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Today we're talking to Leandro Martinez-Zurita from the EHCO all about the second edition of the EHCO Trophy, an amazing U19 European club championship that FHumpires is honoured to be staffing with umpires, umpire managers and officials again!
We'll also touch on the regurgitation of clips on social media, and remember that time at band camp when we talked about how women officials need uniforms they're comfortable in? Science agrees. Again!
It's a remote edition live from Amsterdam, so let's see what new tech glitches I can discover with all my best friends. (That's you, BTW.)
See you there!
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⏱ Chapter Markers:
00:00 Chair Dancing
04:03 1. EHCO Trophy with Leandro Martinez-Zurita
30:47 Flowers: Tim Clay
32:17 2. When An Umpire Gets Hit With Social Media (or the ball)
40:18 UK Spring Tour Details
43:13 3. Women's Uniforms Might Be A Thing
Check out when the next #WhatUpWednesday will go live.
🟢🟡🔴 🏑
Transcript
#WhatUpWednesday Ep. 151
Leandro:
Keely: Welcome to What Up Wednesday On The Road, friends. Keely Dunn, FHumpires, and we're in Amsterdam. Sort of. I mean, that's the allegation. I walked into a hotel room, it looks like Amsterdam? I don't know. We'll see. We're going to do a quicker show tonight, famous last words, but I have a very special guest who's going to be coming on in a couple of minutes.
This is what we're planning. on tonight and of course the scene doesn't work let's try this again. I am going to be talking about the EHCO trophy which is the reason we're here in Amsterdam when an umpire gets hit in the socials and women's uniforms might be a thing. Yes those are going to be, I'm sure I'm not going to rant at all, it's going to be absolutely fine.
For those of you who've joined in, I'm so glad you're here. Um, it's been a little crazy to get it started, but hey, that's, that's what we do is just make it happen. So hopefully the sound is good. I'm just gonna double check and make sure with the comments that uh, everything is coming through okay. You know Rachel, I'm looking for you, I'm looking for you to tell me that the sound is good.
But, there we go. Finally got there. Zero seconds. Okay. Hopefully we're on the road because I am going to bring on now our very special guest so that we can talk. We have double sound. Interesting. Okay, let's see if I can do it, but we're going to talk about the EHCO trophy with my very special guest, Leandro Martinez Zariga.
Welcome, Leandro. How are you doing tonight?
Leandro: I'm doing well. How are you doing, Keely?
Keely: I am, of course, of course. I'm just going to see if I can fix the sound while you and I are talking. Um, external microphone. Let's see. I'm not sure why there's two, but big echo. Hmm. We'll just forge ahead and I'll see if I can figure this out. Thanks for coming on. We are on the eve of one of your biggest events of the year, Leander.
How are you feeling as you're getting ready to go into Friday? Yes.
Leandro: I mean, really looking forward to it. But yeah, with thousand things, I mean, 16 teams with 16 different timetables, team managers, um, players, I mean, three different chats for organizing it. Hotels, restaurants, uh, um, buses, airports, people messaging you. I mean, I mean, we, it's, it's quite a challenge, but, but we're enjoying it a lot and having a lot of fun while also working a lot.
Keely: Of course. So Leandra, for those people who are watching at home and haven't met you already, tell me who are you and what, what is driving your passion to help make this, this tournament happen this week?
Leandro: Well, I guess long story short, the European hockey clubs organization gathers the top hockey clubs or the first division hockey clubs from, uh, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium. Spain, uh, Austria and some English clubs. And basically, or originally we were born, um, in order to, to align the time, the schedules of the, of the European leagues and to lobby, um, initially against the pro league, because it was, uh, it was a hurdle for our development.
And we, we really saw in the first years that, that our leagues were, were not having enough weekends. And we ended up reaching an agreement of, of, uh, 25 weekends for the European Leagues, and far beyond that, we, we were somehow loving a lot, and at some point I said to myself, hey, why, why are you always arguing?
Why are you always, um, cocky? Why don't we do something new? Why don't we start doing real things? And, and, and then at some point talking with Fabrizio and with Sander, the other co organizers, um, they, they said to me, hey, Leandro, There might be a good idea which would be doing a under 19 tournament for the, for the young, for the young players that played, that were champions in the under 18s the year before in all of those countries, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium.
Spain, and bringing all together during EHL so that we, at some point, we would be, uh, backing up EHL and on the other hand we would be giving a very good, um, opportunity to all the young players that have been achieving excellence in their own countries. So we gather all the talented players of Europe together so that they can have this kind of contest.
Keely: Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. Now you did mention their names, but why don't you give a bigger shout out to Fabrizio and Sander and tell everybody how they are part of what I call you, the trans amigos. Uh,
Leandro: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Keely: all know each other and how do you work together in this?
Leandro: well, I've, I've, I've been knowing Sander for many years. I mean, he, he came to Barcelona and played for a club when he was on his late twenties. And we ended up living, we're now neighbors, our kids are good friends, or his wife, very good friend of my wife. And he's a close friend. I ended up going with him to India to play the Indian Hockey League, uh, a long time ago.
And he, he has a very, he has his company, the Hockey Department, which is a champion in terms of logistics for, for hockey all over Europe. And he said to me, Leandro, hey, I'm, I really like the idea. And then Fabrizio, uh, he's, um, he has, it was his idea. He, he was the one having the idea. He was the first one that came to me and said, Hey, Leandro, you really need to do this.
My idea would be, uh, doing a tournament for all the, uh, Uh, the Jove under 18s from all over Europe, but we will do it under 19 because it's, it's the, it makes sense to give the opportunity to the ones that, that championed last year in, in, in each of their countries. So, I mean, with the idea of Fabrizio, the logistics, Of, uh, sander and, and my own madness.
We, we ended up creating this, so,
Keely: That's a very accurate description. Now that we're in our second year, I think, yep, that, that absolutely checks out. Now you did talk, you mentioned about club hockey yourself. Can you tell me just a little bit more about what European club hockey means to you in terms of, you know, what you did when you were coming up playing and Fabrizio and Sander and, and, and why that's so important?
important to your vision for hockey in Europe.
Leandro: Hmm. Well, I mean, I, I, I am a living example of, of having played in many clubs. Uh, I started playing for Polo Barcelona and then, uh, while I was finishing my studies, I went to Germany and I played for Munich Sport Club. Um, and then for Harvest in Hamburg. Uh, after that I went to Australia and played for UTS Sydney.
Then came back to Barcelona and started playing for FC Barcelona. After that, uh, I went to India to play for Hockey Daily Wishers. So for me, hockey has been a way of traveling around the world, meeting people, getting to know, having friends all over the globe, and, and at the end, even working with, with some of those people.
So, so I really think, uh, European Hockey Trophy, the, the Euro, the, the HCO Trophy. It's a good way of giving an international experience to young, talented players that, uh, maybe they end up being the champions in the under 18, uh, championship of their country, but they, their club will never play, for instance, the EHL, or maybe they won't have the chance to play for their national team, or maybe after being the champion, they don't have.
enough opportunities to play senior hockey in a good competitive club. So I think it's it goes that way. I believe I didn't have that opportunity and because I didn't have it, um, I want to give it now to the young generation and I want to evangelize all clubs in Europe so that they they really commit to this competition because It's, it's, it's a wonderful opportunity not only to, to access the most talented hockey players in, in Europe, but also in terms of, um, having a good experience.
All the players together and you can get to meet people from the Netherlands, from Belgium, from Germany, from Spain, from all over Europe. And I really think that's a very rich experience for all the youth people we are gathering.
Keely: Yeah, I, I love how you said that because the whole point about providing something that you maybe weren't able to access during your own career for whatever reasons, that's something that really drives me. And it's one of the reasons that FHumpires now is a big part of this tournament on the umpiring and officiating side is that we can, and as FHumpires, provide opportunities to umpires who wouldn't.
Be able to do top European club competition because they're not part of their international setups or couldn't go to international tournaments. They get these opportunities now. And it's a very, very special thing from my perspective that we get to provide to, to our folks. So I want to, you know, express my gratitude to you for that, because that's just, that's
Leandro: And I can only be grateful to you guys for giving us the opportunity to collaborate with you. Without you we wouldn't be where we are. And, and also what you're saying is quite important, uh, what, what does officiality mean? Um, um, it's important, I think, to, to, um, to be, to, to, for me, it's important to be I mean, what officiality means?
I mean, we are always talking about, yeah, hockey will always, should always be organized by N. A. N. A. should always collaborate with the Continental Federation, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, wonderful. But where's the private initiative in all this? Why? I mean, I mean, I have nothing wrong with that, but since the very moment in which all top European countries, in terms of hockey, in terms of clubs, they gather together and they say we want to have this European hockey trophy all together.
Is that not official? From the very moment that an organization like yours that has umpires all over the globe with, with, with an incredible amount of expertise. They decide to collaborate and go to a tournament like ours or to any other, and they are backed up by their own curriculum and CVs. Why, why is that not official?
Why, I mean, what, what's the degree of officiality? Who gives a thumb? No, I mean, those are questions that are not, um, easy to answer, but we, we shouldn't be restricted or limited by the easy, uh, poster of saying, Okay, you're not official, you're out. We really need to ask ourselves those questions and to challenge that. And here we are, challenging hockey in the best possible way, of course. Well,
Keely: you and I have spoken about this countless times and how much this resonates with me and, and with our community, that it's absolutely huge that there's other ways that we can work. In, in different silos and different systems to compliment, to grow and to expand the sport in general, I think is hugely important.
And it's the strength of many other sports that we are aspiring to catch, isn't it? It's not just about, you know, uh, doing things the way that they've always been done. If we want to get bigger, This is what we need to do. It's, it's really important. I just want to bring in this comment. I don't, Leandro, have you ever met our friend Ernst Bart here?
Uh, he's saying, uh, I finally found someone who talks even more than me. And how often does Leandro also umpire a game? He's asking. What's, what's your umpiring experience, Leandro?
Leandro: that's a good question. To be honest, I think I've been the best, I mean, I was, I used to be a very bad boy when I was a player and I got sent off many times. But, but, I must admit that I, I ended up, while I was in Australia, I ended up refereeing many, many games in order to get some dollars. So,
Keely: They pay really well in Australia, don't they? They pay very well in Australia for their umpires. Don't they?
Leandro: I remember, you know, playing on Saturdays and then waking up very early on Sundays and refereeing from 9 a. m. till 9 p. m. the whole day. So I have a huge respect for referees. Um, yeah, uh, although some of them might, might be laughing at me now by saying so.
Keely: Well, all of us as we get older, I have a lot more respect for coaches and players now, so it all works the same way. And it, I remember, I think it was maybe six months ago, Leandra, that we had a clip of you playing, and somehow it came to my attention, I don't know if you sent it or if it came up on the social medias, when you were with Harvest Tutor.
And we looked at the clip because Andy Mayer sent you off with a yellow card for a slide tackle and you were adamant that it was the wrong, wrong decision and we had a really good chat about it, really good laugh. I'll try to put a link to that in the description for those of you watching on replay so you can go back and look at it because it was, it was really fun.
It was really fun
Leandro: I remember that.
Keely: Yeah, you don't remember it? You're just So it was, last year was the first edition of the EHCO Trophy and we had The eight teams, we had four on the girls side, four on the boys side. And tell me about what you and Fabrizio and Sander all learned from that first edition of the tournament.
Leandro: Well, um, I mean, it was, uh, what we learned was that we, we really need to, I mean, we really need to invest more in timing in terms of logistics. Um, getting, I mean, uh, doing, preparing all the traveling, uh, better, uh, getting to know, uh, what hotels are the, the, the teams using, what arrival times, um, training times, um, um, changing rooms, goalkeepers, uh, briefings, passports and IDs, um, first kit, second kit.
Um, dealing with all their own communication, uh, communication officials, their own, um, and, and Twitter and YouTube, um, uh, people in charge. Uh, I mean, that's, that, that has been an invisible job that, that you don't, you don't really notice when you go and visit and, and watch the tournament, but, but it's, it's, it's 80 percent of the whole thing.
So, I think we, we, what we've learned is we, that we want to continue with, with the equally amazing, I mean, the two genders. Um, unlike other tournaments, we, we, we, for us, it's a mantra. Um, what we do with the, with the girls, we do it with the boys and vice versa. It's, um, this year, eight girls team and eight boys team.
And, and we, we are trying to, for us, it's natural thing. I mean, whatever we do with one gender, we do it with the other one. And then maybe one of the new things for which I'm very, very, very happy is that this year we're having an English team, the English champion, um, Joe's English champion from last year, Repton Hockey Club.
Um, we've been trying to convince the English for a long while, uh, we couldn't make it last year, but this year, uh, they're there, so I'm very happy to have them and, and I'm really looking forward to have, uh, other. Clubs from other nations in next editions, and that's something we're working hard trying to enlarge the origins of all the participants.
Without losing the quality of the game. So that's something, that's an equation that is not always happy, but not always, um, easy. But, um, but yeah, we're working with that. Maybe another thing we learned is that we really need to improve the streaming. Last year's streaming was Um, and this year we were going with our own AI camera that we're going to be using for streaming.
Uh, I don't know if we're going to be able to stream all the, all the matches, but for sure the finals are going to be on streaming. And at least two or three match every day are going to be on streaming with, with MyPlay, which is one of our sponsors. And we are also very grateful to them. So, and then, what else?
And then, yeah. And then the other thing is working, I think one thing we learned is that we, we had some, we were a little bit, um, disrupting last year. And that generated some kind of misunderstandings with other entities and associations. But this year, I think, uh, we have a very strong and, and, and good atmosphere relationship with everyone. And we are sharing the fun zone with EHL, so EHL and EHCO are going to be sharing the fun zone. And that's, I think that's very interesting because we are here also to support EHL. And now in the Excel that we are preparing, I've seen all the applications from all the ECHO. things. And I have more than 1, 600 people willing to have the wristband to watch EHCO, but also, uh, the EHL.
So at the end of the day, we are a collateral profit for EHL and we want to be. Uh, so it's not that we are against CHL, it's we want to collaborate with VHL and we're here to help them as we, as we expect them to, to help us.
Keely: absolutely. Very complimentary. And, and that's some, so some of the things that are changing for this year, like you mentioned, the fan zone being in between Wagner and the Amsterdam Hockey and Bandy Club pitches where, uh, our tournament's going to be played on. I think that's beautiful. That's going to be super fun for everybody.
It's going to give everybody more exposure and more eyeballs on these amazing players who are out there doing their best. And of course, my team who are going to be also serving the tournament to the best of their ability. And I'm, I'm so excited that's happening. So our, Are those, is there going to be live streaming from both pitches or just pitch one do you think?
Leandro: Well, that's, that's what we're, we're working. I mean, thirdly, there, there are, uh, cameras of, of Amsterdam Hockey Club in pitch one, and we, our idea was to bring our own echo, um, uh, camera to pitch two. Uh, we'll see how that goes, because I believe for Friday, the cameras of Amsterdam were not working.
They're trying to fix them. So we might move our AI camera to pitch one and then see if they can fix their own cameras and and then eventually move ours to pitch number two. So we, that's one of the things we are now trying to fix.
Keely: I just know that's the first question everybody asks is, well, okay, well, what pitch is it? Both pitches and that sort of thing. So I just thought I'd throw it out there and also for my own curiosity.
Leandro: We will be, we'll be, um, I think we'll be sharing all the schedule and each pitch every day in our Instagram. So guys, be there and you'll get all the data. And I believe, um, yeah, it's going to be, or maybe the previous night it's going to be already published.
Keely: perfect. And, uh, I just put the address for the, uh, for EHCO hockey on Instagram. That's where. Almost all of the information comes out, so if you're interested in anything that's happening in the tournament, I highly recommend everybody make sure you give them a follow. And, uh, luckily they're tagging us in some of the things as well, which means that the same things will appear on the FHumpire's feed, and so we'll try to get that going as well within our umpiring team.
I'll make sure to mention that at our briefing tomorrow. A really nice comment here from Christian Segura. Leandro and Sandro are great guys. From my experience, the best quality of them is that they devote all of their energy on any product or project they believe in. And yes, umpires love Leandro, so I'm sure he's not kidding.
Leandro: He used to be a referee. He's now, he's now, uh, he's now a journalist in, in, from Spain, working for a very well known Spanish newspaper, but living, he's a war, uh, uh, journalist. He's now living in Ukraine. So he's a very brave guy, a very
Keely: wow, Christian. Okay. Well, you know, thank you for everything that you're doing and feel free Christian to drop me a note any time because obviously somebody who's doing things in media and also, obviously in umpiring I'm just out here to try to meet as many people as I can and make connections because you never know when something is gonna turn into something like How this happened, because Ernst is the reason that we as FHumpires got involved with EHCO, because he knew that I was taking a group of umpires to watch the EHL.
And when we got the call from Sander three weeks before the tournament last year, it was like, okay, let's umpire the tournament. And it was just, I, I, I wanted, I want to say this, because I, I don't think I can say it enough times how much I, appreciate the group of people that we brought that time who were all in as soon as I said this tournament these under 19 players need us and they all said yes let's do it we are all in and they put they they were very patient any organizational things that we had to work out they were super patient and I thought You know, I'm not going to lie, I thought they did a fantastic job and I'm really excited to what's, what's going to be happening this year.
So, um, what a great opportunity and, and thank you Ernst for, for getting all this going. So, you already talked about how you want to, yeah, you want to expand the tournament with teams from more regions. Is there anything else about the tournament that you're hoping to, to really accomplish in the future?
Leandro: Well, I mean, I think we really need to work in, in, in three ways. Uh, one is. Ality, obviously we, I thi I, I understand that we are already official since the very moment that, that the first division platform from, from Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Austria, and, and some of England are, are willing to have this opportunity.
But far beyond that, um, we've, we've been seeing some overlapping with, uh, four Nation tournaments, uh, under 18. And that, that's a hurdle because we, we really have some teams which are not coming with some of their top players. And we really need to solve that. Um, I, I understand that, uh, national associations have national budgets or government budgets, and they can be more flexible organizing those kind of four nation tournaments in other weekends of the, of the year.
And. This tournament is really attached to EHL, which is a club weekend, and we should really concentrate all efforts in this Easter weekend as a club experience. So that's one line of work. Another line of work is working with sponsors. We do have sponsors, um, Amsterdam. Amsterdam Hockey Vandy Club, you guys, FHumpires, Indian Maharaja, um, the hockey department, my play, my own law firm.
So, but we, I would really have to, we'd really like to, to have an institutional sponsor for next year. We, we're now working with several, um, companies. So that's one thing to work. And then the other thing is trying to maybe jump outside the box a little bit. Thinking about crazy things. I was eventually thinking about why not inviting, uh, an Indian team or, or an Argentinian team or a Canadian team, you know, you know, having something new, something that is a little bit disrupting.
I think the main aim is to. Uh, enlarge the experience or improve the experience of talented hockey, uh, uh, for European, uh, countries or for European clubs. And that, that means sometimes also inviting people outside, outside Europe. Why not? So, I'm trying to be, you know, um, having that kind of disruptive mentality is also something we, we all need in order to improve.
Keely: Oh, I love that. That's, that's amazing. Uh, so, sign me up. Sign us up. I mean, this, this is just all, this is very much in the spirit that, that we have too, that we are trying to innovate, we're trying to keep pace with the game, maybe even someday stay ahead of it. As it continues to evolve because as umpires we know we have a really important job to, to, to be able to facilitate all this growth and make sure that we're giving players that stage where they can do all the amazing things that they're about to do and, and you're providing the, the, you know, the format for them to do it and so, um, this is, this is all really, really exciting.
I, I absolutely love this. Is there anything else? As we're wrapping this up that you'd like people at home to know about EHCO Trophy, um, before we, we, we get ready to get into it on Friday.
Leandro: Well, no, I think we've talked more or less about everything. Um, I, I, I really want to thank everybody. I mean, there's, I mean, we, we are here, uh, Fabricio, Sandra and myself, but there's many other people behind that have been supporting us. You, Ernst, uh, even Marcos Hoffmann at the, at the EuroHockey, some NAs, um, coaches, um, officials, uh, journalists, uh, sponsors.
So many people have been telling us, hey guys, you're doing well, let's do it, let's repeat it, that's an amazing idea, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I can only be grateful, um, um, I'm really looking forward to it and seeing you all there in Amsterdam from Friday on. And we're going to try to do the best we can to get the best outcome.
And, and yeah, thank you.
Keely: Awesome. Leander, thank you so much for your time. That was fantastic. And I'm super excited. I know everybody else is. Watching is super exciting too, so we will see you in, I, I don't know if I'll see you tomorrow at all, but uh, if not I will see you early on Friday, I'm sure, and uh, we'll get this party started and have a good time, but thanks for joining me tonight, I'm really glad that we were able to, to talk and share all this, so thanks very much.
Leandro: Thank you for giving us the opportunity to
Keely: Of course. Alright, we'll see you soon. All right, everyone, that was Leandro Martinez Zurita, and what an exceptional opportunity that we have to be able to, to umpire at this tournament and officiate and support such an amazing, amazing, uh, just performance of hockey. It's just fantastic. So, Ernst, I don't know if you're still there, but again, I just want to say thank you because just these little connections and, and, and sharing these pieces of information and just how much we love hockey is the reason that we were able to get this done.
So thank you so much. Okay. Uh, announcements as we often do, oops, that's not what I wanted to do. Let's see if I can. Okay. I got this. I, it's, everything's different, everybody. Oh, and my camera's not on. Well, that's fun. Bye. Bye. Let's see if I can get this done. Um, this is awesome. There we go. I knew there was going to be some technical problems.
Um, here we go. I would like to congratulate this fine person, Tim Clay, on achieving his level 3 MPUA promotion. And let's see, I think I can fire it this way. Here we go. We, we sort of talked about it on Sunday, but if I don't have the picture and I don't have the graphics, it's not official. So, I wanted to make sure that we officially, officially got that done.
And, uh, Tim, congratulations. Um, it was really nice, um, Uh, Tim sent me, um, a DM of, and because it's a DM, I won't share the contents, but it was just really nice to hear from him. And I'm just so glad that he was able to meet this goal because he has been working towards it and really working hard. So good, good job and all that.
So let's see, Jonathan here is just saying that was really good. I'm glad. I'm glad you enjoyed that. And thank you. We will, um, we just need. each other and we need, um, all of our, all of our experience and teamwork to, to pull this off. So I'm really excited and Ernst gotta love the hockey. Absolutely. Okay.
Let's get into our second topic of the day and it is when an umpire gets hit with social media.
Leandro: I
Keely: friends, I,
Leandro: not know
Keely: I have to fix this one too.
Leandro: translation of this word. I have to make conclusions
Keely: So friends, um, this will keep playing. Let me mute this. Because we now have that, but, I mean, what a f just, yeah. So, several people sent this clip over, and I, uh, you know, at first, I didn't even want to talk about it all, but I think there is something interesting, um, let's see, for, okay, which, who, who is he?
Oops, look, don't, don't, don't at me about this, this is just, Everything going crazy. For those who don't know him, which one is he? Um, I don't know who him is and he, so let me know, Rachel. Um, you're very welcome. Oh, I see. I'm sorry. In the, in the photo. Here. Let's, I'll just go back to this. Tim is on the left and that is his colleague, Peter McIntosh, on the right. you. Sorry, Rachel. Figured that out. Just took me a hot minute. And now I have to figure out how to go back to my scene, but don't worry. I've, I've got this. And here it is. Okay, so we're back to this. We're back to our friend Marcin, um, who is, unfortunately, we're staying with the EHL theme at least, right? Getting hit by the ball. Now, I don't think there's a single person in this crowd who won't know what the proper result of this is.
But the reason that I wanted to talk about it just briefly, a little bit, is because of, um, don't be a smart aleck, Ian. Nobody needs a smart aleck. Um, is that this clip is older. This is at least I think this is pre COVID this particular one, uh, of of EHL Action and I think it's something that I have talked about on What Up Wednesday a long time ago and it's been resurfaced so sometimes what will happen is, um, Social media outlets will have a look at things that they've published in the past, and especially things that have gotten a lot of engagement, and they'll decide that, oh yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna do this again, and we're gonna put this out again.
And not surprising to all of us is that things that have to do with umpires and decisions that umpires make tend to get a lot of attention, which is, you know, you know I have, I have contradictory feelings about this because For us it shouldn't be about the sensationalism. The players should always have the center stage and what they're doing have the center stage, but at the same time if we can shine some light on things that umpires are doing and how their array of understanding and interpretations get applied in a game, that can be very helpful as well.
This isn't really one of those things. It's just a really unfortunate incident and an application of the rule that says An umpire is part of the pitch, so when the ball hits the umpire, it's purely a play on situation. Now, all of us know this, but for those of you, some people did ask, well, do you think that there was something about the umpire's positioning that could have changed?
I mean, when you look at this, Especially several times, as we are right now. Is that you can see that the ball had gotten underneath the goalkeeper, who was in a very non traditional position as a goalkeeper. When keepers go supine, they're usually on one side or the other, right? I mean, I'm not a goalkeeping expert.
You tell me if I got this wrong, but usually that's how they're trying to make their stops. is by front facing the ball and being on one side or the other. And this goalkeeper just, you know, because of the deflection, and, you know, a choice that he makes, he ends up on his back. And that's a very, actually, kind of ice hockey thing to do.
So the likelihood of that goalkeeper obstructing an attacker because the ball gets Inadvertently trapped underneath him is actually really high, and so Marcin needs to move into this position in order to see the ball that's on the other side of his body. There is literally nowhere else he can go other than inside the goal in order to see this, and it's just a freak accident of how the goalkeeper gets up and very quickly the defender gets in on the opposite side and then is trying to send it away.
So there's, there's really like, it's just a freak occurrence. That hits Marcin, and what I wanted to pull out of this is that other than that, what we've done is every time a one social media property finds something like this, and this happens on Instagram every week, is that they all steal each other's clips, and especially the ones that aren't generating the unique content, and HockeyNL obviously is not one of them.
HockeyNL develops their own content. And they put out some really good stuff that these guys, the others like Inside Hockey, and there's a whole bunch of them. That all they do is scrape the content of other very hard working media outlets. They're trying to find a way to make money off of this, and use it for their own, and get all the likes and the, and the engagement and grow their followings, and then try to make money off that, I guess.
And they're doing so really at the cost of an umpire here in this situation because, you know, there's nothing really to learn. And so when I say an umpire getting hit in socials, That's what I mean. He's just getting, you know, this isn't helpful. It is the way things are. There's, there's nothing much to be said.
So if anybody has any questions about this and my sort of feelings on it, feel free to, um, pop into the comments and ask, as always. I'm, I'm always here for a little bit more of in depthness, but As far as a rant goes, that was probably not very ranty, was it? It really wasn't ranty at all. But I'm just trying to open up my CameraFX so I can fix my FaceTime camera so it's not doing all the weird zooming that I had.
Okay, turn off the zoom and pan, that'll work. Okay, that should fix it for all the other scenes, I hope. Who knows? Okay, so Let's zip over. I'll do this. Hi, this is really fun to do this the other way. Um, announcements, and take that away, and what did I want to talk about? Promotions. Oh, it's just this one. Yes.
Hi. I'm coming to the UK again. So after this weekend is over, I will be, um, returning and doing some more talking. Just a little bit, just a couple places. I'm actually really, uh, tremendously excited that this is, uh, this is all going to pull off. Now let's see if I can just totally fix this. Sorry, because I can see that for every scene this is going to be a problem once I get this done.
Apply to all scenes. There we go. Um, so, the schedule as is as follows. Going to St. Ives on Thursday the 4th. I'll be working with the Cambridge Academy doing sort of a jamboree thing, so it's not a talk, but we're going to be doing an on field thing with their, their young, uh, players who are going to experiment with umpiring and get a chance to be on the pitch and do some things practically.
It's going to be so much fun. I can't wait for that, especially because I don't have to talk. That much. Um, on the 5th, I'm going to spend the day at Holcomb doing some pitch side coaching, so if you're in the area and you want to come and just listen in to my process, listen in to how I work with umpires, because You probably know I'm a little different, a little unorthodox, and, uh, there are always interesting things that I can also learn from my interactions with umpires that way, so very excited about that.
And then I go to talk at East Grinstead that night. On the 8th, Keynsham Hockey Club, uh, I'll be speaking there. Wallingford on Tuesday the 9th, uh, haven't on the 10th in Holcombe back there to do a talk that evening. So there's two nights that I don't Uh, have a speaking engagement right now, and that's Wednesday the 3rd, but I do have what of Wednesday, so if I don't get something I will do what of Wednesday that day, and then on Sunday the 7th.
And I could do one on Friday the 12th if I had to, but my dad's coming in to do our thing. Family tour later, so, uh, in the morning, so I'm not super pushing on that one, but it's there. So if you use the QR code, you'll find the Facebook post in which I link all the forms, so if you are in any of these areas, these are free.
of charge. So just come on out and come say hi because the opportunity for me to be able to meet all of you is one of the most precious things about these trips and tournaments. So you know, come out and, and give me a shout and, um, buy me a drink. Obviously you have to buy me something, a wine, a G& T, something like that.
I'm into G& T now. Good. Okay. That is that for the promos. So let's talk about women's uniforms. It might be a thing.
I know, you're, you're wondering, Keely, what do you mean women's uniforms might be a thing? Well, I did have a couple of people, I am fixing the camera, don't worry. It's coming. Camera, there we go. I had a few people send this along to me, this source, about, and this comes from Human Resources Magazine, Resource Digest, let's see if I pull up the, the full, this is just really ugly, so I didn't want to include all of it, but.
It's an, it's an human resources mech, HC mech, uh, based in Australia. And they had this to report, which was really, really interesting, but it's just nice to see it from other sources and other meanings here, that six in 10 female referees and umpires in Australia, uh, don't feel comfortable wearing the uniforms.
and call them male centric. So they talked about them not being gender specific or inclusive, that they're expensive, or they don't fit very well, or they have to wear white as uniforms. And I mean, we've had this discussion, and if you're into tennis at all, you'll know about what they've done at Wimbledon in terms of changing the uniform requirements, because that just White uniforms just doesn't work very well for, for, uh, women of a lot of ages.
It just makes everybody feel very self conscious about things that could happen in terms of menstruation and that sort of thing. So it's, it's one of those things. And, and this, this report then talks about how this uniforms really are a barrier to officiating. And according to new, nearly two thirds of non officials, So, for two thirds of non officials to say, I'm not going to take this up because of uniform requirements in addition to harassment, discrimination, lack of flexibility, inadequate training, and gender stereotypes.
I mean, it's, this is a massive, massive thing. So, I wanted to share this with you. Um, and just that this is probably one of the easiest things that we can fix. It's really hard to fix, uh, patriarchal norms with, uh, the division of labor in the home. It's really hard to address pay inequity. It's really hard to address gender stereotypes.
Those are all big challenges that we're, we've been working on for decades. But what we wear is the easiest thing to fix. So my call to everyone out there is that Let's take this seriously, because we could be opening doors for more women and girls to get into umpiring, our sport in particular, and officiating sports of all kinds.
Because this is very, very easy to do. So that is what I wanted to share on that topic, and I hope that you, uh, you can go ahead and you can go read that. article, uh, elsewhere. I've put the link in the description so you can see it's not a very long article, but if you have any thoughts about that, things that you want to share about, you know, the recent developments with allowing, um, women officially to wear trousers when they umpire and shorts and that sort of thing, especially at the high level competitions where those restrictions have tended to be more Um, more severely enforced.
Uh, I'd love to hear it and I'd love to hear about what your experiences have been trying to obtain good uniforms for women umpires, um, difficulties with associations that you deal with in supplying them, um, and ideas that you have to make this, um, This problem, uh, ameliorated and all that. So, that's what I've got for you today.
Did I promise a short show? And did I deliver a short show? I think I delivered a short show. Oh my gosh, everybody. It's probably because everybody's across the street at Santa Maria and I'm really hungry and I want to have some dinner and some food. But I really thank you for coming along on this. And I am so excited.
About Friday, uh, tomorrow we will be doing our umpires briefing here at the hotel and then we have the opportunity to go and watch EHL on the opening day. So that's not going to be an off day really for a lot of us because it's an opportunity that we have to do some development work to talk about. Uh, what's happening and, and learn some things and, and be together and bond as a group and talk over what we are going to do as we step onto the pitch for those under 19 players.
So it's, it's an important element to what we're doing and I'm looking forward to that. And then Friday, the tournament starts. So if you haven't already, again, please do go and follow EHCO hockey on Instagram. They just passed a thousand followers and Leander was very excited about that. Uh, as you should be because getting the message out is just, and building that momentum is so important.
If you are in the Amsterdam area and you're considering coming down, you are officially invited and I demand that you come and say hi to me, say hi to all the rest of the team. They're going to be so excited to build up our team membership and get to know each other. So no excuses. I. It's Easter, you just gotta come and gotta say hi, and if you are interested in doing some tech officiating, I have some empty chairs for you.
Yes, we, we could use a little bit of help. So it's a great way to have a chance to You know, to watch these players up close and be part of the game and help contribute and serve. So, don't be shy about that. And, it's been less than a real hour. Like, isn't that incredible? How did I, how did I manage to do this?
And, there you go, Luke, who is one of our match officials, uh, has just, uh, It just landed and getting to the terminal. So of course he turns on Wed of Wednesday so he can come say hi. Isn't that amazing? That is great. And thanks very much, Ian. I, I know it's going to, I have so much confidence in this group and having gone through last year and just been amazed, I know I'm still going to be amazed this year, but I know it's going to be a lot of delight as well, because I know how well and how committed this group of people are, because, you know, They're part of us.
They're part of our community. So very excited. Yes, Luke has some cheers and Rachel says enjoy and yes, Jonathan next year. You got to come by. Okay You're, you're sort of in the area. You're close. So please do come. Thank you very much, everybody. We will see you, I think, next week on What Up Wednesday, unless somebody books me for a speaking gig.
And if they do, then I'll livestream that. How's that for, how's that for a good compromise? As I like to do. Thanks again. We will see you next week on What Up Wednesday. Come into the Discord server, FHumpires. com forward slash D S And there it is. We will see you in the Discord server. Thanks very much, everybody.
Bye.
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