tricks o'the trade

We have a sorta-kinda transfer ref in our league - he's living in town for a few months - and last night at officials' practice our HR was showing him the various cues and limb positions we generally use to keep track of things as jam refs:

• Before the whistle - hold your left wrist out in front of you.  Laser into your brain the color and number of your jammer.  Some referees I know pass their wrist in front of their jammer, like a scanner, to affix it. (I sing "I'm [color], I'm [color], I'm really really [color]" under my breath.)  Lanyard whistle in mouth.
• "Five Seconds" - left wrist goes behind back.  Left arm behind the back is your cue that your jammer is on her initial pass.
• If your jammer loses the ability to become lead jammer, spit the whistle out of your mouth. (if your jammer is not lead and she tries to call it off, the length of time it takes to bring your finger whistle up to your mouth is usually enough time to realize SHE SHOULD NOT BE CALLING IT OFF.  Some referees put their right arm behind their back to add additional time.)
• Points are counted on your left hand by your side.

The only time this goes higgledy piggledy is when your jammer goes to the box and your arms are all over the place.  Some refs keep their number of points scored on their fingers while signaling the penalty (I don't, because I automatically default to pointing to the box with two fingers. I should probably start keeping track of that).

It's kinda interesting, because I can look at myself in derby photos now and see "oh, my jammer was still on her initial pass" or stuff like that.

doop a doop a doop

Doubleheader on Friday in Buffalo - JR for the home teams game, OPR for the regulation.  Gonna be a late night (first game doesn't start until 7).  Fortunately I can crash at my Dad's house.

Not much refereeing going on in April other than that - I'm going to Siege of CNY April 15-17, but that's as an Alt NSO. 

I may or may not have made a huge mistake

Part of the problem with tournaments is that the officials' meeting is usually held on Friday evenings, which means that you have to spend Friday traveling.

I try to take as little time off work as possible, because I'm my boss's sole support and if I go away for extended periods of time things explode.

So far I'm going to three tournaments this year - one in Rome, NY (about 2 hours away), one in Waterloo, Ontario (about 3 hours away) and the one in Boston (about 6 hours away).

Because I work part time, I can get away with driving right from work for the Rome and the Waterloo ones - Boston, not so much.

So....I'm flying to Boston.  Whee?

(read the title of this entry)

eeeeeee

The Cone of Silence has been lifted, so I can announce that I've been accepted to be a referee at the Battle of Bunker Hill, a men's derby tournament in Boston in May.  Yay!  The crews are a combination of awesome people and people I haven't met yet and I'm very excited. 

perhaps I should have just gone with "red" and "yellow"

I am trying to become more familiar with NSO paperwork, and spent part of the morning writing up jam scenarios and trying to fill out the paperwork appropriately. 

The team colors I chose were "chartreuse" and "vermilion".  You reach semantic saturation with those words pretty quickly.

5.13.10.2 and 5.13.9 ARE YOUR FRIENDS

Last night our officials group had a meeting.  Usually we watch footage from the bout that just occurred, but we didn't have it, so we didn't watch it (obviously).  We did discuss it, though, in great and loving detail.

I realized that I messed up my explanation of the penalty box shenanigans - there were TWO instances, one in each game:

FIRST GAME: Player reports to the box after committing a low block, due to her skate truck breaking.  The jam is called dead for other things.  While discussing the other things, and trying to determine if the player with the broken skate should be substituted out, that team's coach enters the penalty box and communicates with the player.  We see this and the HR plans on giving him a Penalty Box Violation, which would go to the captain. 

THEN THE CAPTAIN GOES INTO THE PENALTY BOX AND COMMUNICATES WITH THE PLAYER.

(At this point it's determined that the Captain was already "in the box" when she spoke to the player, so she does not have to serve a second penalty.)

SECOND GAME: During an Official Review about a penalty that a team's jammer is serving, that jammer leaves the penalty box to get a water bottle.  The penalty is overturned, but she earned herself a Penalty Box Violation.  The HR and the team's coach go over to the box to let the jammer know.

THEN THE COACH STEPS INTO THE BOX AND ADMONISHES THE JAMMER FOR LEAVING THE BOX.

She. Nan. I. Gans, to be sure.

and so on and so forth

I got accepted to be an NSO at Beaver Fever, a tournament in Canada in May.  yay! 

I HAVE FIVE GAMES ON SATURDAY. 

9am, 1pm, 3pm, 7pm and 9pm.

I'm going to die, aren't I?

and then there was this -

three minutes until the second half starts, I *really* have to pee, and a fan stops me to ask "can you explain what this whole game is about?"

well, *that* was interesting

HECKLER: OPEN YOUR EYES, REF! SHE'S CALLING IT OFF!
ME (in my head): SHE'S NOT LEAD JAMMER, YOU DOLT. 
ME (outwardly): (Ref face)
-----------------------
A skater entered the penalty box to talk to another skater.  She got a penalty.

The coach entered the penalty box to admonish the skater who got the penalty for talking to the skater originally in the penalty box.

*She* got a penalty.
 ----------------------
There was lots of other stuff, but that's what stuck in my head the most.

I feel like I did pretty well.  We'll see what the tape says when we watch it on Tuesday.

switching skates for clipboard for a night

I didn't want to aggravate my muscle pull at last night's scrimmage, so I was an NSO. I ended up trangling - a combination of penalty wrangling and tracking - and had a few fresh meat skaters shadowing me.  It was fun, and I got to answer their questions about the game. (I later found out one of them was legit young enough to be my daughter, and that was a ZOMFG I AM OLLLLLLLD moment to be sure.)

I really do enjoy NSOing and wish I got a chance to do it more often.  

Doubleheader tomorrow!  Hopefully I will not die.

funny how that happens

So remember how I thought I did totally crappily officiating this bout?

I received word that it was not perceived that way.

Yay?

Now my big concern is a groin muscle pull.  I must have done it at the St. Patrick's Day parade because yesterday it was a little bit hey I'm your groin muscle and hi! you're aware of me now, aren't you? and now it's let's show these Federalists who they're up against, SOUTHERN MOTHERFUCKIN' DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANS, where "these Federalists" is "Queenie" and "SOUTHERN MOTHERFUCKIN' DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANS" is "GROIN MUSCLE".

(OH!)

Ice and NSAIDS are my friends.  I got a doubleheader this weekend!

DEAR MR. HAMILTON, JOHN ADAMS DOESN'T STAND A CHANCE SO WHO ARE YOU PROMOTING

(I've become a little obsessed with Hamilton over the last few days.)

The parade went REALLY WELL.  It was in the 60's and sunny! Our league's fresh meat really stepped up and represented (both our travel teams were in Cincinnati).

time marcheth onward

I felt much better after last night's practice.  Like I actually knew what I was doing!  Yaaaay!  We've had some warmer weather 'round these parts so the practice space was actually over 50 degrees, which was a nice change.  The floor was humid and slick and squeaky though.  A bunch of us fell when we usually don't.

Operation Skate Break-in is going along, slowly but surely.  I'm getting a bruise underneath my left big toenail, I think.  I've been working really hard on letting the skates do the turning, not my ankles, but old habits die hard.  (It's interesting because one of the other refs in our league who just got new skates is having the opposite problem - he went from high ankled boots to low ones.) 

Tomorrow is the St. Patrick's Day parade and (knock on wood) the weather looks sunny and mild and dry, so we'll be able to skate!  (It's been a few years since that's been an option.)

Our first home games are next Saturday - sanctioned and regulation - and I've been rostered for both of them.  Whee! 

lookin' ahead

my ankle is bugging me. whee?  the front halves of my feet went numb during the game on Sunday, hopefully that will dissipate as I break in the boots.

Saturday is the St. Patrick's Day parade.  Both teams are playing away so our group might be tiny. But it'll still be fun - I've done it every year since our first in 2009.

other than that, I got nothin'. 

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

not very happy with my performance yesterday - I saw many penalties but someone else called them first.  This means that I should've been watching other things going on.  The pack went FAST SLOW FAST STRETCHED COMPACTED and my positioning was all over the place.

Ah well.  That is how one learns.

(there was one amusing bit - during one star pass, the jammer got knocked down, and looked like she was going to try and pass it while still on her knees.  As soon as she did, it seemed like at least FIVE referees whistled for the star pass violation.)

bargle bargle bleh

Regulation bout on Sunday; I'm OPRing.

Did some front IPRing at scrimmage last night.  It gets a little less terrifying each time, although there were points where I kind of made the engagement zone 30 feet.  IT WOULD BE SO MUCH EASIER IF THE SKATERS DIDN'T MOVE AROUND. I made sure not to gauge distance by the floor markers, though, so that's something.

I started the night not wearing socks in my skates, though after a few minutes I could tell I would get blisters if I didn't put socks on.  Fortunately (though probably unfortunately), it was so cold in our practice space that I couldn't feel my toes, so it didn't really matter if my socks got wonky and pulled my toes to odd locations.