François St-Laurent (born 26 June 1977) is a Canadian ice hockey referee, currently working in the National Hockey League. In the summer of 1999, during a camp held by Ron Fournier, he told Réseau des Sports that his goal was to make it to the NHL. Said to have "an exceptional talent", he became a Level VI referee in the Hockey Canada Officiating Program during a seminar in November 2001, held in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
After wearing sweater number 38 since joining the league full-time in the 2009–10 NHL season (carrying it over from the American Hockey League after six seasons), St-Laurent changed to sweater number 8 in the 2019–20 NHL season.
Officiating career
Pre-junior league
St-Laurent began his career as an official at the age of fifteen. In 1998 and 1999, he worked the Coupe Dodge championship. He also participated in the 2000 Air Canada Cup, held in Montreal, Quebec.
Juniors to professional career
Quebec Major Junior Hockey League
St-Laurent joined the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in 1999, working thirty regular-season games and seven playoff games as a linesman. His first game in the league was on 10 September 1999, when he worked a game between the Val-d'Or Foreurs and Rouyn-Noranda Huskies. In the 2000-2001 season, he transitioned to a referee; the first regular-season game he worked as a referee came on 22 September 2000, as he worked the game between the Shawinigan Cataractes and Drummondville Voltigeurs. It would be the first of one hundred fifteen regular-season games he worked between the 00–01 and 02–03 seasons. St-Laurent would also work in twenty-four playoff games. He worked the President's Cup finals in both 2002 and 2003.
He worked the 2002 Memorial Cup, including the final game between the Victoriaville Tigres of the QMJHL and the Kootenay Ice of the Western Hockey League.
In March 2019, TVA personality (and former official) Stéphane Auger created a list of the league's top fifty officials throughout its then-fifty year history. For the list, only former QMJHL officials were considered; nobody on the current roster was named. Auger, listing his choices by region, named St-Laurent as one of the league's best officials.
American Hockey League
As he began to work games in the QMJHL, St-Laurent was hired by the American Hockey League as a linesman for the 1999–00 AHL season. His first regular-season game in the AHL came on 22 November 1999, as the St. John's Maple Leafs faced off against the Quebec Citadelles. He spent four years working the lines in the AHL before he was hired by the NHL as a referee. While Quebec would be his home base, he would also work games in Ontario (Hamilton Bulldogs), New Brunswick (Saint John Flames), and Newfoundland (St. John's); all three of which came in the 2002–03 AHL season.
His first regular-season AHL game as a newly-hired referee came on 11 October 2003, in a game between the Providence Bruins and Worcester IceCats. During his stint in the AHL, St-Laurent worked the Calder Cup finals in 2008 and 2009. He also worked the AHL All-Star Classic in 2009, held in Worcester, Massachusetts.
During the 2015–16 AHL season, St-Laurent worked two games in the month of January, marking his first games in the league since the summer of 2009. The games were what appeared to be part of a rehabilitation assignment. He had missed two and a half months due to an unknown reason, and returned to the NHL in February 2016.
National Hockey League
St-Laurent was hired by the National Hockey League in the fall of 2003, as one of six officials signed that year. The number he had been assigned was in use by referee Craig Spada.
Although he was hired in 2003, St-Laurent did not work in the NHL that season. Due to the 2004–05 NHL lockout, his first regular-season National Hockey League game came on 10 November 2005, in a game between the Ottawa Senators and Boston Bruins. He worked in ten other games that season, bouncing back and forth between the NHL and the American Hockey League. After working in sixty-six regular-season games over the course of four seasons, he would make the jump to the NHL officiating roster full-time at the start of the 2009–10 NHL season. His first game as a full-time official came on 2 October 2009, in a game between the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins.
In October 2011, then-Director of Officiating Terry Gregson was asked to briefly assess St-Laurent, among other officials in the NHL at the time. Gregson said that St-Laurent was one of the "very good young referees" at the time of the evaluation.