Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos and PK Subban are some of the National Hockey League’s biggest stars to most people. But to Tavistock’s Devin Berg, they’re simply the players he needs to whistle down.

Berg, 27, spent last season as a part-time NHL linesman. This year he’s been promoted to full-time in the world’s premier professional hockey league, and will soon begin officiating 75 games over the course of the upcoming regular season.

Berg was born in Gadshill and now lives in Tavistock. He made the transition into officiating after ending his junior career with the Tavistock Braves in 2011. Back then his friend, fellow NHL linesman Steve Miller, helped him plot out a career that would keep him on the ice even though his playing days were over.

“We would always talk about hockey, and I knew my playing career was almost done,” said Berg. “He suggested I try officiating and let me know what the options were, and that’s what got me started.”

He started out working within the Stratford and Tavistock minor hockey leagues, where he spent two years before moving up to the OHA and OHL in 2013. While at that level, he worked the lines for big occasions such as the OHA championship and the OHL Gold Cup.

In 2014 Berg was named the OHA’s most promising official, and the following year he made the big step up to the professional level. He become a part-time linesman for both the NHL and the American Hockey League, where the rules are that part-timers split their duties with 40 NHL games and 40 AHL games (although Berg ended up working a slightly higher ration with 47 NHL and 33 AHL).

Last year Berg, at 26 years old, was the youngest official in the league, and looking back he said it’s been a career transition that has made a lot of sense for him.

“When I stopped playing I felt almost lost,” said Berg. “Being an official gives me the opportunity to still be a part of the game and it’s a very rewarding career.”

Now, in his fifth year of officiating, Berg will soon face his biggest challenge yet. He found out at a meeting at the NHL’s head office in Toronto a few weeks ago that he’d been promoted to be a full-time NHL linesman, and now will have the responsibility of traveling across the continent several times per week, calling the shots in 75 games throughout the course of the season.

“Going into the meeting I was anxious and nervous because I didn’t really know what it was about,” he said. “But when they told me I was really excited and relieved, because you always want to be moving forward in your career and this was a big step for me.”

In addition to the extra games, Berg will now also be eligible to officiate playoff action when the regular season comes to a close. That will depend on his performance throughout the season. Despite still being so young in his role, Berg feels unfazed by the pressure — in fact, he says there isn’t any.

“I go out there and do my best, work as hard as I can and whatever happens, happens,” he said. “I let the players know I’m doing a job just like they are, and just being there to explain a call gains you a lot of respect.”

Berg begins the yearly training camp for officials in Buffalo on Sept. 10. At the five-day camp they will do physical testing and discuss any rule changes that referees and linesmen need to watch for during the upcoming season.

He’s eager to get the hockey games underway, and said he hopes other young hockey fanatics know it’s possible to follow in his footsteps.

“It’s important for kids to know that this is out there as a career,” he said. “Coming from a small town you only dream about playing in the NHL, and this is the next best thing.”