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"If some one notices you, it’s not a good thing. We try to blend it so the focus is on the players and it’s on the game."
Published Nov 26, 2025 • Last updated 9 minutes ago • 6 minute read
CFL official Mike Ciona
Mike Ciona, a professional official who has worked in both the Canadian Football League and the Canadian Elite Basketball League, poses for a photo in his CFL referee uniform at Griffiths Stadium. Photo by Michelle Berg /Saskatoon StarPhoenix
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Multiple sports. Multiple whistles.
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And, with that, Saskatoon’s Mike Ciona has something in common with the legendary Red Storey.
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The late, great Storey was a former TV broadcaster who worked as a referee in different sports at the highest level in Canada, much like the modern-day Ciona.
In his day, Storey worked as an official in the National Hockey League, and also carried a whistle in the pre-Canadian Football League days. He also won a pair of Grey Cups as a player with the Toronto Argonauts in 1937 and 1938.
Ciona, who also has a TV broadcast background, has cracked the pro officiating ranks at both the CFL and Canadian Elite Basketball League levels.
A two-sport official, at the pro level, is rare.
“It is unique, but I never really gave it too, too much thought,” says Ciona, who recently wrapped up his seventh season in the CFL after previously officiating football and basketball at the U Sports and high school levels.
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“It was the next natural progression in both sports as I was going up (the chain) … It was two separate ladders that I kind of progressed at the same time.”
The CFL came calling for Ciona in 2019.
So did the CEBL.
“In between the time I got hired (by the CFL), the CEBL formed. My first pro game was actually a CEBL game before doing my first CFL game — again, in the same vein and the same time,” recalls the 44-year-old Edmonton native who has spent the past two decades in Saskatchewan, first in Regina, then Yorkton before settling down in Saskatoon.
Ciona admits that he is recognized more for his TV role than as a football or basketball official.
And he says that’s a good thing.
“I think the broadcast side, definitely,” says Ciona, who was a fixture on CTV Morning Live Saskatoon before joining CTV’s Your Morning Saskatchewan team.
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“We’re such a community-rooted place in Saskatchewan, and I think more people see me there. When we’re out on the football field, we’re all in the same outfits. We’ve got our hats on and no one’s looking for us. You don’t want them to. If someone notices you, it’s not a good thing. We try to blend it so the focus is on the players and it’s on the game. We’re just there to ensure it runs smoothly.”
Mike Ciona's CFl and CEBL whistles
A close-up photo shows the two whistles used by professional official Mike Ciona — one for the Canadian Football League and one for the Canadian Elite Basketball League. Photo by Michelle Berg /Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Five seasons with CEBL
Ciona spent five seasons as an on-court referee in the CEBL, which has the Saskatchewan Rattlers as one of its original teams.
For the past seven years, he’s worked as a member of the CFL’s on-field officiating crew.
It’s been a long journey for Ciona, who remembers first getting the itch to become a referee as a preteen in Edmonton.
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“One of my dad’s good friends, Vlad Eshenko, was an internationally-carded basketball official,” Ciona says. “He was always jet-setting around the world, seeing the world and getting paid and being active and staying involved in sports.
“I think the first thing I ever officiated was Little League baseball. I must have been 10 or 11 years old. I was reffing basketball at the time, as well.”
Baseball umpiring didn’t last very long, but Ciona continued on the basketball courts. He never tried his whistle at hockey, despite playing it as a youth.
“No, and if you saw me on skates, you probably would know why,” he says with a laugh. “You have to be the best skater on the ice when you’re a hockey ref and I was never the best skater on the ice.
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“I played a little bit of hockey, but I was a basketball and football player.”
He played both quarterback and tight end at Harry Ainlay high school in Edmonton. He played a little bit of basketball at the collegiate level.
“I was always in sports,” Ciona says. “I enjoyed playing. I was never the world’s greatest athlete, but I was good enough to play high school football. I didn’t actually make my high school basketball team at Harry Ainlay, but I walked on at Concordia College in Edmonton and made that team, just to prove to myself that, ‘hey.’”
Hey, you, wanna ref football?
When Ciona moved to Saskatoon he was on a work assignment at Griffiths Stadium, covering the Football Canada Cup, when he bumped into radio personality Steve Chisholm, who was officiating in that tournament. Ciona told Chisholm that he had done some basketball officiating.
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“He said, ‘if you’d like to ref football, come on out,’” recalls Ciona. “So Steve Chisholm recruited me.”
Ciona counts Chisholm as one of his mentors.
“They are numerous,” stresses Ciona. “As far as the path to the CFL, (fellow Saskatoon-based official) Tim Kroeker has been instrumental for all of us in the northern half of the province. He paved the pathway here, basically, for us. Also, there’s Al Mitchell and Randy Warick and Don Klein who were instrumental and helpful in my football career, specifically, to get the opportunity to get here.
“And on the basketball side of things, I mean, where do you even start? I think you’ve got to start with a guy like Mike Kyllo and Brad Smith, maybe even peers on that mentorship level.”
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The CFL crew currently includes another multi-sport official in Troy Semenchuk (Prince Albert), along with Saskatoon-based Ciona, Kroeker, Walt Hawrysh and Iain Cropper, plus Regina-based Ron Barss, Dan Mulvihill, Ryan Stark and Dan Fleischhacker.
“We’re the heartland where football fans are,” Ciona says. “We see that trickle down in the ranks of officiating.”
What does Ciona like about officiating the most?
“Aside from the obvious — which is the love for the sport, and being able to be involved and give back to those sports that gave me so much when I was playing and growing up — it’s the singularity of everything,” Ciona says. “Everything is right now. There’s no better way to encapsulate a moment than to be an official.
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“There’s no better place than on the professional stage, because every single decision, every single instant has so much impact and so many trickle-down effects, yet you can’t think about anything else. You just have to be focused on that exact moment, and your responsibility on the field or on the court.”
Ciona now has a CFL playoff game under his belt and hopes to do more, including the big one, Grey Cup.
“Ultimately there’s one game that everybody wants to be working,” admits Ciona.
“We talked about those two ladders and those steps. It’s another step.”
That would be the pinnacle of a CFL official’s career, but not the sole focus for Ciona.
“That’s always on the horizon but I don’t think you can focus too much, as an official, on one game,” he says. “It truly is a journey, not a destination. And I think it’s trying to live up to the expectations of all the mentors that have come before me and, above all, make my family proud.”
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Ciona and wife Brittany have three kids (Natalie, six, Evelyn, four, and Lucas, five months old). Brittany works as a community engagement manager for the Saskatoon City Hospital Foundation.
It’s a busy life for Ciona, who still finds himself whistling while he works on the weekend.
Ciona never imagined — back when he was a young preteen baseball ump — that he would someday officiate in two professional sports, neither of them baseball.
“They say success is the intersection of preparation and opportunity,” Ciona says. “If you keep yourself prepared, and the opportunity arrives, you can be successful. It takes a ton of help from a ton of people. I’ve been fortunate in both sports to have great mentors and great support to get to the top of the professional sports scene in Canada.”
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dzary@postmedia.com
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