Quote:
Originally Posted by BigJ
I love this game on the game side but the fouls and inconsistent reffing are driving me crazy. The "new Thursday rules" were reffed seemingly completely opposite on Friday and Saturday at the Wisconsin regional from my estimation, giving teams an incorrect idea of how they would be called in eliminations.
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The game *could* be fun...if the people responsible for game management were all...
1. consistent
2. competently aware of the rules
3. attentive
4. in possession of sufficient visual acuity to discern things that are happening directly in front of them
In other words, Canadian.
And can we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE aggressively signal pinning counts (provided you even bother to start counting) like they do in Canada?
In all seriousness, it seems Canadian referee crews are generally praised for their performance. Can anyone corroborate this? If true, I openly wonder what their methods of recruiting, training, and preparation are, and I would like to question why the practices of better-performing crews aren't propagated/mandated by the governing body to other regions where refereeing is less well-regarded.
Here's a thought for HQ - spend some of that stockpiled cash you're sitting on on incentive bonuses for events who grade highly in event quality on post-event feedback surveys distributed to teams. Give RD's and VC's more of an incentive to place resources in the area of quality volunteer recruitment (
and then train those individuals using better materials and methods than you currently supply). Also, if event performance is truly horrible, such team surveys would QUICKLY identify events where intervention is warranted (instead of watching the alternative happen - letting years of team abuse at the hands of a certain out of control head ref at a certain regional go by before a very public CD thread finally forced action....)
Even if everything is called straight up legit to the letter of the rules, certain foul situations built into this game can still put a sour taste in the mouth of teams, as Waterloo evidenced.
As far as I could tell, the "Thursday rules" had zero effect in Wisconsin, mainly because I felt an "anything goes" style of gameplay was permitted, especially on Saturday morning.
Refs are supposed to be the "police" of this game. Be overt and passionate in your actions in signaling teams that they are doing wrong. RUTHLESSLY PUNISH THE INEPT AND RECKLESS. Rain down swift justice upon the idiots such that those who actually, you know, "read the manual", can have a chance of success instead of being gutted by frame incursion damage in 3 straight Saturday matches with zero penalties called.
I will say that Week 4 pedestal lighting at Wisconsin seemed very good. So we finally learned how to deal with that major clusterfluge, not that that is any consolation to the teams who played in the earlier weeks. Now let's focus on punishing the guilty and reckless and giving the innocent the freedom to play this game the way it was meant to be played.
Week 4 rant....finis. Let's see what happens Week 5....