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Re: Silicon Valley Regional 2008
I was at the event today and found many things troubling. I was in the audience and had a few conversations with the teams sitting behind me and next to me, and the "talk" is pretty sad.
I saw a couple mention in this thread the lack of calls for the agressive defense, and everyone sitting around me was saying the same thing in the finals. I didn't see the event yesterday, but both the teams behind me and next to me (I don't think either was in the playoffs) kept commenting that no penalties were being called on the blue alliance. There were numerous comments that the refs were ignoring high speed ramming, impeding, blocking, pinning, and more. All of them said teams were getting penalties and warnings for MUCH LESS during the qualifying rounds, but that in the finals they weren't enforcing the rules. The team next to me said the entire controversy shouldn't have happened anyway, because if the refs called the 2nd match according to the rules that the 3rd match never would have been played anyway. He even said he was rooting for the blue alliance but couldn't believe what they were getting away with.
What really bothered me was the comment by the team behind me something to the effect of "yeah, but don't forget, that's the same ref that gave us tips to beat 254 last year, so he's not gonna call penalties on their oppossing alliance in the playoffs". I asked him what he was talking about, and they explained that last year the ref advised teams how to stop 254 and kept penalizing them during qualifying rounds. He then told me a couple teams including theirs atually passed on picking 254 in the playoffs last year because they were sure they'd get penalties in the playoffs from that ref. I've been out of FRC for a a few years, but still volunteer with FLL and Vex and follow things - but I couldn't believe what I heard today or saw.
How could any of that happen? How could penalties be called during qaulifying rounds but not during the playoffs for the same or worse action? How could a ref give teams advice on how to beat certain teams?
Seems all 6 teams did not get treated fairly. All 6 did great, played hard, and seemed to handle themselves well. Seems to me that the red alliance should have one in two matches if the rules were enforced but the blue alliance should have wont the 3rd match. So in 4 matches, from what I saw, I thought Red should have won matches 1,2 and 4 while blue should have won match 3. problem is, 3 and 4 never should have been played. I feel bad for all 6 teams in the finals, seems they deserved to have a clean finals with all the rules called correctly.
What I saw today did make me think of a thread I read a couple weeks ago after the first events about preparred ref. I'm gonna try to find that thread, but now that I think about it, I guess nothing that happened today should ahve been a surprise.
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