Live Q&A #WhatUpWednesday Ep. 73

📅 Apr 27 18.00 GMT
➡️ YouTube

We're going over that Loughborough penalty stroke and no-goal decision, a junior boys' goalkeeper tackle that brings a player to ground, and more. The real questions are: what are we going to learn from these clips, and are you here for this?

⏱ Chapter Markers:
0:00 Chair Dancing
2:27 Topics!
4:38 Double Yellow = Red
38:30 Rant of the Week
48:39 Loughborough PS

Check out when the next #WhatUpWednesday will go live.

🟢🟡🔴 🏑

Transcript

Happy Wednesday, all. I hope you're all having a great one. And if you're watching on the replay, I hope whatever day, time zone, et cetera, that you're in, it's also a great one. I'm Keely Dunn, FHumpires, and this is What Up Wednesday. And we have quite a show to go through. It's been a busy few days. Here are our topics coming up.

We are going to finally get to the double yellow card to a red that arose at the EHL tournament, not last weekend, but the weekend before. Just couldn't even fit it into the other day. We're going to talk about the Loughboro penalty stroke. And we are going to walk through a goalkeeper tackle and the ensuing penalty stroke call and talk about principles.

I am both excited and trepidatious for today. It's not going to be, uh, one of the easier shows that I've ever done. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that I think this is one of those times that as umpires, as part of the third team community, this is when we experienced the most amount of pain and doubt and, uh, And, and, and discouragement in our entire careers, but I want to meet it head on.

And, uh, before I get started about that, what I was hoping that y'all would be able to do for me in the comments is if you feel comfortable, I would like you to share a story. And I want you to start it with my story so I can search for them in the comments. And if you can, in 200 characters in 400 characters, something like that. Um, if you can tell me about one time that you were on the pitch and you completely missed a call. Okay. And I just, I just want to hear these stories. And it doesn't have to be big, expansive, or anything like that, because I'm going to share my story as we start out with our first topic. Okay. So.

This is the double yellow to the red card. So I'm going to come back to all those other stories later. So what I did here is I actually pulled out the entire, I watched this entire game. This was Gantoise and Surbiton early on, early in the tournament. This was one of the pool games. And what I wanted to show you was how the game unfolded because that's important.

So what we have right off the right off the hopper was a penalty stroke that was called against Surbiton in the first minute of the game for a breakdown foul. Gantoise came back or sorry. Surbiton came back and scored in the fourth minute. And then 30 seconds later in quarter one Gantoise came back and scored their second goal.

Now I'd like you to watch this foul.

That's nothing more

Okay. That was the first time I really saw that individual player involved. And then this was in the third quarter with about three minutes to go. That was the first yellow card.

Very early in the fourth quarter Gantoise picked up a green card for hitting the ball away as you just saw there. 

Commentator audio 

Here's Steph Elliot coming back onto the pitch stuff. Sophie, sorry. Uh, Elliot coming back on the pitch in that moment.

And then four minutes later, a turnover in midfield. 

Commentator audio

This was the second yellow that led to the red. 

Commentator audio

So I wanted to be really intentional about showing you what I saw as the big control moments in the game. And here's just a replay of that last foul, just in case you weren't sure about what was happening there. The ball was a long gone.

Okay. So I'm here to answer anybody's questions that they have about yellow cards. Oh, and this is, this is the last weeks. This is not the correct. I'll just start playing this again because I don't want to mess with the scenes right now because there was a lot of discussion on the socials about whether this, any of these calls were, were correct.

The, the most interesting part that I pulled out from this whole game is that every card came from Michi Meister. Entirely correct. Let me, let me be very, very clear. I absolutely agreed with all three cards that she gave and the resultant red card that she gave at the end. But what was interesting is in working with a male colleague in this game for cards that were perhaps in her, more in her colleague's area of responsibility, she was the one stepping in and exercising the management.

I was disappointed that this one didn't get picked. And on the radio, they both said there's nothing more there, but that is absolutely a physical breakdown tackle. You could've gotten away potentially with a green there, but you can see that she's moving into the line of the player running. In the slow motion.

And the reason I wanted to make sure this was included is so that you could all see that players don't thank us for keeping them on the field. Perhaps that is just, uh, just sort of a reminder of perhaps if the consistency had been there more from the beginning, if the warning, if the, if the personal message had come earlier, maybe we wouldn't have seen what we did later in the game.

That's for you. Uh, so while we're still going through this, I'll try to catch up on the comments and while you're still watching the replay of the scenario going on, I'll see if anybody is saying anything interesting here, Simon. Good to see you. Very warm, welcome, and bike. I'm missing my left arm. Very sad.

Stijn is here. Kia Ora, Steffan, good to have you. Um, Luke is here. Simon Webb. Thank you. I just finished listening to your podcast, Talking Hockey, the other day. Thank you for throwing out my name. I appreciate it. Uh, Lou Rader is here. Mike McCartney is joining from a nuclear bunker at an undisclosed location.

Am I really that bad? Is it really that bad? That's awful. Ali Nosie. Okay. You're new. Hi. Thanks for coming. Great to see you. El's here. Finally, boy, you have missed a chunk of live streams. Taco and Oli and should I use Kings of Leon? I can somebody put this into the, uh, Discord server? Cause I actually don't know this song.

I don't know what's happening. Hi Dina. There you go. Just back from Lee Valley for Thomas. Excellent. You had, you had Nku coaching you on part. That's fantastic. Nku and I are old friends, so. Um, if I had known, I would have told you to say hello to him for me, but now we can just sort of imagine that we all said hello and that sort of thing.

Hi, Sune good to see you. And if I'm pronouncing this incorrectly, because I would, I would think with the accent, maybe it's Suné. So if, let me know which one, if it's Sune or Suné, but it was nice to talk to you on direct messenger on the Discord server the other day. Uh, somebody's got kids' ballet class, are you sure it's not your own? Mark Cummings is here and Chris, Nick, what Nick Watt? Holy smokes. I haven't seen you for a hot minute. David Hughes. Fantastic. Okay. I'm going to start putting some of these stars beside my stories because I'm saving them for that second segment, as you know, and Gareth Lock is here from New Zealand. Fantastic. 

Okay. So now that you've had a chance to sort of see the game unfold, a couple of things.

Let's talk about how the card rules and the guidance is affecting the way that we're looking at these decisions. So we started to get into some really interesting discussions on the Discord server about when it would be appropriate to not give the red card to a player for a second yellow card offense.

And I'm not saying that there's any hard and fast rule, but I find it interesting. The number of times we talk ourselves out of giving that second yellow or that, that, that red card. So there are a lot of people saying, well, what if it's this? And what if it's this? And what if it's a captain who, uh, has committed a slide tackle, and then they take a yellow card because they've had too many players on the pitch.

And we, we went through a lot of scenarios like that and worked through them. And what I want to frame this exploration that I'm going to do about the guidance and the rules coming up. I want you to think about this one thing. Do you believe that that player who's taking a second yellow card for any reason, should that particular player still be allowed to participate in that match?

Put aside everything about whether there's a mandatory ban or there's not a mandatory ban, because this is a, you know, it, because it's a technical red and not a, you know, a straight red and put aside all the disciplinary things. Think about, do you want that player to continue to participate in that game?

Will they play within the spirit that you were trying to enforce? Have the messages been received?

Do you trust them to be responsible? Because we start every game with the expectation and the trust in every player who going to step on the pitch that they're going to act responsibly towards their opposition and hopefully their teammates as well after a player has received two yellow cards. Are they, are they acting responsibly?

Okay, so let's go through this. Thanks very much. Lee. Ronnie. Hi.

okay. Um, Thomas looks like Elliot didn't learn from any of the previous fellows did either umpire ever have a chat with her as they, as she didn't seem to be learning from the car she was receiving. So this has come up a few times in, in the server as well. And I think what. We can keep in mind here, is that what works or what's expected or needed out of for management at one low of players not needed at a higher level of play. And EHL, knock out round of eight, the EHL finals, the premier club competition, international club competition in the world.

Those players don't need to be told how not to commit physical breakdown fouls. Okay. What I would conjecture, I would guess that for that particular player, maybe she hadn't experienced enough hockey at the above level to have the kind of experienced, consistent and correct umpiring and management steps taken that she knew that that would be coming. Okay.

And this is why this is why I find it so important. This is why consensus and consistency and understanding throughout every level is so important because players participate at more than one level. They participate in more than one community, in more than one country, for more than one team. And we aren't going to get the best hockey out there on the pitch for anybody, unless we are doing the same things all throughout, unless our understanding is throughout.

And I'm not saying that we, we use the same techniques in order to achieve the same aims, but we're going to get the same outcome, which is sending consistent messages to the players, know that they can't do those things. That's about it. 

Um, Scott, you're just mentioning in terms of the red cards, you don't consider how many games they'll be suspended for. You're only bothered by the safety and fun of what's in front of you. That is exactly the right mindset that we should be looking at. Okay. I'm getting some stories coming in, so thank you very much for these you guys. And Shayne's here. Fantastic. Okay. 

So let's dive into how we got to where we are. And this was actually a really fun exercise for me.

So I have a, I have a vast collection. Oops. I didn't mean to put any Anita Punt upside down. Anita McLaren. Um, I have every physical rule book from 2001 when I started to take on seriously, up until they stopped publishing them in 2019. Was that the last one? Anyway, I've got all the rule books and I am not, I am a minimalist.

I am a physical piece get out of my life, sorta human being, but I have collected all these because there's something about the flavor of looking at how the whole thing is put together on the paper, which is fun. Plus, I get to hold them up on live streams. But what I did is I went back to my PDF copies of all the rules from 2000 on to compare what the guidance in the back section says.

Now, I got it. I got to tell you about this and I don't have any music playing this, this back section here after all the actual rules clauses.

I don't spend any time in them whatsoever, perhaps to my detriment. What has been really interesting is that since 2000, the FIH started cutting down on how much was being published in the back of the rule book. There used to be a big section on interpretations in the 2000 rules. There were, there were three pages on interpretations, the things that we would normally expect to see in a briefing these days, they're all these appendices, the rules, the hockey terminology here.

This is the 2001 hockey terminology is appendix a and then, oh yes. Appendix B. Okay. Can. Let's see, that's focusing. Good. So there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Holy smokes. I bet I would have been a better umpire when I first started if I had read any of these 12 pages in Appendix B, but it has to do with, you know, raised ball, foot-ball contact, uh, responsibility of captains, offside, offside, all this sort of thing.

And, suspension of players. So dealing with how we are carding. So if I go to what the 2000 rule says here about issuing double cards, okay. When a second yellow card is awarded, okay. Here, want me to just pull the whole thing? 

When an offense for which a card has been awarded as repeated, the same card should not be used again. When a second yellow card is awarded, it wouldn't, it would be normal. It would be normal for the period of suspension to be significantly longer than the first suspension. Once a yellow card has been awarded to a player that player should not be given a green card. Any offense involving violence should not be followed by another car to the same color.

For example, a yellow card for violence must be followed by a red card for another violent offense. And I think, yeah, I'm getting confused as to what all the different, all the different things that.

In 2002 things started getting pared down a little bit in terms of the guidance. So we started seeing this some general principles to apply to the use of cards. A player could receive to green, or even to, even to yellow cards for different offenses during the same game for an offense for which a card has been awarded is repeated,

the same card should not be used again. When a second yellow card is awarded, it would be normal for the suspension to be significant longer than. There should be a clear difference between the duration of the yellow card for a minor physical offense and the duration of more physical and serious offenses.

So this is where we start to see the distinction in yellow cards between the high-impact breakdown or a breakdown foul that involves dangerous play or just dangerous play period. So there's, there's a different flavor that's coming into this. This is 2002,

2004, it gets, it gets shortened down quite a bit. It is possible for a player okay. Possible for a player to receive two green or two yellow cards for different offenses during the same match. But when an offense for which a card has been awarded is repeated the same card must be not, must not be used again.

And a more severe penalty must be awarded. We start to see with the fewer words being used a little bit of ambiguity here, because my question would be then, well, did they intend that if the same offense is committed by a different player, that we must step up and that sort of thing. So it's not really clear in there either.

Okay. So that was 2004.

This is 2009. Okay. This one's a little harder to see, sorry, because I'm pulling up another one that, that comes right next to it. This is the last time the guidance gets changed in our little journey of history here. I know it's been really fun. You're like, wow, this is the most fun I've ever had.

It is possible, although umpires are not encouraged to do so. So now they've, they've tried to go, okay. It's possible, but maybe not. Like let's, let's narrow down the parameters under which, without giving you any guidance, of course, as to when this would happen. It is possible, or the parties are not encouraged to do so for a player to receive this isn't even English. It is possible for umpires, although they're not encouraged to do so, to give a player two green or two yellow cards for different minor offenses during the same match, however same, repeat more severe penalty must be awarded.

When a second yellow card is awarded a longer suspension. There must be a difference between the duration of that and a more serious offense. And when a player intentionally misbehaves in a serious manner towards another player umpire match official, the red card must be shown immediately. And this is the 2000 and 2022.

Everything's really off-kilter here. This is, this is that version. You can see that this matches these two things are the same. Okay. So we haven't had any change from, for the carding guidance since 2009. I have a question for y'all. I'm very excited to hear your answers. What significant event occurred in 2015, that dramatically changed the landscape of player management in our game.

I'm ready for this. And for those of you who are just joining in, it's good to see you. Roger is here. Stephan been reasoning, reasoning to say really quickly. Hi, Ben. Good to have you. Um, I'm encouraging you all to share a story. If you can. Start it with my story, as you see in the comments of something that I call that you just absolutely missed in a game, okay.

So feel free to feel free to share. If you feel comfortable, I will be sharing my story when we get into the next topic.

Hey, I'm glad that they changed the word to must as well. And yeah, there's, you know how I feel about hard fast rules? I don't like usually, but there is something to be said if the, and this is why the FIH rules committee keeps fiddling with the language and changing it up is because they see, oh, wait, we're not getting the results that we want with the way it's worded now. So let's change it up. So everything about the foot rule, which was changed dramatically in the last 30 years was in reaction to the fact that umpires were calling them too much. And every time they moved the language towards only when somebody is disadvantaged do you need to call the foot,

even that wasn't enough. So they came out with some crazy bizarre wording, and now I'm spit balling off the top of my head, which I hate doing, because you know, I'm going to get this wrong. Somebody in the comments, please tell me what year was it that they came out with the just don't call feet kind of equivalent.

It was a scandal. It was like everybody was losing their minds about it. And it was just really, really crazy. Okay. So we have a guess for 2015 from Bhav, the self-pass. Absolutely, very significant, very significant rule change. Not the one I'm looking for. Nick you started playing hockey in 2015 oh my gosh.

But Rachel is already on her second. Well done. Thank you. Stefan.

Anita McLaren is responsible for the two minute green card suspension being incorporated into the full rules of hockey. There were two years of it being a mandatory experiment, experiment experiment prior to that, and it was at all international levels. And then it got incorporated into the full rules of hockey.

What year was the last time we saw the card and guidance changed?

Wait, I have it 2009, 2009. I was losing my head.

My argument to you all is is that if relying on the specific language in the carding guidance is the reason for which you believe you have a great deal of latitude to give the same player, two yellow cards in a match, even for different offenses, even for different offenses. But if you think you can give a five minute yellow and a 10 minute yellow for a breakdown foul to the same player,

does the fact that players are now being suspended for green card offenses change anything for you? Because it sure changes stuff for me. The whole reason that that tool was inserted. Was to close the gap between what was a ridiculously ineffective slap on the wrist to a small deterrent, a strong message with a small deterrent incorporated in the two minutes.

Wasn't that big of a deal, but it was still there. So it gave us as umpires the feeling that, okay, I can do this. I can still award this. I know I'm not going to change the game with this one card. You know how I feel about that.

But here's something stronger that players are going to pay attention to because we're trying to not get to the yellow card stage. My perfect game, my perfect game. I aspire to this all the time is one green and one team, one green to the other team occurring in the first half, and that's it. If I don't award any cards, I'm concerned because the players aren't trying hard enough.

They should try hard enough to push me. But green cards. If we, if we go to, oops, let me do this part. If we go to the FH briefing, now green cards are for the small technical things that don't have a high impact on the play, but for which you still need to send a message. So a small stick fouls breakdowns of play, uh, obviously team not being ready for 40 seconds, criticizing or crowding the umpire, green card.

Okay. Playing the ball after the whistle, those sorts of things. And then that gives us a sharper delineation, a more clear and more black and white, as Scott pointed out, line to our five minute yellow cards, which are more about when it either impacts the play severely. Not severely. It has a high impact on the play.

Let me use the right words because words are important or start to bring in a physical element and then repeated instances or physical fouls okay. And you see here in the briefing repeated technical yellow card offences. There are very few technical yellow card offenses. And the only one I can really think about is a captain who has allowed his or her team to play with too many players on the pitch.

Okay. So after reviewing this and having discussions in the Discord server, I'm revising my opinion about the technical yellow card situation. I still don't like that a captain could have their team playing for five minutes with 11 players when they're supposed to be down with 10, because they've got somebody else sitting off and this is where it happens, right.

Players or teams are rarely playing with 12. Cause you can feel that on the pitch, it, space, time, everything has changed with 12 on the pitch. But you're accustomed playing with 11 and you take a card, but somehow you're still playing with 11 on the pitch. That doesn't feel any different aside from the fact that you're struggling to break through and, and to get forward in, in any of this.

So for me, I, I still, I still really struggle with this, but as we talked about in the Discord server, there are, I can count on one hand I can count on one finger. The number of times I've given the same player, two yellow cards that went to a red one time, one time, and I screwed it up. And I've, I've talked about this on the stream before, as well, where I had given a yellow card for a high-impact stick tackle breakdown.

And this, this is a few years ago, so we weren't quite talking about it in those terms. And then later on the game, that same player, when the rules required us to award cards for players who were playing the ball above their shoulder and breaking down play, I gave him another yellow card and I shouldn't have, because that's not a technical offense.

That's a breakdown foul. Just as using the wrong side of your stick is a breakdown of play. So I think you have to be very careful about where you draw those lines and don't be drawing them at, oh, well, this was a stick obstruction, and that was a body obstruction. So those are different offenses. No, that's not what they're talking about different technical offenses. 

Okay. I'm getting lots of people typing really long stories. I really appreciate that. Let me go to your comments and see, I mean, I don't think this audience has any problem with the cards that were given. What was shocking to me about the entire discussion on social media, where, how.

Hockey fans who didn't understand that that was so much the correct call. It wasn't even, right. And the concern that I had is I watched the accounts with their tiny little clips of the situation, took them so far out of context about what this game was and how these players were playing and the opportunities that were broken down by those particular fouls. It wasn't just the physical nature of them, it was about how it broke down play.

And it was the same thought because it wasn't, there was no technical offense. So let's see. Uh, yes. Good job. Thank you for jumping in with here, Simon. Everything is always Nick Watts' fault. So that's fine. That's totally fair. There you go. Um, let's see. 

So Steffan, with reading those comments and they talk about the card cannot be the same color, how can you communicate between the difference between a yellow five and a 10? Okay. Really great question. So your process should be as an umpire when you awarded a yellow card, if you don't show any other additional signal, tech tables are instructed to assume that it's five. Okay. If there's any question about what you might want, um, in that case, or just to remove any doubt, hold up five.

When you were awarding a 10 minute yellow card, you put your other yellow card, put your yellow card back in your pocket, and then you hold up. I'm doing it like this because otherwise, okay, ten okay. Hold up all 10 fingers. This is not an appropriate 10 minute signal. We've stopped using that for very important reasons.

Okay. It's just not, it's not appropriate. So this is 10 and you arms up high 10. Stand still. There's no rush. You stop time because you're smart. You stopped time.

So if you go with that, so that's how you do it. Oli, low-level hockey, would I recommend stopping time when awarding green cards? Yes.

Yes. So I actually found this when I was going through. And you know, now that I'm, I'm in the moment, you, you can bet that I'm not going to find this, but I'm trying to see warning. Okay. When did this happen? Let me take these two off, uh, ha this was the language that went into the guidance. Okay. Sorry.

What's happening?

It's the Rant of the Week. Yeah. And I'm going to pick this one instead of anything else. Whoops. I got to turn it off. Okay. So the language in the guidance here, sub D here, I'm pointing right at my screen. Can't you see it? Cautions can be given to players in close proximity without stopping the match. May I remind everybody cautions were under the personal penalty section.

I'm going back to the 2001, just for funsies. Caution the offending player is one option for personal penalties, warn the offending player with a green card. And now that now reads as of 2015, warn and suspend, why am I doing it this way? 

Absolutely. Oh, it won't be there.

It's warn and suspend the, the player. Now, whoa, who didn't lock their scenes, this girl, and also stop trying to do it there. So it now says that your remedies are, cautioned indicated by spoken words. So what that guidance says is not about how you can,

that's why… stop pressing buttons, Keely. So cautions are the spoken word warnings. You don't have to stop a match for those, how this ever got interpreted and how the instructions. And I was there. I mean, I saw at international matches how they were telling umpires. I, you don't have to stop time for a green card.

You kidding me. So Oli. My strongly-worded advice to you is to stop time to word green cards.

Okay. Unless you're at a tournament where an umpire manager, for some unknown reason, explicitly tells you not to stop time. Okay. Simon, you've got a two yellow card question. Can a coach behavior detects dictates a captain, gets a yellow, captain returns, coach goes at it again. Uh, at this point you ejected the coach and did not card the captain. Thoughts, Simon.

This one's really hard for me because that is a regulation that is unique to your area, whatever level of, of hockey that's out, whether you experienced that Belgium or that was in England, that is not in the rules of hockey. Coaches can't be carded under the rules of hockey. So I don't have any advice to you specifically on that, other than you need to follow up with your local body responsible for that regulation and ask them.

To me. I think ejecting the coach is always the right option. So I, I mean, I like that solution. I think carting a captain is stupid because it lets the offending person still remain a part of the match. And this is what, this is the problem I have with the double yellow to the same player is like you again.

So we've already talked about this. You've already sat on that chair for five minutes or potentially 10. And now you did something else.

Are you… Yes. Stop time says, Michael, thank you. It gives you the opportunity to get maximum value in communications with players and spectators as well, rather than rushed and a lack of quality comms. Yeah. I mean, I cards are not a time for a conversation, so I, I understand what Michael is saying, but I'm going to adjust.

I'm gonna adjust the language a little bit here. You know how I do you're in your nuclear nuclear bunker, right? You're good, Michael. So what I don't want this to look like is that this is a way that you can, you know, have a nice conversation with a bunch of people. What it, what Michael is getting at is that it makes it more clear because you can take that time without taking time out from the game,

to make it very clear to everybody that, that player who's running off there is doing so because you have awarded a green card. I think the most important part of stopping time for a green card is to ensure that you have control over the situation, because if you haven't stopped time and a player is going running off, you don't know, especially at low levels where you don't have a tech table, you don't know if they've gone to sit on the bench.

You don't know when they sit their butt down, because that's the moment at which their two minutes or their five minutes or their 10 minutes suspension begins. So you don't want to take your eyes off what's happening there and you don't want something crazy to happen when you're too busy looking at that stuff.

Control, namaste. Okay. Roger's contributed a story. Thank you very much. There you go.

Right. So Scott that's, we're not sure, right. What the regulations are. Hi, Andrew. Good to see you. Um, the coach goes to the chair and not the nominated player. Okay. But again, this might be the regulations in your area. I'm not passing judgment on those, can't say in England. Yep. It works differently. Um, what about an orange card?

No, because I just don't see the problem with giving with that suspension in that case. I just, I, I don't like, why are we so scared to give it? Why should that player be permitted to remain a part of that match? Because we want to give them one more chance. One more chance.

Um, yeah. And, and again, I, I don't know, Simon, you know, you're saying that you regretted not ejecting the coach earlier, the captain was apologetic, agreed with the yellow. Yes. And it was the local regs that you had. There you go. Hatty Woods is here. Hey friend.

There you go. Okay. Yeah. It's different regulations. Scott is talking about his experience. Um, when it last applied to him, the captain was currently on the bench, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And Rachel is always gonna stop time. Fantastic.

So I hope that helps showing things off. The main thing I want you to pull out from that is that our carding guidance has not kept up with the realities of management of games.

And now you could, you could have a player who's taking a green card gone and sat for two minutes, and then they take a yellow card and then go set, sit for five minutes. Would you sit that player for another 10 minutes? They've almost missed half the game. Okay. They've only missed 17 minutes, but still that's a lot of time.

I don't see. I don't see any point. Okay. Oh, wait. I was supposed to do this thing.

It's the two-minute warning.

Ah, sometimes I forget, I get caught up with my rule books and my history and all that stuff. So in addition to that principle, I want you to think about, uh, what I want you to pull out of this is that when you see a clip on social media is a short little, one thing event. It can look like Ballenghein, you know, dove on that play. Trust.

I've been watching that player for the last three years. She's a fricking dynamo and she ain't falling unless it's a good reason. Okay. She is strong. She's very, very capable. She's one of the best players on the Belgian national team. And she ain't falling down for no un- undo reason whatsoever. Okay. That was real.

And if you watch the entire play and you watch how she was set and you see different angles, you go, oh, and then you see what she was about to be able to do with that ball had she not been fouled? You got high-impact plus a physicality, five minutes easy. The second time coming around. High-impact physical, easy.

There it goes. So the context is crucial. And then the last thing I want you to think about is how does it affect a game when a player who has shown such serious indiscipline is allowed to remain part of the game? Um, oh really? Scott you've been told to shut up. no, not at all. So it's always good. Oh, at BHL what's BHL is that that's not Blackpool, is it?

I don't know. It's all good. Okay. I really appreciate your comments on all of that. And as the final horn goes, I'm getting ready.

Here's our next topic, the Loughborough penalty stroke non-goal.

So we had this all over the socials, as you well know.

Okay. And I'm just showing you, I have turned off the sound because frankly, I'm not interested in the commentators not knowing what they're doing. Because a lot of people's perceptions of what was happening here were shaped by what the commentators said.

It was an unusual looking penalty stroke in the way that the ball went. When we watch from this angle nice and big and wide, we can see the net move cause we can see the top of the net flap. Okay. That's one of our first clues.

And where the ball ended up can also be a clue seeing when it's in slow motion. When we see the netting in front of the ball, that's another clue.

But as you can see, there are many discussions that happen. The supporting umpire, uh, Andy was involved and this is Annette Harvey here, who's speaking to the Loughboro captain and explaining what sh what the, the decision that they've come. Okay. I dunno why 12 is getting involved. Cause that's not her job go away, not your job.

And then there was a second video that was put out by the Loughboro women's team from their, um, from their tower showing just what happened to the ball. Pinging the inside post, rebounding off the very taut netting in the back. And then rolling out the other side.

I'd like to share my story first and I may have alluded to it, or I may have even described it on a holiday show. When I was drunk, you'll have to go back into the annals of live stream history to see whether I actually went through it all. I don't think I did.

This is hard for me to talk about, um, especially publicly, but I told Andy this story. Andy he got in touch with me. I feel very honored that he reached out and shared his perspectives and his side and his feelings with me. So my story is that 12, 13, maybe 14 years ago, I was umpiring a university game here in Calgary and it was my Alma mater playing, the University of Calgary.

The team that I actually just finished a stint being an assistant coach for. And the coach at the time was a woman who was at the time, my best friend. We had played together for university of Calgary. We'd played together for Alberta. We'd been friends for, fast friends for, you know, 15 plus years. 

And, I missed a call. I don't know what happened. My mind has changed what I've seen so many times, because that's what our brains do. It, our brains do not remember very well. They put pictures in our minds, that accord with how we feel about a particular event. What our psychological needs are at the time, but I have no reason to believe that my best friend would have reacted the way that she did, unless I'd missed the call.

And it was right in front of me, a player swung with her stick in frustration apparently, and, and hit the shin guard of, or leg or something of one of the UofC players. I didn't see it. It was right in front of me and I didn't see it. I heard the complaints. I asked my colleague, did you see anything? He didn't see anything from the other side of the pitch either. 

After the match. Um, my best friend coach screamed at me and then a day later wrote an email to the Canada West convener and the other coaches accusing me, not just of me being a shit umpire, but accused me of bias.

So if you're wondering any more, why it is that I have such strong feelings about umpires being called biased, you now know where my p- personal history lies with that.

After I asked for my best friend to retract this email, to apologize to me, she refused. And that was the end of our friendship. That was the end of my involvement with umpiring the Dinos for several years until she left her post.

And it was. It was crap.

And I told Andy this story to share with him that he's not alone. So I asked you all to share some of your stories.

So I'm going to. Thank you. 

Adding these for Thomas, varsity match, player ripped his opponent's stick out of his hand. You didn't see it. And the temperature went up ..And that was Thomas Holbrook. We have a couple.

El, you were umpiring a game during your first season at regional. Suddenly the attacking captain at the edge of the circle had a broken nose. Apparently she was punched, but you didn't see anything. 

Thomas Parker, you were using radios black versus yellow player on black team fouls. And your colleague says on the radio yellow ball, you didn't hear the ball and you gave the player a yellow card. That hurts. And your colleague asked what was the cart for after the fact. That's hard.

Um, I'm missing part of your story, Michael. So let me see if I can go back and find that. Roger, your story this season early on, you're umpiring a look top one top of the table, clash, six minutes into the game. You were being assessed, penalty corner awarded, ball injected, then pushed back to the incoming attacker.

It hit their body as it goes in. You couldn't see. And because of the color of the goalkeeper being there and your colleague couldn't help. 

Chris, you saw a player in a crowd was flat on the ground. Had no idea how she got there. Neither did your partner.

Oh, Roger. Finishing off a story. You explained to the defense, very unfortunately, neither umpire could see. And you had to award the goal. 

Michael, your story, England hockey cup game, um, quarterfinal. Ball comes across the D it's deflected up from the defender's stick towards an attacker to you. It was picked well, and volleyed into the goal, actually hit the body first. On video, you saw it, uh, you couldn't possibly disallow the goal cause you hadn't seen it hit the body, but the reaction told you a lot to the deep intake of breath team won by a goal. So it was an important decision. Yeah.

Uh, you carefully watched, this is Chris has got another story. Yeah. You carefully watched the attacker, bring the ball into the circle and score all of the defenders reacted as if there was a kick. You asked your partner to meet the attacker had kicked it and yeah, you definitely got that right after that.

I appreciate you all sharing those things because Andy hopefully is going to have a chance to see this later on. And I really want him to feel the support that he has throughout the umpiring community. Okay. Um, he also shared with me some of his thoughts and his perspectives, so I can help set the record straight a little bit on his behalf, um, for, for him.

Um, I'm not going to put his actual words up on the screen, but I'm going to just sort of paraphrase the best I can and with a deep sense of responsibility on this, but, um. The, the decision revolved around entirely whether the ball crossed the line, there was no other thing. So there's a lot of conjecture on social media as to whether it did or did not cross the line or, or it was decided on a hit or a drag or something else. It wasn't. 

Um, first of all, Andy wanted to be quite clear that it was a group. It was a team decision. The two of them came to that. Um, and for him, he lost the ball. He heard it clip the post and saw it afterwards. But he speaks about his positioning and whether he doesn't feel like he was in the right spot because the post actually blocked his view of the ball in that moment. And so he lost it and then did not see it as it continued off to what would have been his left. 

And there was, um, th the, the goalkeeper for Birmingham, the defending goalkeeper was, uh, you know, put enough doubt into, um, Nettie's head that as to the decision, which, you know. There was a lot of stuff about the Birmingham players conduct in this.

And I, I'm not going to cast any aspersions on the Birmingham goalkeeper because I'm sure she didn't see it either. I'm sure she didn't see the ball going off the post. She would have heard it. And most times when a ball goes off a post, it doesn't go in the goal. And then to see it over there, off to her left, it's reasonable for her to assume.

But let me say this for as many times as we, as umpires, have seen something on video that we were certain was not the case in the moment during a game. I want every player to understand right here that maybe as angry and emotional and as upset and how much you have on the line, that may all be the case, but maybe you didn't see it properly either.

So what I want to talk about now that I've, that was a Rant of the year more like, but there you go. So yeah, let's talk about the, um, oh, I've got a story from,

um, there. Oh, you know, Welsh Gary, I appreciate what you said, but I'm not going to put it on the screen. Okay. For my own reasons, because I will, I will lose my mind.

Um, Lou's story in a college match, the shot was taken from slightly outside the circle. You were in line with the shot. You thought it was inside. Partner was screened. You awarded the winning goal in the game. Yep. 

Rachel, you spotted a tackle, but the player ends up on the deck, neither of you getting players' number.

Scott, an apparent blatant back stick, right in front of the coaches. You assisted to be the only person on the whole, um, the only person on the whole grounds not to see it, but you were sure it was clean. Yep. I got it. Okay. Yep. Embarrassing. 

Stijn uh, the number of back sticks that you've missed.

Thank you. Okay, Gary, I appreciate you saying this. Uh, it's been a sad week for hockey, with the level of abuse directed at Andy and Nettie. Both of them. Okay. They've both taken a lot. 

So again, more appreciation for all of you for sharing your stories. Let's talk about what we can do. Okay. That is what is so crucial here.

And Chris, I appreciate your, that you're here and you brought this up because your comment in the server had me thinking, because I'm not happy with a lot of things. When I was looking over the scenario and I was looking over what the angle showed us and how different angles made it so clear. And I've often talked about how we can't get too close to the play because we're going to miss things because our heads are going to start moving to track objects. And then all we're going to see is blur. And we are going to lose track of things. We're going to lose the ball. And this question that you asked. Um, so I think he probably positions quite close. Cause the five meter mark is about where most of us stand.

Okay. And what Andy didn't like about his positioning as he felt that he was too in line with the post instead of offset a little bit. What I'm wondering is whether we need to be even further away as a supporting umpire and even further inside the pitch. So Chris, when you're talking eight to 10 meters, that might be a good start.

And that is something that I want to start looking at with a critical eye. I've always been coached to be 5 metres, and to just be just step, step off that end line, but right beside it and, and to look so that the post isn't shielding the line. So I can see if the ball was dangling around the line, but still be able to see if the ball has rolled that far. Because remember friends, you have two important jobs on the penalty stroke as the supporting umpire only two.

And the first one is to look ridiculously cute, the second job. Okay. So maybe there's only one job. The one job you have is determining whether the ball goes over the line. Cause that's the only thing that you're controlling umpire cannot see. And you can't do both jobs. You cannot assist with whether the goalkeeper moves early, because you can't see from that angle, whether the goalkeeper has left the line, have they moved their feet before the attacker plays the ball, especially with, as Mike Mac pointed out on the server, how players can, attackers have a few steps now with which they can approach the ball before they let it go.

So that can be, that kind of movement and the addressing of the ball and all that sort of thing that can be really entrancing to look at. But if you start to turn your head to look at that, you're not going to see the goalkeeper necessarily. Are you going to be able to determine whether the foot just sort of jiggles a bit or whether it moves laterally or if it moves off the line closer to the ball.

Are you going to be able to see that when you're looking this way, because you're so close, your head has to move. You can't see both things at once. And then as the ball is being released, you're going to track with your head. Are you going to lose sight of the ball as it moves, or is that the better way to do it?

I actually, I'm not sure now I'm not sure, but what I am very curious about is whether we stand too close. I know we want to see the line itself, and I'm concerned about the balance between being able to see whether a rolling, spinning ball that's… Champions Trophy 2014, Luciana Aymar's farewell tournament.

She scored a shootout goal that didn't go in. It went off. Crossbar, post. Did not cross the line.

And the goal was given because it was so hard to determine. That's that's all I can kind of say about that, but it's rare. But when that happens, you want to be close, but when a ball pings around like that being close, doesn't help you.

I'm looking for all of that as if umpires. Yeah, of course. We all have something on the line. There you go. So Michael, the human eye can be easily deceived when following a moving object to the angle of viewpoint is that the exact wrong angle? Momentarily obscured on parts do not have multiple angles for decisions.

Absolutely. David and Katie. Nice to see you. It's not quite right to blow a DJ or horn right now. So I won't, but I'm really glad you're here. Andy has all your support from, uh, he has all the support from his panel. It's hurt everyone to see the abuse he's received and it's sad. We need to support each other and we all make mistakes.

Andy, you're an amazing umpire. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Oh, you only just released realized now it's your friend, Andy. Yep. And I mean, I'm not, I'm not outing them because you know, the cameras, it was very good production values, and the cameras were following the two of them and, you know, names on the backs of the shirts.

That's, that's part of the accountability aspect. And none of this conversation, I, in none of this conversation, did I want to hide away or somehow prevent this from reaching the light of day. And I was on Twitter having a very, very vociferous debate with Mani Kochar who has, I will just say it, deleted all of his tweets before I could screenshot them.

And the level of debate there and, and the complete, incredible, incredulity of anyone who was not umpired as to whether you can miss something that's right under your nose, you don't get it. You've never been in the position. You don't get it, Andy, we get it. I get it. All of your friends get it. Everybody here on this live stream gets it.

We know, and it happens to the best of us. It happens to all of us. Okay. And until you have had a whistle in your hand, and until you have had a story, like everybody has shared in these comments, you don't know how easy it is and how weird it is and how unpredictably it is and can happen to you in a big moment, in a little moment in any moment, because that's how brains work.

Here we go. Now we're getting into some of the reasons I was so pissed off on Twitter is because arguing with Mani about whether it was appropriate for the Loughborough Students' Union media account to put out that video in the first place. And what they did is they put out and said, look at this, can you believe this call or whatever they said, and over and over again, I have lost my shit at accounts that do that because they do it for the clicks. Self-Pass, hockey and out like, Ritual Hockey, like all of the brands that take content and then just repost it and go, Hey, what do y'all think people? Is that constructive? No, it caused the abuse that Andy and Nettie have suffered, because if you can't provide context, if you can't moderate and control and shape the conversation, the way that I work so hard to do every week on this show, you are literally throwing them to the wolves. Lions. Into the frying pan.

I don't know. It doesn't matter.

I lost my analogies. They were going to be good. And Michael, what you're pointing out here is that one of Mani's arguments to me was, well, it's not like players, don't get, you know, their bumbles and fumbles, not put up on social media, like those go up to yeah. But they also get, 90% of the time. Look at this great goal.

Look at this great taco. Look at this great paths. The only time umpiring clips go up, unless it's me,? Is to say, look at this mistake. What do you think of their call? And that, as you can see, infuriates me. 

Shayne, your story, reserve grade final, shot on goal, 10 meters out from close to the baseline. Ball, hit the side net and went through outside to inside and bounced out of the open goal. Dang. That's hard.

You've been told it's your job to monitor players outside the 23 meter area too. Yeah, I mean, in the lead up, because you don't have to like focus on the goalkeeper prior, like, as things are getting assembled. What you're doing may be to proactively be making sure that there's no hi-jinks going on, but when it's time to step up, you can't watch them at all. Not a chance. 

I've had better coaching than most. In the U S most saddle up split over the back line and stare blindly. Um, like they're in a trance at the keeper, and at least 10 meters away. You want to test? Yeah. I want to test the distance to Chris. 

I think this is worthwhile to delve into, we make assumptions based on the things that we've been taught. And as you've seen in this community, I am all about challenging conventional thinking. It doesn't mean I don't agree with it after I've challenged it, but I want us to be critical about our, uh, our, our coaching methodologies, the techniques that we pass on, the little rules that you must do this, and you must do that, that we teach our young umpires coming through, because the game's changed.

So if we're repeating the same thing that we learned 30 years ago, are we doing a disservice to the people who we're training?

I think in some situations, yes. I mean, I even had, and two individuals, two people who are very special to me, who I absolutely adore on Facebook. Um, was it Sam Church who is a member of our community member of the fhu3t, put up a picture of him, you know, big achievement. Ooh, oh my God. Speaking of achievements.

Good reminder. And he standing there and I had maybe he was doing the junior international game. I can't remember. And every, and, and to people who I absolutely adore said. Yeah. But what about those shoes? Because he was wearing orange shoes. He's wearing like Adidas, the new, like hot orangy pink. And you're like, yeah, you need to wear black because you don't want your shoes to stand out.

No, he looked great. And he looked in keeping with what the modern game looks like. Everybody's wearing shoes of all kinds of flashy colors. And when it's oh, well, make sure that you're as good as your shoes are made, making you out to be just off with that. Okay. We may have worn black shoes 30 years ago, but you things change, fashions change, the dimensions of everybody's skirts and trousers and shirts and everything has all changed. Oh man. Let's not be, let's not be those people. 

Following on from Michael when you were, uh, you were another one's manager and National League manager, and Andy was always one of the best you had. Great manner with the players. Really great interpersonal skills, great nonverbal comms with his body language. Thank you, Simon.

I appreciate you sharing that. Stefan remembers of the match that Shane just referred to, uh, happen a few times in the other matches earlier as well. That's hard time. Yeah, we can forgive the goalkeeper, but you think most of the Birmingham team likely knew, um, that they had to see if the umpires and Loughborough posting the videos, knowing full well, what the response would be is also awful.

Yeah. So, um, I wasn't, oh, I've put it here for some reason. This is the wrong section to have it in, but um, hold the phone. This is gonna make sense in a second. So after Loughborough Students media put up the first video and then the Loughborough students women's team put up the second angle, they then posted this, we've asked LSU TV to take it down.

Uh, they did amazing job and we're glad that they did it. But the comments from that part of the game were taking a route that wasn't helpful to develop our game. We valued the support of everyone involved in the game, especially our umpires and opposition. They agree to remove. We're here to develop players, be competitive at the highest levels we can and to help move the sport forward.

And now excited to the extent that with the Andy Gibson foundation, blah, blah, blah.

Losing Andy Gibson from the community is a horrible tragedy that happened. Um, what I'm upset about is. Seizing upon a viral moment and their Instagram posts and Twitter posts that went out. Oh yeah. We've asked for this to get taken down. And by the way, here's our foundation that stinks. Don't taint something so good with your lack of judgment.

And by the way, thanks for the apology.

As it turns out, Andy has told me that the Loughborough manager has contacted him and apologized, but that's not a public apology. That's not an apology to every member of this community who saw what happened to Andy and Nettie and wonder when it's going to be their turn.

There's a good place to talk about these things. It's with reasoned heads. It's with people with knowledge, with people, with understanding about how to moderate these kinds of conversations who have the experience of dealing with disputes.

It's not putting up a post on social media and just setting the algorithm on fire. That's not appropriate. Yeah. Already talked about it. You're going to have to go back through the replay, Daniel. So Neal, would a good position where you would be standing as a supporting umpire during a shootout to see where the crosses the line before the eight seconds are up.

Um, so I thought about this, sorry. I'm I start thinking, cause I can't always talk and think at the same time. So would the supporting umpire positioning of a shootout be a good spot and Neal I'd like to try it. My concern is that you're too far away from the line. And you want that side on view of the line because you need to see the over, because if you're, if you're looking at the line from that sort of flat angle, you don't, you don't know whether the ball is, is, pardon me, is still touching the line as it's gone past because there's the whole spherical nature of the ball and whether it's hovering over it.

And I know there's a, you can see some super esoteric arguments on this topic that I've been involved in the past that I, I love a good philosophical debate and I walked away from that one right at the beginning, because whether the ball has to actually be physically touching the line, being the bottom, I'm not talking the series being at the bottom of the ball, or is it breaking the plane of the imaginary line that ascends from the back edge?

Great. What I do fear is that kind of positioning takes you too far away and presents you at the wrong angle. The best angle to see whether a ball's crossed the line is in that second video. It's from the tower. It's a fantastic angle. That's where I'd love to be as a, as a supporting umpire, but we don't have that. Absolutely. 

Hi Ali, one of the first things that you said to your team and any player that you train with, who's moaned about umpires and not seeing stuff you've said, exactly. That it's so hard to see everything. It's hard to see anything all the time. 

The amount of armchair umpire, says WelshGary, there are on social media, we shouldn't have a shortage. Absolutely. There's so many people who know better. Oh goodness. Accountability is important. You're absolutely right. And what I appreciate about having a chance to talk to Andy and any umpire. I mean, how many of the umpired home episodes did you have, you know, w w I would have a top, a pro-league level Olympic level umpire on, and we'd go through some really nice, you know, positive things for the game. And I pick out a few things that, you know, we could talk about as well, that worked, and a couple of them that are just situations where the umpire is like, yep, that's me.

I did that. And they are. Nobody holds a top umpire like that accountable the way that they hold themselves accountable, because nobody else is helping them get better. They have to be accountable themselves, and they have to be driven to perform, because they're sure is not getting the help from anybody.

I do what I can, but they need so much more.

So this isn't about avoiding responsibility. This isn't about, um, about, uh,

I'm running out of words. It's not about hiding the incidents and, and, you know, burying them in the, in the dirt. It's about finding the right times, the right places, with the right people to be able to explore and think about what happened. There's no question that if we're lucky enough to get Andy back on the pitch, again, he's learned a lot through this experience and he's going to be, if he gets out there again, a better umpire for it.

I, I believe that like, non-stop. Because these are the mistakes, every mistake is a learning opportunity, but these are the ones that truly form our, our, our, our character as umpires. 

Yep. Absolutely. It's not the mistake that's the issue because it's a mistake, that's it? Oh yeah. Thank you. Michael. The title of the post video had controversy, controversy, in big bold letters. So guess what happens next? Exactly. It's clickbait. And as I said on Twitter at what cost. Got lots of clicks, lots of likes, lots of hits in the algorithm. Hey, maybe you could have been a trending tweet. At what cost.

You have more stories? Yes. Oh, of course. How many blown advantages? Oh, you're so right, Chris, you know, if you'd, if you, if you're holding, but then you whistle the microsecond before the shot is taken, it goes into the goal. Absolutely happens to us. Oh boy. Or if they go David, David and Katie, if they go out to Matt Harrison knocks over Brooklands' legend on the sideline, every Brooklands person is a legend.

I'm just kidding.

Absolutely. And this is the challenge that, you know, Chris does something similar to how I do. Um, it's the challenge is finding a good balance and the right balance. You haven't missed a thing, Nick. It's all good. Absolutely. We test. Yeah. We have to test things to learn or discover. Yes. We have to be willing to test the prevailing pedagogy, the, you know, conventional knowledge.

And I get a lot of pushback from a lot of people because what I coach isn't necessarily prevailing pedagogy from 30 years ago, it's scandalously new. That's only been around for 10 years and how dare I? Well, I dare. Because I'm not here to preserve the egos of the people who think that we should still be doing things the same way that we were doing them 30, 40, 50 years ago, I'm here to make umpires better and better equip them to serve the game.

I don't care about anybody else's feelings. I only care about us. Okay. I care about other people don't let them know. Okay. I've got a reputation to maintain.

Is that right? Michael? I thought I hadn't even checked. I haven't even had time to check whether LSU media has taken down their post. 

Oh yes. England Hockey, the NPUA should be looking into this dreadful situation while Gary. Yep. And you've emailed both. Good. Thank you. Haven't missed much. 

You know, we're not going to get to that tackle. I can tell probably cause it's 1 :29. Um, where are we? Sorry, Stefan. You have a story. Junior umpire. And our first game was bla um, missed a kick into the gold was blasted by the crowd. You found her in the car park in tears, never wanting to park in. It was a game. 12. So she was 12 years old and it took 30 minutes of talking to her to console her, to get her support enough support to carry on.

You agree that mistakes are always highlighted. And since then, I always thank new umpires for coming. Absolutely. 

Hey Taff, Simon, Fraser. Whichever one of you it is. Good to see The Hockey Family out, chiming in late. You missed all the good stuff. 

Rachel. I am not mad at you right now. The way that you continue your consumption throughout the course of it, the live stream is my gauge as to whether it's been a good show or not.

You didn't even realize it hit the post until the second video. Yeah, I know. I hadn't seen it either. I was just like, oh, the net's bulged. And the ball came out from behind the goalkeeper. And then you can, you can, if you freeze the video, you have to freeze the video and you can see the netting and then the ball behind it from the side. But jeez, in the moment you're going to miss it. 

Um, yeah. And this is why I'm like, I don't want to pay attention to sports ball or other sports balls. I just don't because this is terrible. And if I can somehow just ignore what's happening out there. I actually spent yesterday reading some stories about a major league baseball umpire who called a terrible game on the weekend and caused a, uh, yeah.

Player who had just gotten struck out who shouldn't have been struck out. He ejected him for dissent whatever they call it in their sport. And there was a, there's a, uh, a social media account, a Twitter account that puts up statistics as to what this particular baseball umpire's accuracy rate was because they could measure these things and they have like all these cameras and they're like, here's the strike zone. And here's where the balls were, here's what the strikes were called, and this was wrong. And this was right. And this guy, he was apparently, the average is 88%. This guy was at 77%. So far below the average. And he had a bad day. He had a bad day and the reactions were awful. Um, oh, Neal you're outing for your positioning on the penalty stroke, assisting that you in, uh, you're trained in Ireland to be normally two or three meters inside the pitch. So off the end line, do I have that right? Two or three meters inside that.

Yeah. Every time, every time. Thanks for your managers. Ali, nobody learns if you can't admit your mistakes in a safe space. You're very welcome. You're very welcome. I'm glad I can be able to do this. Late to commenting, but not to the party. Uh, you're mentioning that people remember umpiring mistakes, seems to happen all the time in cricket.

Yeah. You remember posting social media? Uh, okay. Two, three meters and yes. Thank you for explaining the two to three meters in from baseline. Yeah. Especially when I'm bumpy, jumping from comment to comment, I can kind of lose things. There you go. There's so much to like here. Thank you. Um, yeah, absolutely there.

Thank you. Um, Taff Simon Fraser. Watch it's going to be somebody else. Then that's going to be embarrassing. But yeah, it's a big deal. And I I'm developing a theory in my brain has to do with larger societal forces and what officiating sport means for people in terms of how we as competitors must cede a measure of control to this independent arbiter who then gets to tell us what to do.

And that impossible, that, that cognitive dissonance of knowing that we have to do that in order to be able to compete, because we can't be trusted to do it ourselves. We can't call the fouls. We can't stop play. We can't be told to be more responsible by ourselves. So we need an independent arbiter to tell us this information.

And yet just like in politics, we hate our leaders who we appoint to do the things that we can't do ourselves, because we don't even understand the concepts well enough. Or we hate our medical professionals who have studied for decades in order to understand science better than we can understand. We're so mad at them telling us what to do that when it goes wrong and it will go wrong and there will be mistakes made, there will be incorrect advice given about COVID protocols down the line that we find out science disproves later, there will be decisions on a pitch that are made that are wrong. Does that mean that we are then entitled as the people subject to those decisions to completely throw everything out. To heap, scorn and vitriol and violence.

Sometimes there was a softball umpire in the U S who got punched out by a mom who was wearing a t-shirt that said mom of the year on it, little league punched in the face. Why can't we figure this shit out?

And if you want more of me swearing. Yes. Come to the Discord community. Um, here. Sorry, D. I just threw that up over your statement. This thing, Simon Taff Fraser, whoever it is Simon, I keep getting on you to join this. What'd you just join. Okay. Stop resisting. 

One of the hardest things for you in umpiring, Nick. Oops, sorry. Uh, is knowing that every time you umpire a game, you will make mistakes, but you're still going out to make as few as possible. Yep. Perfect game. Doesn't exist. Just doesn't. And that it's, it's a, such a, a psychological challenge to know, to know that you're going to get stuff wrong and to be okay with that and still say:

but I'm still going to provide these two teams with their opportunity to play their best hockey. Despite the mistakes I make. I'm still going to do good stuff today. I'm going to make this game possible. It's hard. There you go. And Daniel, thank you for telling the story. You've told him the Discord before, and we've, we've heard it sort of really appreciate that.

It's Taff. Hi, there you go. Um, it's hard to know whether coaches and players are being sincere with the “well umpired” after games. Yeah. It kind of takes away from it. Doesn't it? Um, in regard to the LSU media, the, the original post on Twitter not only remains, but also the second bite at the same cherry they also posted.

And um good to know. I might just have to start sending us emails myself.

Um, yeah, the abuse of the juniors is a big problem. And for Stefan, you, yeah, your daughter is starting to umpire and it must be, so it must want to just protect her and make sure she's going to be okay. Uh, she was bundled up. I don't know what that exactly what bundled up means. Sorry. We are going over time, but this is an important discussion and I want to make sure, sorry.

I have talked a lot and I want to make sure that your voices get heard here. Um, so your, your daughter was bundled up by a parent and under 11, under 11 hub tournament, for some calls, he went up to the parent till that's all you did. Uh, she asked, she asked what right you had to comment. You said I'm her father and the next time I'll critique her daughter since she's given me the precedent.

Yup.

LSU media is run and managed by the group students but the Chancellor that you emailed said nothing to do with the university. Shocking. Well. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how this works chancellor, because they have the title Loughborough Students University in front of the media part of their name. Guess what. They are you, okay.

Deal with it. That's some absolute bullshit right there. 

The Belgian hockey Federation, Stijn is telling us, recently started a project to get parents to encourage fair play behavior with other parents. Too recent to have results, but it's a good initiative. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how that goes.

Yeah. Okay. That's what I'm saying. Even if the umpires had a terrible game and it's happened once the season, you told them they did a good job because it was clear she needed the support and a kind word does go far. Sam, I talked about you earlier, you missed it. You're going to have to go back to the replay. I defended your shoes.

No, I'm still going to bug you about not being on the Discord. Just kidding. Okay. I'm glad you're there.

I like that. I like that Luke, I was actually gonna start, uh, get a thread in the Discord server, but that's a good idea. Make sure you tag me and then we'll, we'll get it going. 

Um, Ali yes, it sounds like a great initiative from the parents. Um, and based on Chris Maloney's video, you've asked your own umpire district association to try it.

Got it. U of L students' union is governed by a code of practice issued by university council. Gideon's going to get to the bottom of this, he is a professor after all. Um, yes. Uh, that's that's a good point. So sometimes you can go up to an umpire and say good game, when you know, they've had a tough one. And what Simon's pointing out here is that you can pick out something positive. Um, when you think an umpire, when they've had that kind of game, and it might even be something like, I appreciate your composure. I know it was a tough game out there, but we still needed you and you stayed composed. So good work.

And as an umpire coach in my area, if I come off a game like that, you know, I, I will try to have a quiet word you know, with the umpire to, to applaud them to say you did it, you got through a bad game. Congratulations. This is a fantastic day for you. Like what do you mean? I'm like, look at all the learning points you have.

This is, this is awesome. So it's reframing, right?

Yes. Lawyer hat, um, Gideon and the students are subject to the jurisdiction of the vice-chancellor and the Senate, respect to their studies and conduct both on and away from university premises. You're not going to get by Gideon. No, you're not. There you go. Thank you very much. Uh, that was, that was great.

Thanks for pumping the likes yeah, cause I have this button and since I've forgotten to do it because I just really wanted to get the meat of these things. I do have a couple of announcements to make, because I wanted to thank the following people. Jenny Pretorius, this fine human being, has joined Green. She's from South Africa. I can't remember exactly, but, uh, she's she doesn't have a lot of umpiring in her area and a lot of knowledge. So she's joined the server and now the third team to be able to take advantage of the community that we can provide her. So make sure you welcome her when you see her in the Discord server.

I'm so glad she's there every time a woman joins. I know it seems like I'm more excited, but that's because it's more rare. And I feel like I I'm failing in my mission to try to promote umpiring to women. So every time I see somebody like Jennie, I'm happy. So there you go. 

The other flower that I wanted to hand out is to, Luke is in the Discord server, sorry. That's loud I think. He's just been promoted to the national youth umpiring panel league. Oh God, I don't know how it. National youth umpiring. Yeah. I don't know what the, maybe I have too many letters in there. Shoot. Anyway, Luke, don't let my terrible knowledge of acronyms take away from your big achievement.

Thank you for being a part of our server. And like I told him, I said, you get all your friends coming over here because. I would love, love to be able to, uh, have them as part of our community and, and talking about what's going on there. So there you go. Thank you very much for all the likes and oh, thank you, Albert, for popping in and yeah, we are very big on the support of the umpires and our thing.

And don't forget, last of all, whoops, I'm so good with all the buttons. Um, this is the third team. If you want to know more about it, just come ask me, come to the server, send me a DM if you have to, but a serves coming into the server is the best way, and we are still growing and I'm really enjoying this ragtag group of awesome people and yeah.

National youth umpires promising list. Of course, who doesn't know that. Apparently me. Thank you. Um, yeah, you probably just came Ali for the goalkeeper slide tackle. Uh, yeah, I'll do it next week. I'm sorry. I'm I'm a terrible human. There is a link to the fhu3t.com there. And I appreciate you being here Rachel, as always.

Yes. And I appreciate everybody who shared your story. And that was really important for me. And I hope that it helps Andy. We do not want to lose anybody out of our community and we can't go out there and actively promote umpiring to other fine human beings. If we don't feel good about why we're doing it.

So. We're doing this, not just for the individuals who are here, but for the individuals who are going to come and who are going to take our place someday. So thank you very much Taff. Appreciate it. Keep it growing as always. Oh, and you could always buy me a rosé if you feel like it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Great session.

Really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your week. And we will see you of course, in the Discord server. Uh, very soon. Welsh Gary, I expect to see you there soon. Okay. And, um, of course, of course, I can't think of any other way, but there you go. And continuing to learn is important. That's what we're all about.

Thank you. Have a fantastic one and see you soon.

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