About Us

Who is The Referee's Closet?

The Referee's Closet is a mail-order ice hockey officials' equipment supplier. It opened in 1995 to give the local referees an inexpensive place to purchase equipment.  While open, The Referee's Closet has grown from servicing a limited number of officials in the New Jersey area to a national and international presence.  This is mostly attributed to the great word of mouth advertising that we have received.  (A special thank you goes out to everybody who has recommended The Referee's Closet to a fellow official.) 

The owner, Jim Nafus, has been an USA Hockey referee for 12 years and is quite familiar with all the equipment needed by today's officials.  This includes giving the customer an honest opinion of a piece of equipment.  If there is no "Owner's Analysis" listed for an item, just ask for our opinion.  We will NOT try to sell anything that is not needed or is "too much" of a piece of equipment.

Why are our prices so low?

Simple - we do not have large marketing and sponsorships budgets like other online stores.  Instead, we have chosen to allow ALL of our customers to receive great prices instead of making you (our customer) pay for advertising and endorsement deals.