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Carol Anne Chénard says it may be a bad analogy, but dodgeball is the best comparison she can make for preparing officiate international women’s soccer.

Part of it, obviously, is that the referee really doesn’t want to get struck by the ball, but Chénard says it’s also about juggling many things at the same time.

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“You have lots of things coming at you at once, so you need to have a really good view, a peripheral view, watching everything,” she says, “and working as a team. When there’s that last person out and you have three balls on your team and you want to co-ordinate, get people to work with you.”

In international soccer terms, the 38-year-old Ottawa resident has been doing all that for nearly a decade, including the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany, but this year’s championship is special because it’s her one and only World Cup assignment in her home country.

“The opportunity to officiate at a World Cup is a huge honour, but I think it takes on a whole new meaning when it’s in your own country,” Chénard says. “Obviously it adds a little bit of pressure, but I have worked really hard to get where I am and to be able to show people who I care about — my friends, my family, people who follow me, other referees — to show them really what it means to be at the top.”