Tuesday, February 24, 2015

time slogs forward, as it is wont to do

no skating practices last week because of Winter Break for the kids. 

Last night was a scrimmage between our league's B team (the travel team I skated on) and a league from a few towns over.  I got to jam ref, which was fun until the score ended up being 500-something to, like, 30 something.  YOUR ARM GETS TIRED HAVING TO POINT LEAD JAMMER FOR SEVERAL MINUTES AT A TIME.

Anyway, it went well, other than a tired arm and having to sprint to keep up with the fast jammers. 

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Friday the 13th

So I went back out to the league I sometimes help out with, to ref one of their home team games. 

They promised us the heat would be functional.

"Functional" apparently meant "maybe a degree or two warmer."

But the floor made up for it.  ZOMFG THEIR FLOOR IS BEAUTIFUL.  It's neat, too, because the actual track part is dyed a darker color than the ref lane.

Anyway, the reffing.  I was still all in my head from the night before, and one of the jam refs was (very nicely) "I need you guys to be where you need to be" and I took that as YOU'RE TOTALLY FUCKING EVERYTHING UP QUEENIE, so it wasn't as good as the previous week.  I made one call.

But I'm feeling better now; it's all baby steps back and forth. 

Friday, February 13, 2015

sigh

Last night was a not-so-great night.  I didn't make calls I should have (and people noticed) and I made calls I shouldn't have (and people noticed).

Baby steps, baby steps.  Tonight I'm going back out to OPR with the other league.  Hopefully I won't screw up that badly.

Monday, February 9, 2015

so yeah; hi!

I have been neglectful and for that I apologize.

So, let's go!

The Day of Scrimmages Where I was Jam Reffing One of Them. Originally it was supposed to be three games with twenty-minute halves.  When I showed up at the venue, there was a whiteboard in the ref locker room to sign up for positions in games 4-6 (um?) and then there was talk of games 7 and 8.  Um, ooookay.

Anyway, the first game I did inside whiteboard, and that went fine.  I made a little cloth cheat sheet of the codes that I wore on my sleeve, and that worked well.

Then....the jam reffing.

All in all, it wasn't that bad.  The floor was slick, and there were times where my scorekeeper was too busy texting to look at the points I was displaying (the Powers that Be put the kibosh on that real quick) and there were one or two official reviews involving calls I'd made where I started to Blue Screen of Death a little and the other referees helped pull me back from the edge, but no one died and everything seemed to work out ok in the end.

After that I did a game of OPR, which went fine, and then another game of OPR, during which I started to get tired, and then a game of penalty box timing, at which point all the officials were like HEY WE HAVE DONE FIVE GAMES WITHOUT A BREAK MAYBE WE CAN END FOR THE DAY, OK? and the players agreed.

The Actual Game With Fans and Whatnot ZOMFG. It was a soft open of the league's new venue. It wasn't a regulation game, as the track boundaries weren't elevated and one of the teams had, like, 20 people on its roster, but there were fans and announcers and music and whatnot.

We got there late (weather was crappy and whatnot) but they were working out all the kinks in the new venue, so the game was delayed a bit so it was okay.  I geared up and went out to skate a few laps.

I COULD SEE MY BREATH.

Fortunately I'd worn a long sleeved black shirt to the game, so I put that on under my stripes.  Even then, whoa mama, it was cold.  It reminded me of this one venue we used to practice in when our league first started, where I'd wear my winter coat until I got warmed up enough, but this was even colder.

The floor, however, was beautiful.  A little dusty due to the construction work, but just the right level of grip otherwise. 

The actual reffing went okay; the acoustics weren't that great so I had to scream out my penalties.  There were one or two points where I screwed up the OPR rotation (I have a very tenuous grasp on how it works; if I forget for a second it's gone).  The lighting was wonky on the straightaway between turns 2 and 3; it was shadowy and kind of like a dark alley, but they put better lights on it during halftime and it got better.

So yeah, that's been the last few weekends.  I'm going to be helping out in the league's second home game on Friday but I don't know where I'll be yet.  Whee!