By Suzie Ziegler
SAN DIEGO — San Diego Det. Jamie Huntley-Park was training to referee women’s hockey at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, but she never got to go. Sadly, she and her husband, Det. Ryan Park, were killed by a wrong-way driver in June. But Huntley-Park was there in spirit.
A group of fellow hockey officials honored their late colleague on the ice at the Winter Games, reported NBC San Diego. Kendall Hanley and Jackie Spresser, both former friends and teammates, took time to remember her.
“I mean it’s hard not to have her around at all. But the Olympics was absolutely something she was supposed to be a part of,” Spresser told NBC San Diego.
Hanley added, “It’s not just on the ice that we loved being around each other. It was off the ice too.”
Spresser and Hanley explained that it takes years of training to officiate an Olympic hockey game. Huntley-Park would have been among an elite group of only 22 women selected.
[RELATED: Canadian police officer heads to Beijing Olympics to referee hockey]
At the Beijing Games, hockey officials honored Huntley-Park’s memory by giving her an empty locker with her name on it.
“That’s where she would have been if she were there,” said Spresser.
They also wore the jersey numbers 69 and 30 for Huntley-Park’s police badge number, 6930, according to the report. Hockey officials also created challenge coins with the number 23 – a reference to her hockey jersey number.
“Jamie was incredibly proud of what we did as a group in Beijing,” said Hanley. “I know she would have been. And was with us the entire time. I felt her every time we hit the ice.”
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