Scrimmage tonight, and four of the seven refs we have will not be skating.
LET ME DO ALL THE OPR I CAN HANDLE IT REALLY I CAN
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
A weekend filled with derby, indeed
INT. - QUEENIE'S HOUSE - NIGHT
It is 5:45am. Her alarm goes off.
(Unless it's Sunday morning off-skates workout, because, well, fuck that.)
One of the refs in our league is big into JRDA, and he's been trying to recruit me to his cause. So we went to a league about an hour away that has a team, and reffed one of their scrimmages.
OMG WHY DIDN'T THEY HAVE JUNIOR ROLLER DERBY WHEN I WAS 10-17 MY LIFE WOULD BE SO DIFFERENT YOU GUYS. I stopped skating seriously when I was about 11 (we moved into a house with a carpeted basement, so I lost my venue) but if I'd been able to keep it up...
Anyway. Reffing the juniors was a lot of fun - some of those kids have mooooooves - juking through the pack like it's nothing. One little girl, when she went up to jam, just froze. She kinda stood there until the pivot was like "Give me the helmet cover!" It was sooooo cute.
So I reffed, OPR, yeah. Made a few calls, mostly cuts. I called one blocking out of bounds (blocker was facing non-derby direction, jammer was pushing against her, jammer pushed blocker out of bounds and the blocker kept blocking) but I completely forgot the hand signal and did a weird sort of jazz hands thing. I feel like if I call the big things, that's fine - I can work my way down to the more particular things as I get experience.
Anyway, it's something I definitely want to do again. It's the last Saturday of every month, though, and next month is Thanksgiving weekend and the month after that is Christmas weekend, so who knows when I'll get the chance.
-----
Saturday night was NSOing. They had more volunteers than spots, though, so I shadowed the Penalty Box Manager (who's from our league and is an awesome guy) and ended up taking over the timing part when one of the box timers got overwhelmed. (I got a bit overwhelmed myself when I had a "two people in the box and as soon as one of them stood a third person came in" situation, but no one died so I like to think it worked out okay.)
It is 5:45am. Her alarm goes off.
MR. QUEENIE
(groaning)
When you said you'd have to leave the house at 6:30...I thought
you meant PM.
------
I can't make myself get up before 8am on weekdays to get to work on time, but get up early to do roller derby stuff? NO PROBLEMO THERE JUST GIVE ME COFFEE AND I'M ON MY WAY.(Unless it's Sunday morning off-skates workout, because, well, fuck that.)
One of the refs in our league is big into JRDA, and he's been trying to recruit me to his cause. So we went to a league about an hour away that has a team, and reffed one of their scrimmages.
OMG WHY DIDN'T THEY HAVE JUNIOR ROLLER DERBY WHEN I WAS 10-17 MY LIFE WOULD BE SO DIFFERENT YOU GUYS. I stopped skating seriously when I was about 11 (we moved into a house with a carpeted basement, so I lost my venue) but if I'd been able to keep it up...
Anyway. Reffing the juniors was a lot of fun - some of those kids have mooooooves - juking through the pack like it's nothing. One little girl, when she went up to jam, just froze. She kinda stood there until the pivot was like "Give me the helmet cover!" It was sooooo cute.
So I reffed, OPR, yeah. Made a few calls, mostly cuts. I called one blocking out of bounds (blocker was facing non-derby direction, jammer was pushing against her, jammer pushed blocker out of bounds and the blocker kept blocking) but I completely forgot the hand signal and did a weird sort of jazz hands thing. I feel like if I call the big things, that's fine - I can work my way down to the more particular things as I get experience.
Anyway, it's something I definitely want to do again. It's the last Saturday of every month, though, and next month is Thanksgiving weekend and the month after that is Christmas weekend, so who knows when I'll get the chance.
-----
Saturday night was NSOing. They had more volunteers than spots, though, so I shadowed the Penalty Box Manager (who's from our league and is an awesome guy) and ended up taking over the timing part when one of the box timers got overwhelmed. (I got a bit overwhelmed myself when I had a "two people in the box and as soon as one of them stood a third person came in" situation, but no one died so I like to think it worked out okay.)
Won't be able to go to tonight's ref practice because my Dad and stepmom are coming into town to celebrate my birthday (it was yesterday) and today was the only good day. I'm kinda bummed I'm missing practice, but whatcha gonna do.
Friday, October 24, 2014
NSOing, too
Our one bout this season was Hunger Games-themed. I was Effie Trinket.
 | |
| First Half |
 | |
| Second Half |
Tomorrow night I'm going to another league (not the same league as tomorrow morning) to NSO one of their bouts. Don't know what I'll be doing yet. Hope it's not scoreboard operator, as I have never done that and a bout is probably not the best place to learn.
OK LET'S DO THIS
I've been back on skates attending ref practices for about a month now. There's usually a drill at the beginning of the session where we skate around the track, one ref is in the middle. He/she will give a hand signal while maintaining eye contact with skating ref. That ref needs to make up a call on a skater based on that hand signal.
Sometimes making up the color/number is the most difficult part. I tend to stick with black, or white, or green (our league colors) and just rattle off whatever numbers enter my brain. Sometimes I get goofy and give "chartreuse" or "plaid".
Actually, no. The most difficult part is when it comes down to the eighteen bazillion "illegal procedures" penalties. I was given a mnemonic to help remember them (Illegal PERC, PUBES violation, FIST)*, but I'm skating and I'm like "Green, six nine one....um.....PUBES!"
Then we work on pack definition, talk about rule loopholes, etc. I finally understand OPR rotation now!
Last Thursday was the first league scrimmage I skated in as a ref. I shadowed our Head Ref who was IPR and got completely overwhelmed. DID THAT PERSON FALL AS A RESULT OF THAT ACTION OR DID THEY FALL ON THEIR OWN I DON'T KNOW GAAA WHY DID I DECIDE TO DO THIS ZOMFG I'VE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE. I Blue Screen of Deathed after a while.
Last night I was put out on my own, as an OPR. (The Head Ref warned everyone that I am new to this and not to yell at me when I miss calls.)
The result?
My very first call, the first time I put whistle to lips and blew....
...I called out the wrong color.
oops
But other than that, I think it went well. I made some cutting calls, didn't call one cut call that I did see (the jammer was way down on the other side of the straightaway but I saw her put both hands out of bounds, I was all "that was a cut. I should call that as a cut. Two hands are a cut, right? The loophole is the 'one handed cartwheel', two hands is a cut. The jammer ref didn't call it, he probably saw something different than me." The action was put under official review, jammer ref said "my view was blocked, I only saw one hand", I said "I saw two, I should've called it", and we went from there). No one yelled at me.
Lesson learned: call what you see.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to a league about an hour from here. They have a junior derby league that practices the last Saturday of every month, and I've been told that it's a great training experience. I will take all the training I can get.
______________
*Illegal:
Sometimes making up the color/number is the most difficult part. I tend to stick with black, or white, or green (our league colors) and just rattle off whatever numbers enter my brain. Sometimes I get goofy and give "chartreuse" or "plaid".
Actually, no. The most difficult part is when it comes down to the eighteen bazillion "illegal procedures" penalties. I was given a mnemonic to help remember them (Illegal PERC, PUBES violation, FIST)*, but I'm skating and I'm like "Green, six nine one....um.....PUBES!"
Then we work on pack definition, talk about rule loopholes, etc. I finally understand OPR rotation now!
Last Thursday was the first league scrimmage I skated in as a ref. I shadowed our Head Ref who was IPR and got completely overwhelmed. DID THAT PERSON FALL AS A RESULT OF THAT ACTION OR DID THEY FALL ON THEIR OWN I DON'T KNOW GAAA WHY DID I DECIDE TO DO THIS ZOMFG I'VE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE. I Blue Screen of Deathed after a while.
Last night I was put out on my own, as an OPR. (The Head Ref warned everyone that I am new to this and not to yell at me when I miss calls.)
The result?
My very first call, the first time I put whistle to lips and blew....
...I called out the wrong color.
oops
But other than that, I think it went well. I made some cutting calls, didn't call one cut call that I did see (the jammer was way down on the other side of the straightaway but I saw her put both hands out of bounds, I was all "that was a cut. I should call that as a cut. Two hands are a cut, right? The loophole is the 'one handed cartwheel', two hands is a cut. The jammer ref didn't call it, he probably saw something different than me." The action was put under official review, jammer ref said "my view was blocked, I only saw one hand", I said "I saw two, I should've called it", and we went from there). No one yelled at me.
Lesson learned: call what you see.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to a league about an hour from here. They have a junior derby league that practices the last Saturday of every month, and I've been told that it's a great training experience. I will take all the training I can get.
______________
*Illegal:
- Positioning
- Engaging
- Re-entry
- Call-off
- Penalty box violation
- Uniform violation
- Bench staff violation
- Equipment violation
- Star pass violation
- Failure to yield
- Interference
- Stalling
- Too many skaters
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)