Barwegen retires from officiating

By Lethbridge Herald on October 22, 2025.

Blair Takahashi Photo Brian Barwegen throws out a red card on Sunday during his last game before retirement.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Brian Barwegen officiated his last collegiate soccer game on Sunday at the University of Lethbridge  before retiring after 17 years of refereeing locally at the university, college and Alberta Major Soccer League levels.

The Coaldale product worked 248 games between Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference, USports and AMSL games, and that included working college nationals, USports nationals and provincial nationals when Lethbridge hosted them.

Barwegen’s last game was the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns men’s soccer game versus University of Alberta Golden Bears on Sunday.

“There was a lot of former officials that I had reffed  with over the years who had caught word that I was leaving and moving on and it was one of those, oh people were showing up that you haven’t seen in  awhile and they had been done reffing for a number of years,” said Barwegen.

“They’re like … I learnt  more from you than I learnt from anybody else, like thank you for your time kind of a thing. It hits you a little bit where you’re like OK I forgot some of these people I apparently had an impact on and some of them also had impacts on me on different things throughout the years.”

Barwegen decided to retire from refereeing because he wanted to spend more time with the family.

“There’s been some health issues with my wife over the years,” said Barwegen.

It was the fellow referees that Barwegen worked with that kept him coming back year after year.

“Just going out with that same group and knowing that you have each others back and the support that’s there kind of keeps you going a little bit,” said Barwegen.

Barwegen liked the competitive aspect of refereeing.

“Going out, you wanna know that you’re giving the teams on the field the best referee for that game that they could possibly have,” said Barwegen.

“That’s what would drive me in the games was being the one that wouldn’t screw it up or knew what I was doing and held control of the game.”

Safety for the players was always Barwegen’s focus every time he stepped on the field.

“I wanted to make sure that player safety and the safety of my crew that was with me was always No.1,” said Barwegen.

Barwegen’s firmly believed in the respect factor.

“I’ll give you as much respect as you’re willing to give me,” said Barwegen.

Barwegen’s brother, Michael,  has been  big influence on him having had experience at the national and FIFA levels.

“He’s been a huge influence on knowing those tricky laws that only come up once in awhile, ” said Barwegen.

Barwegen had good and bad experiences refereeing collegiate soccer.

“There’s games where I questioned how I continued to ref when you have people pulling knives on fields at you,” said Barwegen.

“Then there’s good ones where players come back to you after you’ve reffed them and they may be mad at you one game, and then they go on a road trip and they come back and they’re apologetic.”