will play for the title at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

Rouillard was part of the crew for the Denver-Michigan game.

The NCAA National Coordinator of Officials typically assigns officials to the Frozen Four games. It tries to tap officials from conferences that are not involved in the matchups.

Rouillard, who works for a Minnesota marketing company, said he makes $300 to $500 to officiate a men’s college hockey game. He’s officiated about 35 games this season.

Rouillard first worked collegiate hockey’s championship event in Tampa, Florida, in 2023.

This weekend, he’ll call T-Mobile Arena — home of the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights — his office and work one of the three games.  

“You kind of think back, and you realize you’re not sure how many you’re going to have of these,” said Rouillard, who graduated from Leavitt in 2009. “So to be here twice is hard to describe … it’s some of the most fun that we’ll ever have, so I’m just trying to take every moment and slow down time a little bit and have fun with it.”

Rouillard started officiating Maine high school hockey games while at Leavitt and then the University of Southern Maine before earning professional minor league hockey and collegiate assignments. He has primarily officiated in New England.

Rouillard officiates Hockey East games Friday and Saturday nights from October to early April. He’s often working at schools such as Boston College, Boston University and the University of New Hampshire.

“(Rouillard) just worked a ton of games and took advantage of opportunities that were given (to) him,” Keaney said. “And then when he got out of high school and when he was studying and in college, he took advantage of the opportunity to work in the official development program with USA hockey … he basically traveled all over the country doing high-level junior games, got a lot of mentoring from top-level officials throughout the country.

“For a kid like (Rouillard) from a small town in Maine to make it to that level, I think it’s just a tribute to his hard work, his dedication and really his ability to really take advantage.”