Live Q&A #WhatUpWednesday Ep. 117

📅 May 3 18.00 GMT
➡️ YouTube

When a tackle is shown on an IG Reel, can you make it a constructive conversation? When a free hit attack is played directly into the circle, where do you take the FHD? What should you do when a player drops a stick? And finally, should parents be forced to umpire matches if they abuse officials?

All this and more on this week's #WhatUpWednesday!

See you there!

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⏱ Chapter Markers:
00:00 Chair Dancing
02:27 Topics!
09:44 1. Is This Tackle Clean? Is This Conversation Good?
40:04 2. Where Is The FHD When A FHA Is Played Directly In The Circle?
55:32 3. What Do We Do With This Dropped Stick?
01:13:11 4. How Answering Questions Can Become a Distraction
01:24:26 5. Forcing Parents To Umpire

Check out when the next #WhatUpWednesday will go live.

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Transcript

🎶

Good Wednesday to you all. What up? It's Keely Dunn. FHumpires. You're the third team and my mic is not in the right spot. I'd just like to declare that my mic is in the incorrect spot. It's probably because it's been a little bit frantic, and you know what? I'm not gonna lie. Uh, I don't really have a great excuse other than outdoors started here in Calgary, which means that I had a, um, first match on Monday, which we tied, we had absolutely no business being in the game cuz we were really short to start.

And then we were short for some of the second half and we, we just, we weren't very good, but here we were. Second half, let me tell you the goal. Okay, cuz I'm really excited. Ball. We got awarded a 23 meter restart that I didn't think we really deserved. But look, I'm not here to argue with umpires. So from my center D position, I'm like, okay, I'll take this one cuz I'm ready to go grab the ball.

And I had pre-scanned, which is something I'm trying to teach a lot of the gals that I'm playing with how to pre-scan. And I, I had all the space to the right and I could hear the, the best player on the opposing team was saying, don't let her go left, don't let her go left. And there I was and I'm like, I'm going that way.

So I just dragged and I started dribbling, I got my five meters, I hit the ball and then I hit it sort of a little bit of a slant cross into the left post. And Kristina picked it up on the reception. Kristina playing with pneumonia by the way. So she picks it up and then she slants the ball back up the goalkeeper who just happened to be Burgundy Biletski, hi Burg, uh, went down.

And the slap ball came back and open player popped into the open net. Boom. Well, not really open. Everybody was marked, but they were in better positions and we scored the T and we totally didn't deserve to be in that game, but we were so happy we went for drinks afterwards. It was really fun. I'm glad I told you that whole story.

So it's one of those things, it's a big shift, I think for all of us. When we go into a new season, we've got playing, we've got umpiring, we've got coaching, we've got administering, we've got organizing. We've got so many things going on, and we can really get out of sorts. And I just wanna say, I don't have a lot of advice to you other than, Hey, I hear you.

I understand how that feels. I'm going through that right now and trying to resort the life that I just almost got under control. This goes. Anyway. Hi, Iain is here live. Iain, you legend. Good to see you. Um, I need to put up a photo of us together on the show and I haven't done that yet, but I will. Uh, Luke, you disconnect your buzzer.

You are off friends, off. Shayne's here. Good to see you. And Cat, of course, Don is here live. Don is a very busy person. Okay. So kind of nice to see him. Tsys here. Hey friend. I met TSI in Bristol, just happened to show up and he's like, he's looking at me and it was so funny and just like, hi. And I'm like, hello?

I watch your show all the time. I'm like, oh, okay. That's great. But I have no idea what you look like. So that was really funny. You is here. Almost done with cooking. Oh, I thought you were coaching and I thought that was interesting. Thanks. Because guess who didn't wash their hair this morning? This girl?

Yeah. Um, Scott is replay squad. Nick is here. Uh, te you're watching your eldest girl play summer hockey while watching F h u Living the dream. You sir. You definitely are doing that. Good to see you. Um, hello Kristofa. Chandra. Wait. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming in and saying hi. I really appreciate it.

And do I know Minka Woolley? I do know mostly of her. She and I didn't, I don't think we were ever at a tournament together. We, we. Kind of overlap just a tiny bit. And of course she's, um, a, a very well respected and, uh, busy umpire manager on the FIH circuit, but she and I haven't had the opportunity to work together.

But someday one can dream so Kristofa, if I'm saying that right, or if it's Kristofa, it's probably Kristofa I'm thinking. Or maybe I just call you Chris. I don't know. You tell me what I'm supposed to call you. Raj is here. Good. See you. Thank you for your Instagram stories. Always appreciated. If you are getting some value out of this and you're like, Hey, you know what?

I want all of my best friends to show up to one up Wednesdays as well. Do what Raj does and like take a, like a screenshot or I don't know, a duet of you side by side, shaking your head at something stupid I say, and put it up on Instagram and tag me so I can share it. When you tag me, I will share everything.

That doesn't embarrass me too much. Sorry you are late, William. Good to see you. Whoops, I a Binish. Hello. Good to see you friend. Here. I'm ringing that FIH umpire. Good to have you. Great to have you along and Stijn. Thank you very much. You've got half an ear. That's okay. I will give you double the value in half your ear so you get a full show.

How's that? She taught you how to umpire 13 years ago, Kristofa. And you had the pleasure to umpire with her. That is awesome. It's Chris. Okay, great to meet you. There you go. Um, I, I dunno what's happening here, but something's happening cuz Tugs, he's getting his coat. He probably made a joke at my expense.

There you go. Uh, hey Binish, it's my pleasure to have you along your, your comment is coming up right there. Really appreciated. Um, cuz you came over here. You were umpiring in Vancouver, weren't you? Did I? Unless I have you confused with somebody else. Look, I'm really old and I get people confused, so correct me.

Okay. This is what we're doing today. Here's our topics. Is this tackle cleaning? Is this conversation good? I didn't know what to call it. Where is the free hit defense when a free hit attack is straight into the circle? What are we gonna do with this? Drops stick. How to answer questions and not distract yourself.

And forcing parents to umpire. That's right. And let me start my music because girl needs to settle. She needs to, I got this. I got this. Okay, let's get into our first topic, shall we? Shall we? Now, if you are a fan of the Instagrams, which … I'm trying. I'm trying. I did something new last week . I did an Instagram duet.

All the kids are doing it , and I really know this song very well now because if you think I just recorded myself once with my face alongside this shot, you are wrong. I did it a few times cuz I was like, how do I, I don't know if I, I felt really awkward. And you're ready for polls too.

Sorry, Cat. Okay, here's, here's a poll. Okay, Cat, are you ready? What is your call? Is this play on? Is this a free hit for the attack? Is this a penalty corner? Is this a penalty corner and a personal old school? Hard? You can just break card. It's faster. Tastes good. So that was the play. Now let's see if I can do this.

I am living on the edge, friends, I'm living on the edge, having multiple chrome windows open and just seeing if I can blow up the spot. Where is it? There it is. Okay, so I'll play that there. No, I don't play it there. I play it in here. I'm funny.

Uh, is that gonna work? No, let's try this again. Um, refresh it. See, this is why you don't mess. You don't mess.

Okay, I think I can fix this. I didn't realize the widget wouldn't actually play the whole thing. Let's see if that works there. Okay. So I don't want to look at my own face doing this, especially because, um, there was a shadow. I don't know what was in front of me, but there was a shadow and um, I think it was Ben thought I had spilled something on my shirt.

I'm like, look, I'm not a monster. So this was interesting and I don't often react to. Instagram posts, but I thought, you know what, I'm gonna give this one a shot and do it the newfangled way the kids do, because I think there's value in having a conversation around this. And it's not really about the call.

You know me. I'm like, let's, let's be tricky about it. Let's, the decision isn't really the important thing here. And the, the important thing is also not about whether the umpire missed this or not. Okay? I, I really, that is not what I wanna get into here. And I made sure on my Instagram post when I bring it up, that I wanted people to understand.

And when I bring up the description here, um, here I'm saying feedback please, but keep it positive. This is a no drag zone. You all know my jam. You, you all know this here in this show because if anybody ever steps outta line, I get right on in their face. Like, you know that. But I wanted to make sure the people in the Instagram land understood the approach that I'm gonna take.

But I was worried this was a risk. Okay? Because that's not very common. People want, people are used to social media being a very reactive, let's shout and get polarized and do all that kind of thing kind of place. And I didn't want that to happen here. So for me, it was a, it was a chance to take, but I wanted to see whether we could actually have a good dialogue about this decision.

But I also couldn't ignore the fact that it is kind of, you know, this was my reaction when I saw it. It was my honest reaction. I was like, what, what? And what am I missing? What, what am I not seeing? And the important thing is to ask the questions, what am I not seeing? So I asked questions of the folks to see what they had to say.

So let's see what you have. And I, I really want this to stop, so I am going to reorganize this scene just a little bit, and I'm gonna drag this into the scene on top so that I don't have to look at my face anymore. There we go. This is enough. This is enough friends. Okay. Oh, it was true. That's great Finish.

Very nice to meet you. Okay, so the m. Family. The me family, very warm. Welcome. And if you've been here before, I don't care, you're on your name's. Awesome. The MelIaina family says corner and yellow card. Don Roam is in the attack here, by the way. Um, yeah, I hope Did I, I hope I said that right. Because what this is, is this is a chasing defender who's coming back into the play and retrieving the ball as Rotterdam is.

The, uh, the team in white is attacking that circle. Okay. So hopefully I said that right? And that's why I sure didn't say free hit defense is an option. Did I, this is not ever gonna be a blue ball. Can we just,

just saying. Okay. Um, where are we at Rachel, from the given angle? Very fair comment. Good to point out PC and a card. I'm living on the edge. Hi Steffan. That's okay. You d you don't ever apologize for being late. I'm just glad you're here. Just come in and start telling me things. Uh, Jenny. Okay. And Finnish is also with a PC and a personal penalty.

Controlling umpire's angle would be great, as from this angle it looks like a pc. Well, the controlling a umpire's angle might be great. Um, I don't, I I don't see them in the replay and I really did try to get the original footage. I really, I don't like looking at a vertical sliver of video and then trying to make a determination about anything cuz there's always more information.

Right. I, I wish, I wish we could have seen that We don't have it, but. I don't see the umpire out at a 45 degree angle behind the play, as far as I'm concerned. Old school, European J Hook, if we could see the umpire in the picture out at that 45 degree angle, chew it. Okay. That's, that's, that's not good enough.

Hopefully what we have is an umpire who's deep and they're close to their happy place, they're close to their end line, and they have an interior angle on this play. I think given how many defenders are back there, this doesn't look like a fast break situation, but I've been wrong in the past. So I think that's probably where the umpire is, but there don't seem to be many other attackers in advance of this.

So I'm not sure where, um, where else a read of the play could have been. Like, where else is this ball gonna go except to that, you know? So your angle in terms of understanding, What's the most important decision I'm about to make? Where do I have to position myself so I can see it? I mean, I mean, I'm, I'm thinking that they should have had a good angle, but we don't know cuz we can't see them.

Okay. Um, these hoof to classic umpires aren't crazy people. Thank you for clarifying. I didn't think they were, you'd wanna know why they let play on. Maybe it looked much different from their angle. Yes. I mean, and, and that's the thing. This is it. It got to be a high level umpire who let this play go on.

And that's why I'm asking the question. But what's important for us is then once we've asked the question is, okay, how do we step through what we've seen and arrive with what is the best process so that when we see this in our next game, we get the decision. Right. Okay. For dawn, the shoulder comes in first attack, the tackle looks horrible from the ankle.

So PC in a personal penalty, but you'd wanna see the umpire's angle and maybe if the umpire is at an interior angle, The attacker in white is starting to cut with the ball because they're, they're dribbling towards the right, so the umpires left out towards the sideline, and maybe that's where the, the difficulty comes in tugs that you're with Mr.

Dolby. It's an iffy angle, but it looks like the ball itself was taken cleanly, but not without a drop shoulder and overrun resulting in contact with a defending player. Thank you for those very precise words. I appreciate that. Hi. How, how, what, how do I do at two time speed? Do I speak really slowly because I listen at two time speed to everything as well.

Okay. And so these are the sort of things that we see on social media. And Stan, I, I don't wanna pick on you. So this is, this is just something that I wanna offer as a way for us to mentally engage with the content that we're seeing because social media is an opportunity. I don't want you to become like me and jaded and not wanna see it because you think.

This isn't good dialogue. This isn't helpful. We can't learn anything from this. I want to learn from this. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna try to engage with these discussions more, but saying that something is naughty is not helpful, it's condescending. And I, I just don't, I don't, I don't like it. And it's not that I wanna be all vicious and proper, uh, clearly I'm not a very proper person.

But I also don't think that we need to use language like that because is there naughty in the rule book, is there naughty in any briefings? Does naughty help us apply a principle to this situation that's gonna help us get to the right result? That's my question.

Okay. So for all of you who are pitching out yellow cards, and this was very common in the Instagram comments, and in fact a lot of people just were like, most people didn't even notice it should have been a penalty corner. For those of you who did say penalty corner, um, thank you for those of you who did not, or maybe you didn't notice where the, the foul happened and that just wasn't, you were just like, oh my god.

Physical contact, naughty rugby tackle. That was another phrase that came out all the time. Rugby, tackle. I'm like, okay, um, rugby, ice hockey, American football, um, roller derby. But are any of those phrases anywhere that we can point to? If we have a conversation with that player afterwards, can we say, well, the reason that I penalized you in this way is because it was a rugby tackle.

And they'll be like, so what? Who cares? What does that have to do with anything? Is that against the rules? And you'll be like, well, what's against the rules is the following. And then you would get to the actual rule and you would get to the actual principle. So don't give people the opportunity to get defensive because of the language that you choose to use When you talk about these things, if you can be rational, calm, logical, and concise, because you don't waste your time with a bunch of adjectives that are emotive, that get people feeling intensely about what you're saying, especially when they're the person who did this thing, right?

You wanna try to remove the emotion from it, from yourself, from the players, from the coaches, and ultimately from the fans, even though. Sport is about emotion. I get it. That's, but this is about how do we, how do we get to good decisions and how do we justify, how do we educate people as to our decisions afterwards?

Luke, initially you thought the tackle was okay, but I'll repeat. You've seen the blue defenders drops a shoulder into the contact. Is it, is it just the dropping of the shoulder? Why is everybody talking about the dropping of the shoulder? Like it doesn't matter what angle the shoulder comes into, this is a tackle with physical contact and the rules are very clear.

Okay. I dunno what just happened there. You got to see my FaceTime camera coming up behind here. Um, let's see, where are we at? Um, I'm trying to find the exact one. If you know which rule I'm looking for, please go ahead and tell me exactly what it is. Um, obstruct right. 9 13, 9, 9, 9, 13 players must not tackle unless in a position to play the ball without body contact.

Now, we know that it's not that hockey's a completely non-contact sport. Of course not. There's, there's sometimes a hand that's touching or placed on and somewhat a little bit of pressure on and that sort of thing. But the words that we're looking for, and the phrase that we're looking to use is, this is a tackle with physical contact end of story.

And in fact, that physical contact removes and separates the player in possession from the ball. Okay? So that's the key. That's the, that's what we gotta glam onto here, and that's how we need to explain this. It is a tackle with body contact that advantages the player making the tackle. And then the next thing that we look at is, Whether this is reckless.

So we've established that it's a foul, so it's a very least it's a free hit for the attack. Okay? And then we go to the next step. It's like, well, is that enough? Was this reckless as to the safety of the opponent? Like was it dangerous? Was it physical? Did it take that player to ground? I mean, dude was wiped out.

So that's when we start considering the personal penalties, okay? And if we're gonna consider a personal penalty, we know that from the FH briefing, we cannot award a personal penalty inside the 23 meter line without awarding the more severe team penalty, sometimes referred to as an upgrade. So this needs to be a penalty corner, and whether this is intentional, Intentionally reckless, or this is just reckless to towards the safety.

This player is in full control of what he's doing, and that is the intentionality. Okay? It's not that he's trying to wipe the guy out. That's not his intention. His intention is, well, I'm being generous. His intention is to move in that direction and make sure that he gets the ball by any means necessary because he's not being careful about his running line.

So then we can start to talk about what personal penalty at. So let's see what everybody else is saying.

A minor or a major yellow is the question that Chris is asking, uh, attacking. So for Cat, you do a five minute yell and app penalty corner. Don, the Kampong player looks to use his body as, as a wedge. Yeah. It separates him. So that is the body contact that clearly advantages the person committing the foul.

So we got it. Um, Raj, you don't know if you're right, but the, the player in blue plate smart, like take the ball cleanly but using his arm to push the player. Well, it's smart when you get away with it, but it's against the rules. I told you what the rule was. Rash, rash friend here. Nine 13. Okay. Nine 13. You can't use your arm to separate a player from the ball.

Okay?

I'm looking at you through one eye, making sure that you get the point. There you go. And that's Chris's point there. Not allowed to do that Tsk. Yes, he is fully recovered. You're not allowed, but the player played smart. So it might be difficult for the umpires to see it. I, I mean, obviously it was difficult for the umpire to see it because they didn't make the correct call.

Right? But is it smart for a player to take such a risk?

Because we don't know at what juncture. And that's sort of the next point that I'm leading to when we start considering what personal penalty we're gonna give here, is that we don't know what stage of the game this is. We don't know if this is first quarter. We don't know if this is fourth quarter and white is down one goal, or it's a tie game, or white's up a goal, or you know, it's, it's close.

We don't know what other penalties have been awarded. We don't know what other cards are on. We don't know if seven's done something already in this game. Okay. And so, We know that the next step is, now that we know that we wanna award a personal penalty, what should we be awarding? Now the briefing is gonna give us a lot of information onto that, and I hope I have, do I have a briefing here?

Let's see. I'm just gonna see if I've got

not quite there. Is it here? I know I've got it somewhere.

I seem to have lost my carding slides, but the FH briefing gives us some pretty clear guidelines as to what we're looking for under the various categories and the physical and high impact. Is the starting point for the yellow, for the five minute yellow. Okay. So I think it's possible maybe that this could be a green early in the game.

Maybe. Do I think you should jump straight to a yellow card for this five minutes? Yeah, I do. Could you go to a 10 minute yellow card? You could. You could. It depends, I think given the level of physicality that you often see these games and it's, it's just one of those things, if this is late in the game, if there have been other yellow cards, you know, yes, I can see it.

Would I feel very comfortable with a high minute yellow? Absolutely.

Um, okay. Stijn. You're on a deadline. I get it. But you, but this is the thing, right? It's, I, I will grant that exception, but I want everybody to understand where I'm at. I get really, like, our job is so hard and players and coaches don't like us already. Do we need to antagonize everybody by using words like naughty step and stuff like that?

I, I really, I don't like it. I'm a player. I play now, and if somebody says you're going to the naughty step, I'm going,

I'm going where? By the way, in my first game, it was maybe five minutes in knees. Weren't working. Brain body connection, not working. A ball gets slipped down my sideline and I'm too far away from it. And what do I do? I threw my stick. I threw my stick, and I, as it's leaving my hand, I'm like, I wonder what the umpires are gonna do.

First gave the season five minutes in, Keely throws her stick. What are they gonna do? I didn't touch the ball. So it was okay. And it wasn't dangerous in anybody. That could be another poll, maybe six. Blue was blocking the view, but you should be watching for the tackle. Yes. And it's about reading the play.

It's about reading the play. If you can't see seven coming. Like look at that pace. If that guy isn't getting your attention as an umpire, you're not watching the right part of the game, you should be anticipating, whoa. What is he gonna be able to do? Is he gonna come around the weak side of the player and try to get around?

The thing that I don't understand about this whole tackle is four is in position. I don't play defense like this, okay? I would never try to get this ball. What I would do is I would try to come run back on the inside and block that off so that my teammate number four can make a very easy block tackle.

We do it in teams in tandem, and because there's like six of us on defense, what is this? Sorry, I just, the more I see it, the more I can't understand. Steffan's with the old five. What's the, I don't care about the drop. What? It doesn't matter. The player could have run with his shoulders the other way and still collided with the guy and had the same result.

It's, I don't know. You guys are picking up phrases from other sports and you're putting them into this situation because it means something to you. It's evocative of something to you. Separation logic, principles, come on friends. It's about the approach, the tackle. He bulldozes him. He's playing the player, not the ball.

It is playing with body contact. And Chris, you're keen to see wait in your areas that you've been told Yeah. The players. Right. And that's, and that's where the briefing, you know, goes to that way. Does that mean that every time a player, the black and white of every time a player goes to ground, it's gotta be a 10 minute yellow?

Is really, really bad. Like that does not help us get to good decisions. So I'm not a fan of that GE broad generalization now because first it was slide tackles. Here we go. Slide tackles three criterion that you have to apply

and that it was a ball carrier and gets taken to ground as a result of physical contact by a defender who is intentionally onto ground. Those three things had to happen for a 10 minute yellow and now it's just pretty much, oh my god, somebody's sliding on the ground. It's a 10 minute yellow. That's the problem with generalizations.

That's the problem with not being precise with their language.

Bye. You watched the game live Add where was okay? No.

I'm in at pc.

Don't care. Do not care because there is no, or man, there is ball. There is ball. And that's it. Simon. Oh my God. I'm shaking you right now. Figuratively, over the internet, grabbing the back of your neck and shaking you. That's a problem. That's a problem. It causes us not to look at these things the right way and we don't describe it the right way.

Play on.

Here we go, Shayne. Applying the proper language and principles. Getting to an answer. This is a highly physical tackle inside the 23. So PC, given the force and the potential for injury is high. It's a 10 minute yellow card for him. Thank you. See, I'm persuaded now. When somebody uses the right words with me, I'm like, eh, you know, when you put it that way in accordance with the briefing, that's the call.

And Shayne, if the controlling of our calls a five minute yell and supporting thinks it's a 10 minute, do they have a con, do they have a conversation to agree? Maybe. Maybe. Do you really feel like it needs to be overruled? If this is a play on and I'm the supporting umpire, I am sh I am carding this anyway, and I'm on the radio saying, what do you think we have to do now that I've carded a player inside your 23?

I'm not, this is so physical and dangerous that I would not as a person on the pitch, allow this to go. Because my job, my first job is safety of the players. Sorry, Kampong.

And sorry to my colleague. And if you don't like that, we're gonna have to con have a conversation afterwards about our egos and about what's important in the game. Does this count as a rant? Me rant to get you? Yes. Does everything I've been saying count as a rant? Probably. But I'm afraid to hit my buttons because that's what broke things last week.

So yeah. And the white players holding his head as he gets, like there's a lot of risk here. A lot of risk. Okay. I think we're ready for a two minute warning

and we're ready for me to end the poll.

I need to pull this out of the way. End poll. It's coming.

I think I need to meditate more. What do you think? Do you think it would be helpful for me to meditate or maybe fresh flowers

or, I don't know. What else should I do to be more calm ideas in the chat, please. Okay, so 82% of you went with the PC and personal penalty. Thank you. Free attack. For 8% of you do we need to have a conversation PC only for 5%. At least it's something. And for 2% of you,

good job. Don't we all need to know what to do in order to calm down, says Cat, sorry. Where's my thing? Where's my thing? Okay, so. I hope that was helpful. I think that it's about the process. You start with what is the rule? So start with the rule cannot tackle without body contact, can, you must tackle without body contact.

If you are to tackle it cannot be with body contact, whatever, dammit. And then you look at where did that happen on the pitch, high impact, low impact. You look at intentionality, you look at danger, and then you're adding those things in order to come up with your personal penalty. Dance party with earphones and good idea.

I like it. Well, Luke, you need to figure that out, right? As do I.

I mean, I'm one to talk cuz I sit here in a 90 minute show and I get trashed all the time for taking too long to make my points. But I'm not just making my point. I'm trying to work through your points as well. So I hope that's, that's my excuse. That's my excuse. And I'm sticking to it. I do wanna hear your input and I wanna work with your ideas and work with your languaging and respond to the good stuff that's happening.

So it takes me longer caffeine. Maybe that's my problem. I need more. Rose. You're right. Jams. That's the,

it's good. It's good for some. They're ready to. Okay. Right. Thank you for your participation. And guess what? I'm gonna need a lot of your participation on this one, and you'll see why in a moment, where is the free hit defense when a free hit attack is played directly into the circle from within the 23 meter.

I couldn't fit it all on one. And what is happening in my life? Hi. This was an email I received a few days ago from one yawn Decker yawn. Thanks for getting in touch. And my, my, my pat answer to all of these things now is, Hey, you know what? If you have this question, and I want y'all to take this on board, everybody's watching on the replays who lurks, sorry, observes, and isn't necessarily wanting to get involved, but you've got questions and you think, oh, man, if I could just email this to Keely and she could answer me privately, I'm, I won't.

I won't. Because there are too many questions out there that too many people share with you. And it is selfish. It is selfish not to share your questions and the answers that we can all arrive at and we can all give it's, it's selfish not to share that with everybody. So I ask you, please, when you have those questions is come to the Discord server and if you don't know what that is, Cat's gonna put it in the chat.

FH umpires.com/ds and that's where we hang out. Yes, it's a walled garden of fun. It's not social media, but that's because I get to impose rules there that I can't impose on social media. And I get to say we're, this is a no drag zone. This is gonna be positive. This is eventually, I'm gonna tell you what the consensus answer is if people keep disagreeing with me.

All those sort of things because I want people to be able to walk away with a good, a good solid understanding. Something they know that they can take into their game and they can employ in their next game and they can get it right and they can get their marks, they can get the players on side and they can do a great job and feel good when they step off the pitch.

That is my goal. So maybe or two, I really need an emoji for, you're right cuz it's just a red wine that's not fair. So you, you check this somewhere this week because of something that happened in your game. To be honest, it might be guidance from the K and h B, but what you found is where the ball entered the circle or anywhere inside the circle, he says, okay, that's the answer that Y is giving and he's sticking to it.

So let's get your feedback. So what. Yawn is asking is that because a free hit that's played directly into the circle by the attack from within the 23 only becomes an infringement at the point at which it enters the circle, should that not be where the ball is taken from? Okay. The MIaino family says it's taken from where the ball is played.

Rachel, very adroitly. I don't think I've ever said that word out loudly, that under 13.1 A, it's taken close to where the offense occurred and invalid taking over free hit inside the 23 is under 12.2 B. Excellent. No more comments so far. Very interesting. So here's the thing, friends. When this rule was first brought into play and I looked for it, I tried to find old briefings that I would've had that would've set out what a phrase that as an old umpire I was, I heard, and I read and I saw, and I abided by, which is that the location of the free hit is from where the free hit was incorrectly executed.

Okay. You, although you thought it was where the ball was played. Same reasoning for danger, sometimes some dangers. It's difficult. And I guess the problem that I have with this, with an application that says that the free hit is taken, it's a, it's an offense at the circle. On the circle line. That means then as Jan points out in his, uh, question that the free hit can then be taken.

The free hit to the defense can be taken from anywhere inside that circle because of the rules. Now, imagine if the ball is taken from your umpiring. It's your controlling circle, and it gets taken from the far side line up near the 23 hits straight into the circle, and a player tries to deflect a, an attacker tries to deflect it outside.

The circle misses, it enters the circle, and the ball continues deep into the corner of your circle, right in front of you. You boo a free hit defense. The defending team would be entitled to take the ball from there if this interpretation applies.

Do you feel like that is a proper reset of the balance? Of play or does that award a really significant out of proportion advantage to the defending team to be able to take the ball there?

Hi, Chris. What I, I just assume that we're best friends anyway, so Hi, welcome. Great. Last name, sir. And you never know, maybe we do have some relation way back in the day because my family's from England, and if you're from England, well, there you go. And one 13.1 A. It's taken close to where the offense occurred.

Invalid taking of the free hit inside the 23. That's the languaging that I grew up with on this rule, but I can't find that where the free hit was incorrectly executed.

In the right place. And the UK interpretation is play it where the free hit was from. This is also the international interpretation. Okay? Now, if a team takes it from the near the circle edge or the circle edge where it entered, and nobody is disadvantaged. Nobody. Thanks, Cat. Sorry, I didn't instruct a, a poll here.

Um, nobody is going to be completely shocked because the one thing that we're not looking for at any level of play is to unnecessarily interrupt the flow. Right? But what we also don't wanna do is to give teams the opportunity to gain. An undue advantage from an intersection of some technicality of the rule that really doesn't exist.

Now think of it this way. When a foul is awarded inside the circle against the attacking team, and the defending team can take that foul from anywhere inside the circle, at least the thing that went wrong is what happened inside the circle. At the most, it's gonna be 50 meters away. That could be Can somebody mouth my mouth for me?

What if it's in that top corner between the 23 and the sideline, and then it gets sent straight into you? Like, what? What are we dealing with there? Whoops, that was a little jarring. Okay. That is a really big difference between where the thing went wrong and where the subsequent free hit to correct that thing that went wrong.

That was done incorrectly is taken from, I don't like it. My hockey gut says Nope.

Okay, so keep answering the poll. I'm just gonna scan through.

Everything's wrong. I'm gonna scan through and just take a candor at the rules that Rachel pointed out here and make sure that we're in the right place. Okay? And that the location of the free hit is a free hit is taken close to where the offense occurred, and the location must be more precise inside the 23 meter area, says the guidance.

Okay. And. Close to means with within playing distance of where the offense occurred and with no significant advantage gained. Now usually we, you know, we're applying that in a slightly different way, but we've gotta consider it here too, don't we? Okay. Um, let's see, uh, five meters. Everybody's gotta be five meters at sub C and sub F.

From a free hit awarded to the attack within 23, the ball must minute be played into the circle until it has traveled at least five meters, not necessarily seeing a direction, blah, blah, blah. Um, alternatively, after a defending player has touched the ball can be played into the circle by any other player, including the player who took the free hit.

Okay? So there's nothing there.

And so it's a valid question to ask.

The offense is only called when the ball enters the D, but that's kind of like saying, let me think. What would the, what would the analogy be? That's like saying, well, the ball crosses the end line only when it crosses the end line, therefore that's where the ball should be taken from. But no, we take it 50 meters up because it's a significant disadvantage to the de the defending team of that circle to have to take the ball from that far, that close.

They, they get a 15 meter buffer zone just because otherwise, can you imagine if we change the rules like that and the end line was like a sideline.

Wow, that would bite. That would be so hard. Okay, so I think the last point that I can sort of make about this, and I don't know why all of that is wrong, is that the conventional interpretation has always been from where the ball was played and it and it, you can't call the offense until the offense actually happens, but it's one of those sort of technicalities and it's kind of like danger where we have a few sort of permutations as to when a ball is considered dangerous and where we actually take that free hit from, oh, great.

Harrison's here. The action of playing to the ball and the circles the offense. Therefore you penalize the offense from where the action occurred. It just so happens you have to wait for the ball to enter the D. That's the logic. Absolutely. I agree. Um, you, the ball entering the circle isn't the foul, but playing the ball, playing it into the circle is, isn't that a correct, is that a correct thought?

Yeah, it's a bit semantic feeling, isn't it? It's very like, okay, now we're just playing cute with language. Costa. I know, right? That would just, if it cost the M line between the post, that would be so hard. Yes, it's action is, but playing the ball intentionally off the M line isn't a foul regardless. It's just we restart the play with malor, so that doesn't quite work.

Close though. Palmore close. We also take a free hit from the ball played. Uh, but just thinking, okay. Yeah. Let's see what we all think on the poll. I was looking for the language. Matt, I don't know if you can find it. Do you remember that the language was where. The free hit was incorrectly executed.

Executed was the word, and that was in briefings. I just, I can't find anything in my stuff anymore. This is why I should never delete anything off my hard drive, cuz it's somewhere. It's somewhere. Okay,

two minute warning,

let's see what's going on. There's the result,

and this is one of those things that I, I understand why jurisdictions sometimes take the lead and go a little bit off script, but the danger is, is that just like with anything. Generating a consensus and considering the existing consensus and why things are done the way they are, can have a lot of merit as well, instead of just getting technical with the rules.

So 83% of you are with the should be taken where the free hit was from. And four 16% of you at the edge are anywhere inside the circle. This is a tough one and only 18 of you voted. Sad face. I need more votes, but thank you for participating. Let me just see if there's any more comments on that and then we'll go from that.

Um, you do? Yeah. Okay. Go search a Dropbox. Let me know. We will follow up with this. If anybody out there in the internet lands happens to find this, please get in touch because I think it's, yeah, I think it would be valuable to have that nailed down so we can tell. People and the Netherlands. They're wrong.

I'm just kidding. Oh, and we need more Alexa as well. What do I have to play my graphic? There it is.

Please do. Okay, here's our next topic. What do we do with this drop stick? You can tell I was really scrambling for titles. See how the, um, umpires deal with this one. It's always really enthralling that context that Charlie's foreshadowing of that was just something else. We can't gotta go and pick his stick up, can't follow it and expect to get the penalty caught.

Okay. Check out the replay. This is, uh, GB Australia this weekend at some point.

Okay. So the free hit is awarded. I'd be interested in hearing which way, and here's some poll options for you, Cat. Is this

just a free hit to the attack? Is this a penalty corner? Uh, see this is confusing cuz there's a whole bunch of different aspects. But let's just go free. Hit attack penalty corner, penalty corner, and a card play on. Let's see what happens.

Okay, so we've, we've talked about drops, sticks a few times in the last six months from what I can remember. And there's often confusion and maybe I foreshadowed it by telling the story about how I threw my stick in my game Stijn. You can call me naughty on that one. No, you can't. That was deliberate and cynical and it was something that I would've been appropriately penalized for.

I sure hope. But we've talked about the drops stick because there's a difference under the rules between a drop stick and a throne stick. Is there not?

Hey cuz the rules require, first of all, there's nine two here. 9 2, 9 2. Sorry, I don't have my iPad set up. That players on the field must hold their stick and not use it in a dangerous way. Okay. And then we go to 9, 14, 15, 16. I was close. I just have to keep counting up. Players must not throw any object or piece of equipment onto the field at the ball or another player, umpire or person.

Okay, so if the stick is not thrown, it is not an offense to drop your stick. It would be an offense to continue to play without your stick. How you play without your stick would have to be something like you're interfering with the progressive play by grabbing onto a player's shirt by running them off the line of the ball by taking away space and cutting off a passing lane.

Something like that. Let's see.

Uh, spirit of the game. Free hit or play on. Okay. Steffan could card the attacker be an option? Um, no, because it's not a penalty to try to manufacture an offense, and it wasn't particularly dangerous. It was just like, just imagine if that guy had decided to go, not where he had to stop the ball and take another free hit, but he could have, I don't know, gone straightforward or used a space that was more open.

Instead, he wanted to try to generate something and that's just as Oh,

right. Yes. 2011. Okay. Where are you gonna send it? Because I'll go back and I'll put it back up in this broadcast. Thank you very much Chris. You would replay the free hit. The G B R player tried to get outta the way, but the Australia player ran direct towards him. Try, probably trying to get the pc. Okay.

So that's good feedback here. So there's an initial obstruction or player playing after he dropped the stick, but it happened pretty fast. He's stumbling, he's tripping. Like you're not gonna be like, oh, you terrible human, you just broke down the play. He's falling down as this. It looks like it's just an obstruction.

Maybe it touches his knee. Okay. And then he's clearly trying to get up and get outta the way, and actually the ball goes off his foot in that moment. Okay? So the attacker dribbles at the defender and plays it off his foot. I love this. Do you know how many times I thought that Dutch players were yelling at me that a shot was happening, but shoot is Dutch for foot And I was very confused.

Okay, so there is a follow up offense on this because it, it just, it, it hits the player's right foot there. You can see the change of the direction of the ball. It's, I mean, the, the direction it, it flicks away to a different cam camera angle right at that moment. But Luke resetting the free hit makes the most sense to you.

The defender's simply trying to get a stick back and not trying to actively appear. What was play. Yeah, I, I sort of, when we were watching this game, were we watching this game live? I can't remember, but I was playing with it, my head thinking, okay, what else could we expect the defender, uh, defender to do here?

Could we expect him to. Run outta the way or to like, oh, I don't have my stick, so I better not try to go pick it up. I mean, you, you can't really, right. You have to, you have to consider that the, the action is gonna be, well, I don't want the ball to hit the stick, even though we know that that's not a foul, that's just a play on, because it's just an object on the turf.

Play on. Just like if it hits us, hits a corner, flag hits a cat, you know, we just play on Right. Email. Matt, you're gonna make me open email in the middle of a live show. You're a monster.

I'm just kidding.

Multi-talented. Okay, but which email address did you send it to? Let's find out. Do do, okay. Hasn't shown up yet. It's probably caught in my junk mail.

I can't, it's not there yet. Okay. Let's see. Um, let's see. Chris, good question coming up here, Chris, once I can actually bring it up on the screen, can we confirm it's a play on if he dribbles the ball onto the stick onto the floor? Looks like he was gonna do that too. Yes, he was going for that. And you're absolutely right, Chris.

It would've been a play on. Okay. That's very important to know. It's simply a dropped object

and you, I mean, you sound like me. I mean, it hits his foot. So free hit attack, but play on regarding the five meters, um,

play on regarding the five meters. So you're, you're thinking that the defender hasn't gotten five meters away? Yes. Okay. Same as you.

Sorry, I should have said dog. I should have said it hits a dog. It, it brushes against a dog who's run on the turf, which has happened. That's happened. You've seen, you've all seen MarIaina Rado walking out in an international match and, and picking up a dog from the turf who's on his belly and wagging his tail.

He is like, hi, pet me in the middle of an international match. So cute. Uh, Simon, the defender is making a clear delivered attempt to get out of the way. Um, a clear attacking channels available. Also accounting that the free hit attack is five meters from the circle. He can just go towards the circle. Yeah.

He's not, he's not moving into the most attractive lane. Right. And that's sort of what. The, the languaging I just want you to shift to a little bit is that when a defender has to get out of the way, and they can't just be like, I'm retreating. If they retreat into the most attractive lane towards the circle, we're like, yeah, no, you, you can't disappear, but you can't take up the best spot.

You don't get to stay in that parking spot. You don't have a batch. Okay? You're not allowed to do that. So the defender here, if they're, if they had dropped, like he's moving out of the attractive lane, and if instead he had backed up towards the circle with his hands up going, I'm not trying to play the ball, we would've taken a dim view of that, right?

We would've said, Hmm, you're taking away the best lane and the fastest lane to get to the circle for that attacker. So boo, we would've said intentionally. Taking part in play without having a stick in your hand. Nine, two, or whatever it was, or interfering with five meters.

Okay. An alien on the pitch if it hits an alien on the pitch. God, I can't say anything these days. And it's a free hit attack for the foot for Stijn. The Defender tries to get the accidentally don't stick outta the way. Yep. And doesn't he, he doesn't try to engage in the play. Absolutely. Okay, let's end this poll.

Let's see what happens. Maybe Matt's emails come in and pull,

you shouldn't, you shouldn't open up email in the middle of a live show because all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, there's so many things. Uh, Matt from Auto g p t just sent me an email. I don't think that's the one I'm looking for. Oh, there it is.

Yeah. 2011. Briefing. Oh, sorry. Poll

squirrel. Wait, I have it. Squirrel.

Getting the poll results. Bring them up on the screen. Action. What's your call? Free Hit attack for 86%. Play on for 8%. And yeah, and, and you probably just didn't see the foot. So chill. I'm like super not mad. 94% of you. I think you're right. And 4% of you want a pc? Why? Why? Tell me, why did I explain it? If you had voted pc, do you feel confident now that you have the reason why it's not every 20 or 30 years?

Okay. You need to follow up with me. I wanna know.

Okay. Because I don't want. You to feel like you're wrong in that. Okay, and let me just bring up this. Can I do this fast enough?

Oh, that's big, but here we go. Okay. This is from the 2011 briefing for free hit taken by the attack within the attacking mirror, played inside the directly into the circle. Do not penalize until the ball actually enters the circle. A free disor to the opposing team from the spot where the free hit was incorrectly executed.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I'm just saying I had it right. I had the language right, but Matt Harrison, hashtag legend hashtag way to get me the information that I was looking for. And why don't I have the 2011 briefing? I don't know it did I actually.

I am very good with dogs despite not having one dogs listen to the things I say because I'm, I didn't give them an option for a bully. There you go. Yes, I'm very excited and yes, and yay for Matt. Okay, thank you Matt. I really appreciate you digging that out. I have not seen anything that has directed us to not follow that briefing, so that's what I'm sticking to.

Okay. Uh, let's see. You know, it's um, and this is the fun thing though, is that as I'm thinking through this and I'm trying to find the evidence to back up my assumption, cuz how many times do I get mad at you guys for answering questions or asking them without actually looking at the rules or looking at the briefing?

I do it all the time. I'm like, Hey, look at the words. And I, I was literally going off, not looking at the words, and that's wrong, and I don't like it. And, and I said, am I just gonna be one of those old umpires who says, well, that's the way we always did it. That's the wording that I remember, and blah, blah, blah.

And am I wrong? So it's really important to me not to fall into that trap. So, big ups, big props. Ha

okay. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't. No, no. We have to nip that one the bud, because that's not gonna go well for any of us. From the 2010 briefing after the mandatory experiment was brought into the main rules. Yeah. So, So this is what happens. We change the rules, okay? And, and we, we shift something up, and then we say, we, we have instructions that we use in guidance and briefings and, you know, assholes like me on the internet who tell you what language you should be using and how you should be thinking about these problems.

And then it becomes incorporated into our common sense, our culture, our generalized understanding. And then somebody comes along and questions that, and we're like, oh, um, well that's just the way we do it. It doesn't mean it's wrong, but there's a tension there that I just, there's nuance that I want you to appreciate that we're, we have to appreciate that people can sometimes ask questions that are good to ask.

And challenging our own assumptions is valid and it's valuable. Okay. That's all I'm trying to say.

Uh, well, I won't say it again. Okay, Chris, can I do a video regarding the difference between explaining your decisions to players and over engaging? Oh my god, Chris. Hi. Welcome to our next topic.

Welcome to our next topic. No, that's the wrong,

perfectly executed. Oh, what happened? I know. I fixed this.

Speed. Okay. Look, I am so committed to fixing this that I'm gonna do it on the fly options, and I want wait. I want preview mode.

Okay. I can't believe I didn't fix it, but here I'm gonna do it.

Oh no, don't do that.

And then I'm gonna do this. Just work with me here. Work with me.

Okay.

Back to live mode. Hi. Okay, are you ready,

Chris? I'm so glad you asked. I have just the thing for you,

how answering questions can become a distraction. I cannot believe it. That is the most amazing thing that has ever happened. Watch this.

So you play the whistle. Hey, relax. If I don't see it, I'm not blowing it. Simple. See where he is, uh, stood. So I hope you heard all of that. And if you didn't, that's cool. But what happened in that segment is that there was a big save and, and like, it was really cool because I actually, I, I hope he doesn't mind me saying this, but I did have a conversation with Steve after this game, cause I know he watches.

So if you're watching this on replay, Steve. Hi. Glad you're here. And we had a conversation about this segment cuz I was like, Hey, dope game and stuff like that. And he kind of brought it up himself or maybe I brought it up to him and I said, so there was that time at band camp. Do you remember in the f in the second quarter when the ball went off the sideline?

Because when I was watching this game, I was watching this in a watch party. This particular moment, a sideline ball that was missed, turned into the next four minutes, got a little hairy down in Garrett's end. And I always look for reasons why, why did something happen? And then we can, we can really pair this one down here.

Um, on Chris's point about over engaging and what happens here is that the ball. Goes off the sideline and Steve's just at an angle where he doesn't see it, he doesn't see it properly. He's just made a whole bunch of really tough little tiny decisions. He's got players, you know, right there sort of talking to him.

But what happens right after this watch carefully is that Shipley gets the ball there and he gets completely broken down. Now, if Steve is not distracted by answering the questions of like 13 AustralIain players who are demanding answers from him in that moment, he's gonna peg that, cuz that's what he does.

That's what he is very, very good at. Okay, so we, I, I have, I've pointed this out. We, I did a segment last week and if you weren't here to watch it, I did a segment on changing your mindset in management and why getting those first instances are so important. That's one that Steve would've carded any day of the week.

And when we talked about it, he's like, yeah, yeah, you're right. I see that. And it, it was just, it was a sharing moment. It wasn't a critiquing moment. I just, I wanna make this clear. And I, I wanted to tell him about it because I was like, yeah, I'm gonna show it on the show. Are you cool? And he's like, yeah, sure.

So thank you Steve for being open and, you know, letting me sort of point all this out. So, yeah. Was it a nice save? I'm not sure, but there you go. Um, yeah, an amazing coincidence. So I'm just gonna play the video again. I want you to really focus in on what you hear from the umpire in this moment.

Hey, can't see so off. You play the whistle, Hey, relax. I can't see it. I can't see it. Hey, relax, I'm not gonna call what I can't see. So he's, he is, he's engaging with the players and misses that big call. So this is something that I coach quite a bit cuz there's a fine line between responding to the players and not just ignoring them and seeming like, don't challenge me.

And picking a moment where it's not the right time to answer. And our natural tendency in these moments is to be defensive and we want to explain to players, we wanna engage with them, and then we wanna give them the answers that they're seeking because sometimes they're really, really, really wrong. And it's hard not to answer back and to challenge, but the biggest problem, not just that, it'll distract you from seeing what happens next because your mind is in the past, you are rehearsing that moment in your mind.

If you're any good as an umpire, and I'm sure all of you are in this boat, is when you miss something like that, you've got four players around you going, umps, it's off. It's off. What are you doing? And you're like, how? How did I miss that? What happened? I didn't see it. You are playing it back in your head.

So you're not just explaining, but you're also revisiting the decision visually. In your head, you're putting a lot of brain power into processing something you can't do shit all about. It's already happened. And instead, what we need to be focusing on all the time is reading ahead. What's gonna happen next?

Oh, this player is gonna be running out of a tightly packed cir, you know, area in the bottom corner, and he's got a bunch of space in front of him. Mighty get broken down here. Right? It's anticipating what's gonna happen next. Preparing yourself. If that happens, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna give a green card for that.

It's a low impact breakdown and it's early in the game and blah, blah, blah. I've got all these things. So if that happens, oh, there it is. Off he goes. Right? That is the mindset of a proactive, anticipating umpire. And if you engage in conversations with players for too long, if you give them lengthy explanations, I mean, some of us with the English language or like.

All you have to say is once didn't see it right? If you have to answer in that moment, think about how being more concise if you do reply, will set you up for better reading and anticipation and more accurate calls in the game afterwards. Okay? Uh, Chris, what do you have? Your example is that you were explaining a reason for PC that another player who didn't hear us.

So you repeated am Minka told you, say you gave your reason. Don't explain again. That's the excuse we give ourselves. Well, not everybody heard me. Well, maybe don't waste an opportunity to speak to more than one player by saying quietly to one, Hey, I didn't see it. Chill. And then all of a sudden you're getting more and more questions like

Right. And that's another reason why we need to be more proactive about engaging with captains because it's their responsibility to get the information to everybody anyway. If, if it's a big decision, you go to the captain and you're like, Hey, explain this. This is why I made that decision. The stick was dropped, it wasn't thrown, so it's just a free hit.

And the captain's like, okay. And then other players start yelling and you're like, go to that person, that dude.

Okay. Is that over gaging? It depends. It depends on the moment, Chris. So if you are in the middle of a play and you are needing to be proactive, definitely over engaging. If you have a minute, it might be okay if you, you, as you said, you've called a pc. You have a little bit of downtime, but do you, because what you need to be doing in that moment is assessing how much time has ticked by, are they getting their masks?

Do I have an attacker who's edging into the circle from my blindside here? Um, what's, what's happening with the game clock? Are the defenders lining up properly? Does the goalkeeper, are they starting to fart around with their equipment? Like, you have a lot of things to think about in that moment, and explaining decisions repeatedly may take you away from some very important management tasks that you have in that moment.

So, you know, minka is not on the pitch with you, so she doesn't know necessarily everything that players have been asking you. One of the things I love about listening in on radios when I'm coaching umpires is if the radios are good enough. I can hear all the individual questions and I know when an umpire is over engaging and when they just have to just say, I've already answered, we're done.

We're done. Okay? So

take it on as an idea that you, a principle that you can try to apply. That. Answering once is a good idea. When you have the time answering, once in that moment is best. It's optimal. Maybe there are moments where you can deviate from that or you need to deviate from that. Okay? And whether it applied in that particular situation, who knows?

Okay. Arena voice use. Good point. That's another way to do it, and that's why you'll see umpires explain decisions using secondary signals, using their body language. There was nothing there. The ball was over here. You had possession, like whatever. Those, those acting out things helped convey the information while that umpire is speaking to people who can't hear it.

And you can read from the body language. Oh, oh yeah, I know what they called there. All right. Question, answer, right?

Yeah. It's situational as Don's saying. So there you go, Steffan, at your game on Sunday, the umpire called a PC and later thought that he should, uh, and later that he thought he should have, maybe you shouldn't have. Okay. As he set up, he came over to the defense team to say he blew it too late and y'all heard him one way to manage it.

Okay, sure. Sorry, I don't understand all the words, but that's probably good. Okay, let's get to the last thing that I wanted to talk about with four minutes left on the clock.

Let's see if this scene set up properly. I don't, I don't know if it is. Friends. I'm nervous. Foresting parents umpire. It's, it's on. Okay, cool. This came across what?

Hi. Don't worry. I'll fix it. Widget camera. There we go. Just another day. Live streaming. So this came across my radar this weekend. I have a Google alert that picks up hockey and umpiring as search terms in the same thing. I get a lot of baseball. It's so annoying and it doesn't matter how much I try to train it, I don't get it.

But it just so happened that it alerted me to this particular story that in New Jersey, New Jersey Little League, their plan to stop parents from berating, umpires little league. Okay? And I don't know exactly what the age group of little league is, but we're talking like 12 year olds and parents showing up at these games for their, I don't know, home run hero, million dollar, billion dollar athlete in the future kind of person.

Um, that, that parents are getting into fights and parents are yelling about decisions that are being made by plate umpires and lines people and things like that in this sport, I don't even know what the proper words are. So what this New Jersey literally. Division district decided to do is to force parents who get reprimanded or get pointed out for abusing officials that they have to actually step on the ball Diamond Park and they have to umpire, they have to officiate their, you know, not, maybe not their kids, but they have to officiate little league games.

So it's literally handing the whistle to people. They'll do so under the supervision of actually trained officials, but in order to put them in the situation and force them to have the empathy of the, of that, um, this, this is what this district has decided to do. I'd like to hear your thoughts. I think it's an interesting idea.

So if a parent, um, or another spectator fights with an umpire, Uh, this is ABC News's wording, so I bet that's not what the rule actually says. Um, they have to volunteer to officiate themselves for at least three upcoming games before they get left back in the park, so they can't come and watch their kids unless they officiate three games.

Okay. Um, so I'd like to hear what you think about this. Obviously, as this article's pointing out, it shows it, it puts them in position to see that it's not as easy as it looks that making mistakes as part of it, that the actual little league volunteers here are volunteers. So in that situation, you're not taking a job away from somebody who's getting paid.

They point out, um, but there are some downsides as they say. Untrained umpires may not make very good calls, and that impacts the game and, and raises frustration levels. Causes players to lose confidence in the whole process and that, that, that they're not gonna get, you know, good officiating on this. So what do y'all think?

You So, yeah, umpire shortages, uh, you still have to have somebody who's trained who's, who's there doing that, um, at the time. So, and, and watching the untrained parent and supervising them, which I think is funny. Uh, Luke saw it. Yes. Oh yeah. I, you know, and I don't always take these things on, but I decided, and I know that there have been initiatives where players who get red carded in certain.

Jurisdictions have to take an umpiring course before they're allowed to play again. And I'm not sure if I like that and I've, I've said this before because in general and with this approach by this little league district, is that it makes officiating a punishment. And it's kind of like if you screw up in training and you're shooting on net, you miss and the coach makes you run shuttles because you missed.

Now fitness is punishment and your mindset towards fitness is now not productive. Not constructive, all that kind of stuff. So I don't like it for that reason. Officiating should be something that people do because it's rewarding, because it's fun, because of the awesome people that they get to meet like us.

Mm-hmm.

And not because it's, it's a, it's a hammer that can be put on people. So Simon, uh, as an umpires, umpire with parents who clearly don't want to umpire, it's miserable. Yeah. Right. So you don't enjoy it as a trained, willing volunteer because the people that you're working with are just really mad. They're there.

Really good point. Um, I'm an end zone. I, I don't know what, I'm not, I'm not baseball. I don't baseball. Uh, Chris, Chris, your club has a policy where if you're carded for dissent, you're given extra umpiring and match managing duties. Now managing a match, does that mean like administering, like, like appointing and making sure you have enough players and, and things like that?

Or do you mean actually like being a. You know, um, technical official, is it that kind of match management? I'm curious you if you think it could go really well or really bad, depending on the parents understanding the rules in the game, their interest in doing it. Well, so I was thinking about, um, Yahoo and his experience, and I was actually talking to my dad about this.

Cause I was like, dad, what do you think? He's 81. He's really smart. I, I figured I'd ask him over breakfast and he's, and I told him about Yahoo and if you didn't get to tune into that interview, I will put a link. I will put a little card up there, uh, letting you know where that is. And, and he was an angry coach who really thought that umpires weren't doing a very good job on his games.

And he let them know about it. And, you know, dudes big. He's got, he's got a resting bitch face that could really, you know, Could rival mine, and he would, as he told me, and told us that he would scare the pants off umpires on a regular basis. And he was asked once if he would do a match in his area, did one game, and then he got asked to go to IPTs under fourteens and he threw himself into it.

But Yahoo was one of those more rare individuals in the world who has such a strong sense of duty to the sport. He said, you know what? If they really need help, if they need people, I'm gonna be a good person and I'm gonna be one of those people who steps up and volunteers and does a good job. And he w he took it so seriously that he binge watched what a Wednesday content and then went out there and won umpire of the tournament, just cash on the side.

Oh, best umpire there. Umpired one game before this. You know, it's, it's crazy. It's a crazy story. But that was the process. It wasn't that he was forced to do it because he got red carded or thrown out of a game when he was coaching or something like that. So I'm a little concerned how you invoke that difference, and that's what my dad said.

He said it's different when they want to do well. Steffan, you like the intent in, in theory, the idea. You're not sure if it's pragmatic. They don't know the rules, the quality of the game as it is officiated is of concern and obviously depends on the level in lead little league. Is it really like, is it the knowledge of the rules or just the fact that it's really hard to apply them Well when it's kids and you just want them to have fun and you want them to play and to be passionate and active and learn great lessons about life and.

It's not whether the ball is outside or inside the strike zone. Do they even strike? Is it T-ball? I don't know. Rachel, you've always liked the idea that players should umpire at least once. I, I love the idea of players umpiring. I want to find a way to make it something they want to do that it's a privilege to do that.

People are like, I wanna be an umpire cuz it's dope. Look at the great clothes they get to wear. Look at how the great people they get to hang out with and they, and you know, they get to go have a drink in the bar in a tournament at night. A drink, just one. And players have to go to bed early. Like that's no fun for baseball.

You mean a quick umpire course? The beginners won the USA in most states is for a little league and then Sure. A game or two would be great. Uh, match managing here you set the timer for the golden and clock. Okay. So it's a it's a TD match official thing. Yep. Okay. Yeah, I don't know if I wanna make that punishment either, but you can always have candy at the table.

That always helps

the parents and their other workload. That is definitely an issue. You could be tr punishing the train on partisan way. Yep. That's a great point Steffan. Um, wait, this is a one of two. Okay. Your experience that doesn't work. You want to watch the game where the home team required its youth players to umpire one match per season.

The Boyden bows was a once the game was chaos. If spectators are really interfering and there's no field delegate to tone them down, offering them your whistle to continue often helps though Engaging parents is essential in lower youth games. So I think it was probably two years ago now. I did a what up Wednesday where I talked about engaging parents.

And this is something that I did over at, uh, in Amsterdam. So when the BelgIain, uh, yeah, the BelgIain, the Royal Re uh, women's team was playing the, the goalkeeper's dad. He was a piece of work. He, he was a very, very tall, large man and he was very upset about a swing and amiss that wasn't called on a potential shot towards his daughter.

I am not saying derogatory words right now, and it was very loud. It was directed at one of my people, so I was not very happy. So I walked all the way from the other side of the pitch all around the end line, and I came and I stood right next to him and I had a conversation. I said, hi. My name's Kayla Donna from Canada, and I'm the umpire manager for this tournament.

And I heard your comment and I wanted to have a conversation about the difference between a swing and a miss and a dangerous play, which is what my umpire would have called had that actually occurred. Now I can see from your angle, I'm standing right next to you and I bet that that play did look dangerous from where you were.

But I was over on the other side and I had a different angle and it really wasn't very close to your daughter. And I bet the umpire's angle showed the same thing that I saw. So I get, I get your feeling and your emotion and it's about safety. And so I had a conversation with him and he said, I still think your umpire is not doing a very good job.

And I said, well, here's the good news is that I'm here and it's my job to coach them, so let me do my job. And you do your job, which is to support your daughter. So I was getting a little progressively less amiable in this conversation because he wasn't picking up what I was putting down, which is this is an opportunity for you to stop being a dick and let me tell you some important information that you need to go go forward.

And about 20 minutes later, something else happened in the game and he did it again. And I walked up to him again cuz I sort of wandered away towards the tech table. And I walked back to him and I said, I'm gonna remind you of our previous conversation. Let me do my job. You're not doing it for me. And

I'm not gonna say we were best friends after that. Sometimes you can't engage some people very positively, but having that engagement is important. And if that parent's daughter continues to play at higher and higher levels, these experiences, Can impact the way that that person will act in the future.

In the moment he's emotionally engaged, he's probably just been cha challenged by a very short, very weird CanadIain woman in a way that he's never been confronted before. And he's not gonna react well in that situation, but maybe in a few years he'll look back on it and go, yeah, I remember that time. I'm not gonna be a dick now.

Maybe that's my story.

Um, Alistair, the reason you started learning to be an umpire was the dissatisfaction of players with the level of umpiring, having parents umpire's, punishment will only punish the kids. Great point. Thanks Allister. Chris, you once gave a red car to a spectator as verbally abusing you and then got worse when you told him to step away from the fence.

Um, yeah. You can't. Red card spectators, unless that's a regulation that varies the rules of hockey in your area. So that's problematic. And I know it's really difficult. You want to have tools at your disposal in order to deal with those fringe situations. But if you step outside of the authority that you have under the actual rules of hockey or under your competition regulations, whatever those might be, you're just putting yourself in a worse position.

And it comes to the point where you either have to ignore them or you have to go through the team if that's part of your regulations or you go through the facilities, people if they're available. If they're not, you can do nothing. And then you just have to take some kind of. Remedial approach with the team and say that supporter's behavior was unacceptable, and we are gonna put something in place to make sure that you suffer the consequences if that ever happens again, are you gonna deal with it instead?

So that's the option that you have available. But I know it's hard. I know it's hard. And we want to be in, in, in competitions where we're able to have enough responsible people around umpire managers, technical directors, tournament directors, whatever you want to call them, and match officials and uh, club administrators, uh, for the home team and you know, those sort of things.

People who can. Build these relationships who can take these actions, who can protect the officials. And I'm very, um, ex, uh, I'm, I greatly encourage anybody who's in these kind of roles to consider how they can have a positive impact on the experience of officials and the ex, the understanding of the culture and the community in terms of their behavior towards officials.

Matt is an umpire community. One thing we do poorly is shouting about the positives of FHumpires. Fhu does a, goes a long way to doing this, but we need to discuss perils between business skills and umpire skills and life skills. Yeah, you're right. I knew I need to talk about this more. I do talk about it and part of the thing that we do a lot with our membership program with the FH umpires 13 fh e three t.com.

I think that'll get you there. It might not, if not, fh FHumpires dot com slash fh three T is is, you know, I'm really well aware that becoming a better umpire for every single one of us isn't gonna turn into a money-making venture. I am trying to support myself in a living doing this, but for, you know, so many people, even the top entrepreneurs in the world, they are not, this is not their profession.

So what's the reward? Why are we doing this? Not just because of the personal satisfaction and enjoyment that we get from doing a great job out on the pitch, but what are the things that we're learning about ourselves? And it's not just sort of the resilience and, oh, I can put myself through hell and it, you know, gets me out to the other side.

It's, it's how to build a rep rapport with a person who. Is is has a completely different worldview from you, how to diffuse a situation like that. How to explain a difficult concept in words, in a pressure situation when your emotions are running high and you've been running around and you've had to make a whole bunch of, just like Matt says, there's a ton of life skills that come through umpire.

It's not the only way to learn them, but it's a really great way to learn them. So that's something to think about. Some of us met our better, much better house through umpiring. Yes, you did, Matt, Colonel. Hope you're doing well. Um, the low number of umpires available, sorry, Steffan, there it is, uh, available in your areas meant you've had to do umpire games and coach at breaks.

We need to encourage people to umpires something fun to be involved. And if Montana is free, she'll umpire for you as you coach and if parents get involved to help, that's great. One game you did, both captain and the other team said you did a fair and competent job. There you go. Yeah, we know what it's like.

It's very difficult and, and everybody stretches themselves a little bit. Right? I'm getting feedback right now as our outdoor season has started that. Um, we're very short on pirates this year and it's very difficult to avoid getting burned out and maybe overcommitting to things cuz at the end of the day, We as people in positions of proficiency, we like that feeling and sometimes we can get a little bit, well, nobody else is gonna do it, so I better, but we don't actually keep the opening there and force somebody else to step up.

So I've stepped down as the VP umpiring for my local board. I've stepped down from running my club in the same capacity that I have. I'm hands off on the, trying to get hands off on all the day-to-day administration. I'm not taking on extra umpiring appointments because if I do, nobody else will umpire.

Cuz they'll be like, well Keely's great. We want her to umpire every game. Yeah, I am fantastic but that's gonna kill me physically, mentally, emotionally, and, uh, girls gotta eat. So umpiring isn't gonna do it.

You couldn't punish the team because it's hard. Who supports who? Yeah. Well if they're on par, if they're yelling at a particular call, it gets pretty easy to figure it out. So anyway, it's just something to to consider. Okay, you're doing some games for your club in different leagues, helps pay for your fees.

That's why I got in town, paring dollar bills to pay my playing fees. And then I was like, oh, this isn't so bad. Hi Matt.

Welcome. You spent a long time at the pitch side with your children playing after watching some substandard. You made the leap at umpire. Yes, you did. Like that. Thank you. Thank you very much. And yeah, give us away before the stream dance. Do that thing.

Simon, my substandard umpiring is more than enough to convince anybody to step up to the plate. Okay. I paraphrased what you said, Simon, but it's there. You, you stepped in umpiring because of the poor officials you were getting. So did I. So did I like to actually step seriously. Iain Gibson said, you know, you can be better than the people who just umpired you match there.

And I said, well, that would be hard. Ego. 30 years got me right there. All you had to do was tell me that I was gonna be awesome and better than the people that I was mad at. And I was like, oh, this is a good deal. Yeah, I know it's getting late, but I'm enjoying this conversation. Everybody's giving such good feedback and stuff.

Simon, you try to manage your umpiring appointments around the majority of your club games at need umpires. Yeah, it's, yeah. It's, it's a thing. It's a thing. Stay tuned, Simon. We might be working on something that could help with this sort of juggling act. Dun, dun, dun. No pun intended. Okay, last comment from Chris, and then I'm gonna cut this off because this is more than Achill R are.

Yep. Um, okay. Mm. Nope. You were allowing yourself to be distracted by his yelling. Okay. We need to take responsibility for what we can control, and then we deal with the impact of that behavior on the game. Okay. I am all about mindset and elevation and us working towards the best way that we can manage difficult situations.

And there are gonna be assholes everywhere, so they don't get to tell you what your performance is gonna be. Nobody tells you if you are good or not, and then you walk out there and say, Ooh, I'm not very good F that F in F, okay. None of that. It's here. We make our choices. But what I don't like is how that behavior impacts on how the game is experienced by everybody else around.

Because you know what? It's not good for the players. It makes them feel negative, uncomfortable, gets them riled up, makes them feel un, you know, threatened, especially from the other team. It reduces the enjoyment of other fans, of other players, of, sorry, other fans of, and the coaches and everybody else around.

It's bad for the game. It's not about our ego.

Hey, thank you very much for all the comments and suggestions. Good to keep in mind and I hope it was a useful, valuable lesson today. Like the people have said before, if you haven't done this thing, um, I'd really appreciate it on your way out and I would love to see you on a future live stream if you are enjoying the conversations and you want to explore more things.

Hey, we have a Discord server, fhm pars.com/ds and that is where we not only do q and a and gossip and talk about Kit and squirrel out on Ted Lasso, but that is where I also hold all of our membership activities. So give it a look. Get to know the people cuz they're really, really, really great and we will see you there.

Okay. Glad you got some value outta it Rachel, and you're very welcome ad and we'll see you in another week. Enjoy your hockey. We'll see you soon. Oh wait, I got the wrong button. Okay, bye.

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