Referee Scramble

Tonight's bouts were a little crazy! I was all prepared to do regular penalty box timing tonight. I've done that before and it's pretty straightforward. Usually, a blocker gets sent to the box, you time her for a minute, you're done. Until the next one comes around.

However a couple of refs and a couple of volunteers couldn't make it at the last minute, including our usual head ref, Whistley Crusher. So Slow Your Roll was the head ref for the night. And yes, refs get to make up cool names too!

After some discussion amongst the officials, here's more or less what happened. Slow Your Roll (to me): "So you're box manager right?" Me: (gulp, pause). Slow Your Roll: "Just say yes." Me: "Yes!"

Box manager usually times the jammers, which can be a little more complicated than timing the blockers. Some special penalty time rules can apply to jammers in certain situations. And the manager generally makes sure things are running ok in the penalty box. So managers have to know those jammer timing rules and when they apply and have to keep a pretty sharp eye on what's going on.

My mantra for the night was "Watch the refs, not the skaters!" I found that was the only way to really stay focused on when someone was sent out and make sure they got to the right seat to start their time. The toughest was when skaters were sent out right at the end of a jam since it's a little more chaotic with everyone coming off the floor and the officials scrambling to get into position for the next jam. I don't know, it just seemed like it was a lot harder to see the ref make that tell-tale gesture to send someone out! Argh. Now I know to really pay attention for that.

Everybody did an awesome job. I want to thank the two box timers, Slamsday and Mutha Smutha (hope I got your names right!) who were pretty much thrown in at the last minute without any practice or anything! They did great! And of course the skating was fantastic. It's so fun to watch all the skaters get better and better with every bout.

One of the funnier moments was when the jammers from both teams had gotten their 4th minor penalties at the end of the jam. So they both had to start the next jam in the box and stay there for 10 seconds.

For those who don't know: In a normal jam the refs blow one long whistle and the pack of blockers starts. As soon as the last blocker crosses that start line, then the refs blow 2 short whistles signaling the jammers to go.

Anyway, this time both jammers were in the box and supposed to stay there for 10 seconds. The penalty timing starts when that first long whistle blows. But the ref still blew 2 short whistles when the last blocker crossed the line--it was like Pavlov's dog! Their time wasn't up yet but both jammers nearly bolted when those short two whistles blew! Luckily they stopped in time, but it was all I could do not to dive after them!

Ok, so maybe you had to be there. But I thought it was funny. Now that I've given my brain far more exercise than it was anticipating tonight, it's definitely bed time!