Pro League Aerials, Mid-Air Hits and VRs | #WhatUpWednesday Ep. 156

📅 May 29 19.00 GMT
➡️ YouTube

The FIH Pro League is back! We get to revisit some balls hit and raised out of mid-air, complicated video referrals (hello, Pibworth Rule!), failed aerial interceptions and more.

The Skill Session returns as we get tactical about putting our best Bobby McFerrin and Bee-Gees combo together to both look happy and stay engaged.

Come join in the live chat, or let me know what you think in the replay comments! 💪

👟 The Season Training Plan Waitlist is OPEN!

⏱ Chapter Markers:
0:00 Chair Dancing
00:06:08 Topics!
00:06:51 1a. Raising a Hit Ball Out of Mid-Air ➡️ #FIHProLeague BELvIRL
00:53:54 2a. Complicated VRs ➡️ #FIHProLeague INDvARG
01:04:17 2b. Complicated VRs ➡️ #FIHProLeague ARGvIND (M)
01:17:46 3. Skill Session: Looking Happy & Engaged
01:29:29 4. Failed Aerial Interceptions ➡️ #FIHProLeague BELvUSA (W)
01:38:37 5. Do We Need a Third Umpire?

Check out when the next #WhatUpWednesday will go live.

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Transcript

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#WhatUpWednesday Ep. 156

Keely: Hello friends, What Up Wednesday? Keely Dunn, FHumpires. Hi! How are you? I'm glad you're here. I, uh, appreciate you coming by 30 minutes later than our usual scheduled start time. I was hoping to be able to see more of that. Uh, Belgium Australia match, which had some very interesting little points coming up.

I'm going to have to watch the rest on the old replay, but, uh, I figured half an hour is just it. That's enough. That's enough. We got to get going. We have, we have so many other pro league matches to review and so many other occurrences. So it's nice to see you all. Um, hey, Mark, I think you might be new.

Ooh, that worked. That did work. I know it did. Uh, good to see you back, Symantec. It's been a hot minute, so thank you very much. Nils is here. Yes, it is a proper game. It's, it's not fun. But it's interesting, isn't it? You, you, you popped into the watch party as we were just sort of wrapping up. I know, um, Samantha, I, I'm, Oh, wait, where's my, where's my comments?

Are they not popping up? There it is. Um, I, Oh, wait a minute. Am I still in preview mode? I am in preview mode. Publish. Okay. Let's try this again. I was like, wondering what's going on. Yes. The tune does not get old and I keep. Okay. Being invited to cut the whole, uh, intro part, the timer out of the stream because people just want to get to the business, especially on replay.

But that's why I put chapters in on replay, because you can just skip to the section that you want to see. And I'm trying to make that Easy and convenient. Anyway, I just, I like the bop. I like the bop. And it's warm in Somerset. And yes, John, you're in Sofia, Bulgaria. I need to hear more about Sofia later.

Uh, or fphia. I don't know how to say it properly. You can let me know if I'm doing that, uh, the wrong way. Oh yes, and we're going to be touching on this one, Godders, in the Belgium, uh, Belgium Australia game. Because we talked about it last week, didn't we? PC protective equipment. And does include more than face masks and why?

And why, and, and we saw a card. We sure did. Uh, yes, Rupert's here. Oh, yeah, okay, sorry. Sorry, you have to say no spoilers earlier. Just kidding. Yeah, oh, oh, look! Godders! You're totally wrecking it! That's so good. Alex, are you new as well? Oops! I hit the wrong one.

Oh, let's go with that one. I can't remember if I've seen you before, but thanks for coming in. Okay, I wonder if I could just move my keyboard this way. Should I live dangerously and just move my keyboard? Because I don't do a lot of typing. I mouse and I stream. Look, I'm a mess. I am a mess. Okay, let's see what happens if I go like this.

Okay, here's our topics. Raising a hip ball out of midair, my favorite. Complicated video referrals. Uh, a skill session, looking happy and engaged, failed aerial interceptions, and do we need a third umpire? So we do have lots of clips today, and we do have, um, a couple of just sort of general questions as well.

I like those, and I've gotten really good feedback about the skill sessions, so you keep letting me know. Do you like to hear about tactical advice that you can employ in your games, or do you just want to see the video? You let me know. All right. Let's get into it. Number one. Oh boy. Hitting a ball out of midair.

So I left a lot of that verbiage in because it's fun. It's entertaining. Don't agree with Stephanie DeGroof at all on that, but she has been retired since 2016. So

we're going to give her that one. And that's what it looks like.

So go vote in the poll if you would, because it's a good one. As you are thinking about this and you're watching the replay, I am also going to show you a little bit of inspiration here and a little bit of a flashback to precisely the event that Mace was talking about. And it was my marquee clip on one of my Olympic qualifier, uh, What Up Wednesday streams.

And it went a little something like this.

My shirt matches the turf.

Right. So, um, I did have chats with Mason. I love how he characterizes it, that he, he got hauled up for it and he didn't. Um, I, I loved the fact that he went, no, because like I said, on the stream a few months ago in January, I said, yeah, everybody with a hockey brain and a hockey heart, sorry, everybody with a hockey heart is going to want this to, to play on.

We'll want that incident to play on. And what I had to do in that scenario was work through the very special particular elements of that situation. And I did a really good job at not coming down one way or another. I don't know if y'all noticed that, but I was very, very cagey as to where I was going with it.

And I was able to talk about distinguishing facts in that particular situational mon where I felt you could make the argument. You could get away with not calling it because it wasn't actually a hit because it was difficult to determine where the stick had come from. And this is, this is why. This is one of the reasons that a hit out of midair is going to be an issue.

Now let's, let's see if I can, I can get to the right rules here because we're talking about 9 9. 9 9! Players must not intentionally raise the ball from a hit unless it's a shot at goal. And it's a very, um, it's a very old fashioned rule in a lot of ways that came into effect. The purpose of it when it came in was to stop players from taking the ball on a free hit, or in regular play, taking it from the ground, chipping it, and and skying it over all the opposition and dropping it behind the defenders and going.

And if that was misplayed, it would end up being, it would often occur that it was dangerous. So that was the big concern. That was back in the day when players weren't using 3D skills and weren't as confident volleying the ball out of the air as they are. Now, so I'm not sure whether that, that really comes into play.

So um, as Godders is pointing out, there's 9 7 involved as well. Let me get this on the board here, 9 7 and also 9 9, 9 8 is also there. Okay. So.

I've been circling on the thing and I just didn't hit the right, but anyway, you've got it now.

Okay, that should automatically be going, but this is, this is the, the one and this is the rule that at the time for the situation Oman, Mace didn't have in mind. So when he says, I have no idea why that was called down, that's why it was called down, was because it wasn't, it could be described as, could be deemed as an intentionally raised hit.

So what we want to do now. What we want to do now is work this out through the situation and get the, uh, get the lob wedge out. Rachel, are you calling me out? Are you calling me out?

This is Oman again, okay? And I'm going to show you where the splinters go because I think y'all have to have to really keep this in mind. We have a 2 2 game, third quarter, tie between New Zealand and Germany and that's actually how the game ended and it was a crucial result for New Zealand. And this is an attacking play for Germany.

that pops the ball over. So if you think that you're going to be the umpire who is going to make a non reviewable decision outside the 23, that very likely could lead to a goal or a penalty stroke going into your circle by not calling the rule as it stands, You are fucking lying to me. Okay, you are lying.

You would call that any day of the week and you'd say, I don't have a choice. Because even though the spirit allows you to, to empathize and feel for the players, you are, you are going to have to blow that whistle and you know it. So we come to this situation here. In this Belgium Ireland game, and you've got a Belgian defender clearing the ball out of his end, you have Ireland have their video referral.

So if they want this, for whatever reason, if they, if they want to take this to a penalty corner, because either they think that this is an intentional foul, hitting the ball out of the air, but is not a penalty, is not a foul against a player who's in possession or like who possession the ball. Or, it's dangerous, they have their referral available, so they could take it.

And they didn't. The difference between closing a sliding door before something happens and In an attacking sense that is non reviewable, can't come back and calling a penalty corner or allowing play on in that situation when teams can refer that, miles apart in terms of result. Now, what does that mean for the actual, actual rule?

Okay. Let's have to go. Um, Matt, does that include goalkeepers flicking the ball up and kicking? No, because that's not a hit. So that's a good question. Let me just make sure that I've got this.

I'm gonna, sorry, I have to scroll all the way back to the definition of a hit. Okay. This is the definition of a hit. Striking or slapping the ball using a swinging movement of the stick towards the ball. So a goalkeeper can't hit the ball with their kickers. That's, that's not how it works. Okay. Oh, and Niels has got that.

Yep. There you go. Yeah, that was, I get three, three a stream, apparently. So I decided to use it. I do have this though.

I've been playing with my stream deck buttons this week, but I didn't censor that one, did I? Um, 12. 1 could stop us from blowing the whistle, but there was an advantage. Yeah. So it's, that's a bit of a red herring. By the way, that's another one that I've got. Hang on.

It's not, it wasn't a red herring, but I'm just warning you that I have logical fallacies of Ed Hockley warmed up and ready to go. Isn't that hilarious?

It's not like I have the time for it, but I've made the time for it. Cause I have priorities. Paul, you blow a PC one ball in the air. Uh, it is close though, as it were to land, uh, nine, 10. Coming into it too. Right. So now we can start sort of going through the particulars of this situation. Okay. And we can look at what we see and what we're concerned about as this ball is popping up.

And why can't I? Right. That's because I can't do both at the same time. So this is the, this is the immediate, come on, there we go. Okay. Now, One thing that is illustrative of Paul's comment here, and it's a, it's an important one to, oops, not that comment, sorry, um,

is that what is being avoided here is the ball actually, you know, coming down into a dangerous spot. Now, Paul, if at the level that you're umpiring at, you need to call these as being dangerous. all the time. That's for you to determine. But a ball in the air coming down into the circle isn't always dangerous.

That isn't a mandatory rule. And even, uh, at times it's not dangerous when it's coming into players, because it depends on which players it's coming down to. And at this level, there's a different, there's a different layer Dif of skill that applies over the situation. So

right as this, right where this ball is coming down, these two players

are teammates of the goalkeeper who has raised the ball. You cannot cause danger to a teammate. So if the umpire here determines that no attacker is endangered by this ball going up, then it's play on. Okay. The, the number of decisions that the umpire has to make in this particular moment is ridiculous.

Like it's a lot. It's a lot. So we've got that happening.

This player who is behind the ball, this Irish attacker who's behind the ball, is not endangered by this at all. He's down on the ground, he's lifting his stick up to, I don't know, interfere with the backswing, which would be obstruction. So that person is out of the equation. This is the only player and I did have a comment that came in on the Instagrams that I'm gonna put up on the screen because it's actually a really good comment here.

Michael, I really appreciate you chipping this in. And I, I came back with some, um, some, some rhetorical questions, not in the sense that they didn't need to be answered, but they were exercises in rhetoric and critical thinking that the ball going up may not have been dangerous, uh, because the attacker didn't take an evasive action, but the ball came down credit spaces.

And while the attacker close to the D had to take evasive action not to be hit. So the questions, I thought that was a really good point, but the question that I asked. of Michael going back to it was, but what was he avoiding being hit by? Was he being, was he taking legitimate evasive action to avoid being hit by the ball or by the stick?

And those two are different things. Okay, because there's playing the ball dangerously, there's using your stick dangerously, and when we look at using your stick dangerously, any player who is looking to intercept a ball, block a pass, make a tackle, and then they put their body, excuse me, they put their body into a position where they lean their head in, or something like that, that is their positioning.

Error. That is their responsibility. They are putting themselves in danger of a regular swing. So the argument has to be here that this is not a regular swing, that this is dangerous, that the swinging at the head height itself makes it dangerous, which I absolutely think is an argument you can make here.

Okay. Do I. Do I, do I think that argument prevails in this particular moment? I mean, for me, I'm not interposing my judgment on the umpire who is there right there. And if in the moment, at the pace, at the skill, and that he's been embedded in this game and embedded in many of these games, if he doesn't feel that that's dangerous to that attacker, I'm going with his opinion.

Okay. So that's the danger element. That's one whole issue of that. Okay. And now we get to Whether this is raising the ball with a hit and therefore needs to be called under 999. Nope, it doesn't. Okay, sorry. I'm like, comment! Okay.

Okay, your first concern, Samantha, would be that those two players are closing down the space of the red player. Um, okay, but you need to expand on that there. Let's just see. Oh, I need to, I need to go back to a few more comments. So that, so that's, that's sort of my working through the dangerous stuff. And I'll go through some of your comments and then we're going to start talking about the hit in a second.

Okay. Um, absolutely. This is not an aerial pass. Okay. Nobody has five meter space rights. We get this confused all the time and we really have to stop doing it. Nobody gets this call for It being an aerial pass, it is not intended to go from one team teammate to another. Okay? It's just a ball that's been raised potentially dangerously.

Is the keeper playing the ball dangerously since there's no clear receiver? No, not an aerial. No, Belgian player is not considered the receiver. No, it's whether it is dangerous or not and who causes that danger. So going back to Samantha's comment. That I put up on the board about the two players closing.

Now if that ball is landing safely to red defenders and then a white player comes running in, who's creating the danger? White. Not because Belgians should have five meters of receiving space, but because they're the ones rushing in to make it dangerous and they should not be rewarded for that.

Simon, lower level you'd blow as soon as you can see the ball coming down, because the skill level wouldn't be up to it. And Simon, we'll talk about it being a 3D game and why we want that to, why we like that, why we want that to continue in a moment. Hold please. Um, exactly. So, intentional aerials. The reason that the five meter space came into play was to encourage the development of the aerial pass as a tactical choice, and a skill.

aspect in the game. The rule had to be there in order for that to emerge and to, for it to emerge safely. It's not there for accidental actions.

You think the attacker in front of the goal is lifting the ball is creating the dangers. There are too many immediate, uh, where the ball is landing. Um, no attacker has left the ball. Attackers are in white. And if, if you're seeing that shot on goal is. Creates the danger? No. Because the goalkeeper has further raised the ball after making the save.

They're the ones who made it dangerous. And it's unfair, in some senses. But also the goalkeeper has a whole bunch of things that they get to do that nobody else gets to do in order to play the ball safely, like Use their body and all these like fully amazing technological pieces of equipment called blockers and pads and helmets and chest pads and kickers and leg guards and all that stuff.

So, and they work really hard at developing the skill to not play the ball dangerously.

Okay. That's why. Okay. Should? You're going to be back in a second. Okay. Now. Sir.

No, what are the rules for a penalty corner and a penalty stroke? Boop, boop, ba doop, ba doop, boop, boop. Okay. Penalty corner is awarded

12. 3B for an intentional offense in the circle by a defender against an opponent who does not have possession of the ball. And I mean, this is dicey because it's not really against an opponent. It's just an intentional offense, but no. Attacker has possession of the ball, and they don't have a likely opportunity to play the ball.

Okay? And I know you could say, well, if the ball landed, then attacker could get it. No, that's not close enough. That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about somebody who, who fouls a player who is about to receive a ball. by like tripping them or something like that. That's what that rule comes against.

It is not a stroke, an intentional offense in the circle by a defender against opponent who has possession of the ball or possession of the ball. It is not captured in those instances.

That's not what, yep. So we've covered that. Good. Okay, so Alex, it's a technical breach of 9 9. 9 9! As, uh, the stick swing comes from a long way back. Right, so I can't weasel out of the argument by saying, well, this one, this, this one wasn't really hit. It's definitely hit. It's definitely hit. Okay. Um, and you'd hate to blow for this at this level, or though it, because it's another example of the skill, not the original intent of the rule.

Exactly. The rule does not contemplate this to emerge. Okay. Just doesn't. It doesn't imagine that player is going to be playing the ball to the air. Now, when I made my argument in this situation here about how this wasn't a hit, I talked about how the ball is not on the ground. So determining where the hit comes from means that You're, you're making different calculations of where the 50 centimeters is because is it coming from below the ball and up to it or from the side or is the ball coming at this and the ball and like, there's all these different angles to try to appreciate in order to make the calculation, which makes it kind of ridiculous.

Like it's not the same thing. It's just a different species of animal. And if we're going to be requiring players anytime they play a ball to have cradled it onto their stick, say they're receiving an aerial, and they have to cradle it onto their stick. And they have to hold it there before they fling it off in order to qualify as a push, well, we're gonna be in real trouble.

We see instances of player skill where they're receiving an aerial and they just sort of, they just keep it up in the air and they keep aerial dribbling it, 3D dribbling it, until such time as they make another maneuver and put it down on the ground and Do something amazing.

Uh, Paul, what is the rule that identifies what is an aerial pass? I assume is what that meant. And it's not defined in the rules. It is the understanding of hockey. Okay? There's a lot of this in our game. And the fact that we, I mean, please, anybody who wants to, you know, show me exactly where it is in the rules to, to help bolster this, I'm here for it.

But the idea that a falling raised ball means that anything that is accidental means that if you don't have time to react as an opposing player, you're going to get dinged for a five meter infringement. That's ridiculous. That's not the point of this.

Definitely a hit is only instantaneous contact. Um, an aerial pass can be made by a goalkeeper, but they have to actually pass it, not be making a save and accidentally raising it.

So, one of the arguments that can be made is that

as long as the ball hasn't been raised by the same player, in essence, And, and this is not my argument. This is just one that I've heard, that it's come from another player and it's, it's in midair that we're just not going to apply the hit, raised hit rule to that situation. I mean, frankly, I kind of like it because the problem that I was having back when I was reviewing the Amon situation is that if players can, Intentionally raise a ball with a hit from midair.

What they may start doing is basically playing Hurley and they'll 3D scale the ball up into the air, and then they'll just take a good whack at it in order to avoid all of the messy stuff. And I know that I would love that option. Because I've got that hand eye and I sure don't have the skill for an aerial.

So I'd love to be able to bat it out of the, out of midair in order to get it over the heads of players. Significant advantage. That would be great. And if you say that only when the ball is not put up in the air by your, by the same player who's hitting the ball, is it permissible? I kind of like that.

And I'd like to hear your thoughts as to whether that is a bright line that would actually work. When is that not possible?

Yes, this is our common understanding.

Just to put some more spice into this, this actually happened the match before.

And let me just, there's two of me, sorry.

And this is not to pick on him at all.

Knowing that a big decision had been made in a previous tournament, and the discussion that revolved around it, and then what happens here. I want everybody to identify just how difficult this decision is. And if you want to try to make,

I'm just, I'm just watching this really carefully. Yeah, that's more than 50 centimeters. If you want to try to just describe right lines, even for the same umpire, it can be difficult to see it in the same way.

Um, Mike McLean, that's a good point. Would you get pairs of players deliberately setting it up? So one player, you know, giving a, a nice little, you know, knee high pass. Yeah,

uh, you suspect only dead ball situations. Would that happen?

So from a free hit.

That starts getting really complicated. Sorry. I really wanted to give a good thought and I, it's something I'm still gonna, you know, turn it, turn it over. Um, let's see.

Was this covered in the term of briefing? Well, probably not, not specifically, no, I would imagine it is because it, when I say it doesn't happen often, it's a rare occurrence, it happened twice in the same day on the same side of the tournament. Is it something that is going to be discussed, I think, in the future by UMs and by the Rules Committee?

Yes, I think it will be. And it's not just because I know people on the Rules Committee.

Yeah, Paul, I know you're going to have to work with me on this, okay? You can keep arguing in the vast minority, or you can accept what I'm telling you is the vast majority of situations and vast majority of understanding and go with the consensus because that's our job, is to give players what they expect, what is fair, and do it all the same way.

And if you want to be the one person that decides that every time the ball is raised that somebody gets five meters on the reception, you're going to be in a struggle.

And this is the argument to wanting to let this go, is that it's a beautiful skill. And when it's done safely, it's like you, everybody wants to see this. This is hockey. The players aren't mad. They, you know, I think, let me go back. Can I, can I see the,

I don't know if I can move my camera. Hang on. I'm going to hide my camera for a sec. Oops. Right. So if Argentina wants a referral, they've got it again, but there's not even a whisper. At least you had some of, you know, evasive action from the, the Irish attacker in the previous situation. But there's not even a whisper here because they, they understand.

They have a common parlance, an accepted vocabulary, if you will, by which they play the game.

John, what about hits at goal from a raised deflection?

So hits at goal from a raised deflection.

Those get allowed, and there was one today in the Belgium Australia first half. Was it a raised deflection? Who did it come off? It went, came high off the goalkeeper, so no, it wasn't that. Um, that's a good one. I'm going to, I'm going to pin that and have more of a think about it because I'm quite certain that I've seen instances where this has applied.

Now, that means that Paul is going to make sure that somebody has five meters of clear space in order to receive the ball, because the ball's in the air.

Paul, you got to work with me here.

Good note from Scott on consistency. And that's the difference, okay? First of all, at lower levels of skill. They're not even getting close to this. And we, you know, I I've mentioned this over and over again, that back in the day when the playing the ball with your stick above shoulder height first came in, that everybody was chicken glittling this situation.

They were like, Oh my God, this is going to be the worst thing ever. Wait, I've got a sound effect for this. Oh my God, everybody's going to die. But the fact of the matter is, is that. At lower levels of skill where this can't be played safely, it doesn't happen as often because they just they don't get close to the ball They're not raising the ball like this.

They don't even have the ability and if everybody's running around just swinging it at balls It doesn't matter. It's just dangerous play and you just call it down. It's not hard in that sense

Yeah, but But it's, it's just like any other player who doesn't have a choice and they accidentally do something. We go by safety. We don't go by five meter. It just, it's not an aerial pass.

Okay. Rupert, how does this work? I think the spirit of 9 9 is to stop what is actually covered in 9 6 because deleting 9, perhaps deleting 9 9 would be fine and just judge on danger. Polled please. Let's have a look.

Okay. So if you, if you deleted all of this, Okay, unintentional raises are fine, judged specifically on danger, scoops and flicks, penalty corners, and trying to stop. Well, 9 6 came in after 9 9, by a long shot. So 9 6 came in in sort of the mid 2000s, and Godders is in the crowd, he'll, he'll be able to tell me right offhand exactly when.

And that was when the so called Argentinian forehand came to the forefront, okay, because it was just on the forehand and it was blading the ball. And it was a real cheat code for players to be able to use a forehand technique and be able to propel the ball at very high speeds with just the edge of their stick.

But unfortunately It was often dangerous because of just the mechanics of it, the players would get underneath the ball and it would just fly. Some would argue that that's the same as a reverse edge stick, hit, otherwise known as a tomahawk, reverse tomahawk. And that under that same logic, FH should have banned it.

Well, they didn't. Okay, and I'm not. You know, I, I, I can't tell you why it is necessarily other than the fact that clearly reverse tomahawks are sometimes or are less often dangerous than the forehand edge was,

and it has to do with mechanics being on the left side of your body, right side of your body, all that kind of stuff. So maybe not exactly that, this one.

Um, let's see, hits a goal from a raised deflection would still be a shot a goal, which is way where raised hits are allowed. Correct. Thank you, Scott. Wait, sound effect on that one. Um, I'll do that. Thank you. Well played. Sometimes it, you have no idea how hard it is to think and press buttons at the same time.

Okay. So in sum, what do we think?

This is, this is like, um, in a lot of cases, civil disobedience. We're following an unjust rule, obeying an unjust law. is unconscionable, is against morality. And this is like enforcing an unjust rule and umpires are having a really hard time doing so because of player expectation at this level. What should you do in your games?

Go by danger. And if you see danger more easily than other umpires, that's up to you. But the spirit of all of this is to prevent the danger. And these players are happy. Richard, you either delete 9 9 or add a condition 9 9 in a dangerous manner.

And, I mean, over and over again, you talk to any of the top players, and they just keep saying, for all of the rules, aerial, um, you know, penalty corners, everything is just like, just called based on danger. And, I understand that, but at the same time, there's a fine line between allowing people to attempt things that are likely going to be dangerous and not.

That's hard.

Tom, it might just be you, however, a player throwing an ARL is more control than a player using the hit up. Absolutely. Absolutely. You'd expect that, but I haven't seen, and you're going to have to kind of take my word on this. I have not seen an instance in the last five years of watching top level hockey and watching over 200 matches a year where a player has attempted a raised, raising a ball from a hit and caused danger.

I see danger happening with shots on goal much more often where they're not, they, you know, they, the reverse tomahawk doesn't go on target. They, you know, they, they hit their teammate with the shot, you know, all kinds of stuff. Okay. I, and cause trust me when something like that happens, I'm like, I'm like a meerkat.

I'm like, And I'm recording it, and I'm clipping it so we can talk about it on this show. And it just hasn't happened. So why? Why is that? And I'm always looking for ways, and I think every umpire should be. We should be looking for reasons. To not blow our whistle. We just want to let players play. And be able to sit back and go like this.

You probably couldn't hear that because I have crisp on. Uh, so hopefully we get to a point very soon where we can get some clear instruction. on how to handle this. But my advice for now is simply to go with danger. And yes, this is the whole point of all rules, of every rule, is that it is based entirely on danger.

Everything from sideline, to obstruction, to not being able to use your body, to um, to all the penalty corner rules, everything. For things to be 15 meters, for everything to be 5 meters, everything is about danger. And that's why it makes sense. That's why they, it works.

Uh, Mark, then surely the safe up call is the pertinent, is pertinent and focus should shift to the landing zone or the receiving area? Um, yeah, I'm not sure if that helps though, because we're, we're still to, to wrestle with the fact that technically that stroke is against the rules.

Hm. Yeah, I don't feel very rested after that. Let's go to the poll.

Ah, Let's go back to Maine and you talk amongst yourselves while I work this out. What is going on with my voice today? I'm, I'm not sure exactly why I'm having such a bad time. Maybe I'm not talking enough. Is that ever going to be possible?

What's happening here?

I, I guess part of this is that we have to understand that everything's still evolving, because everything's always evolving in terms of our knowledge of the game, and the way we apply the rules, and we're trying to, um, and we're trying to do our best to keep up. And the theme that I've been sort of running through my head over the last A few years is, you know what, in terms of umpiring, keeping up with the game and what the players understand and what the coaches understand and all that sort of thing, uh, we haven't kept up and that's not good enough.

So we have to, we have to work harder and we have to pick up the pace and get up with the players so that we can provide them with the best service possible. Okay. So polls, raising the hip all the year. Um, 15 of you are wanting the penalty corner and four of you play on and that's three penalty strokes added by Fraser.

Fraser, that's my vote. Wait, can I vote? Yep. There we go. I just voted.

Uh, really tough, really tough. So did I close anything off in the discussion? Absolutely not. I simply asked more questions. Yes. It just happens all there. And Godders, you think the hard hit of the party was banned in 2007 8? That math maths for me. That absolutely maths. Okay. Uh, some announcements as I like to do.

Friend of FHumpires. Alex Varee had a birthday on Sunday, happy massive birthday, Alex turned 16 along with his sister and, uh, is also now a full fledged member of Green. So I'm very pleased that you've made the jump and I look forward to working with you and doing more things and yay! Yay for Alex.

Something that, uh, was brought to my attention. Oh, this is unusual. By my good friend at EHF, Stephen Findlater, otherwise known as Findo,

Irish Phenom, as he is. There was a survey that was conducted by this organization. I think it was A year ago, or maybe it was longer than that. And do you remember Sarah Wilson was on the cover and it was all about women in officiating. Well, this organization has taken that data and they've done something with it.

They've created a toolkit. So if you're part of a organization that is concerned about the, the recruitment and retention of women's sports officials, I can just read right off the screen. Then. This is a toolkit for you. The link is in the description and I would encourage you to have a look at it. I haven't a chance myself to go through it in any detail, but for as much as we can do without changing society and patriarchal norms, this is at least a start and is part of the, uh, the whole thing.

Okay. And thank you very much Nils for putting up the links. And this is the link for the FHumpires 13. Okay. Have a look at it. Let me know. Uh, love to have a discussion about this in the server, about the WINS toolkit. Uh, because, uh, we're, we're in trouble. We're in massive trouble. We all know what the numbers are and they're bad.

And we are missing out on a whole huge segment of the population who could be fueling the growth of the community. Hockey umpires in particular that we are concerned about. Okay. Let's go on to number two, complicated video referrals. If you think I've got one thumbs down already, just wait until we do this one.

FHumpires, umpires, Keely Dunn, penalty corner. FHumpires, umpires, Keely Dunn, penalty corner.

That is very,

very nerve wracking.

So I left in a lot of the speaking because,

just again, another reminder that commentators don't always know what's happening. And in this particular case, Toby does not understand the rules of hockey. that have removed the possibility of restarting after a penalty corner has been stopped for no reason. It cannot be restarted with a bully. That is the Pibworth rule.

We have covered this in multiple, multiple situations. Let's go to the rules because it's fun.

Okay, here we go. In the case of a word of a bully at a penalty corner without any of the conditions of 3. 5 A to F being completed, the penalty corner is taken again. So unless something else has happened that ends the penalty corner, a bully does not end a penalty corner. A bully cannot be taken. It must be restarted with another penalty corner.

k

Uh, is that only in the guidance of 6. 5? It's actually also in, or it was in previous versions in 13.

5. Okay. You see that? That is where G used to be.

Okay. G used to be when a bully was awarded. Oops. Oh yeah. It's there. Okay. But G has been deleted and that's what this little red line means. But if you look at previous versions of the rule book, okay, that's where it is. So hopefully everybody is super clear on that. And if you want to go back, I should have put it again in the description of this, um, of this video, but you can go back to the Orange Road scenario that happened a season, actually, it's two years ago now.

And it was a big shock to everybody that this is, that this is the rule. And Uh, but I, I took a good half an hour on it and I don't want to do anything more of that. Um. Okay, uh, Paul, you think the umpire got it raised? The defender could have played the ball without stick contact and hard in real time.

Okay, restart the PC, but the defender could have played the ball without the stick contact. Jonas's initial decision was correct. Okay, so given what Sarah decided, we know that Another penalty corner was the correct thing, and Craig Fulton made com. He made comments before the next game that India played about how this was an unjust thing and it cost them the game.

And basically he was very passive aggressive about it. But you know, he basically said that. But what I want you to look at in this particular.

Okay. Is,

given the spacing and things like that, also, what are the chances

that Harmanpreet's gonna hit Monja's stick?

Who's not even swinging it and he's just, he's gonna pick it up and he's gonna flick it into the top corner. That's what he's, he's planning on doing right now. What are the chances that if, if, um, this player's stick, sorry I've forgotten his name, doesn't get there, that Harm, that Harmanpreet, Harmanpreet's swing, is going to come through and is actually going to hit Monja's stick.

That's a chance that there are two, okay? In the moment when I saw this live, I thought, Oh yeah, yeah, they're just hitting each other's sticks. You can see it both ways. And the sliding door that you don't get to see because of the Argentinian action there is, you don't see what would have happened with Harpreet's one handed.

swing out there. So there you go. But imagine if you're watching this in the video booth at the time where you see two players just hitting each other. It's, it's, it's hard to extrapolate that and it's an understandable decision to make. And given that decision, that's the right outcome. Okay, when it comes to the effect that this has on the game and all that kind of stuff, can we sit down for another little fireside chat about the effect that one decision has on a game?

First of all, India is giving up penalty corners with 30 seconds left in the game that they're leading out of nothing. Okay, so they've already given up this penalty corner when they had control of the game. That's something, that's a mistake. You can say, well, that cost them the game. They also failed to defend the penalty corner that came after.

They also failed to win the shootout that came after that. They also had 60 other minutes in which all myriad of things happened, including many mistakes by both teams. So we are still not ever going to win. I'm not ever going to abide by an argument that this was a game changing decision, because every decision is a game changing decision.

Every action is a game changing action. All of them. Absolutely all of them.

Let's start a movement to bring back the bully. Uh, you can talk to Matt and John for that, of the, um, of their, the Reverse Stick podcast that is, No longer on the air. And yes, uh, being able to, to refer to the rules on your phone is a very, very helpful thing. Alright, so, I have n not seen a simultaneous fouling by both players decision made for years.

For years, at this level. I've seen it happen at my level, because, you know. Stuff happens. And usually you just kind of go play. I'm not doing anything because it's, especially at very lower levels, it's happening all the time and it just doesn't make any impact. Because the players are just hitting each other's sticks and the ball is somewhere else and you're like, yep, okay, whatever.

Nobody's dying, play on. So, uh, not, not the easiest whatsoever. You can blame one decision, says Niels, says Niels mother. Ms. Decker. You can blame one decision, but in the end you just need to hit more balls into the goal than the opponents do. Smart person. There you go.

Okay, and then the other decision I wanted to look at, this is the same one.

So I need to see what I missed here. Oh yeah, this was hard.

Here we go.

Different game, same teams. That's why I failed.

Sorry everybody. Very important parcel coming in. That I can't miss,

and this is when I have to use my be right back screen in a second.

So what's interesting about this particular moment is that the, there's two elements to this decision. And it's that, first of all, it's not that it's dangerous. Sorry, let me get the right, the right one. I got it. I got it. Enter. Okay. There we go. And now play.

So the first one is, it's been referred for penalty corner. And in order to do so, in order to determine that, the foul has to occur inside the circle, obviously. But the initial determination was that it was dangerous. Dangerously lifted by an attacker, which bloody reasonable, uh, thing to see in that moment.

So, so what is, is being determined first of all, is that it's come off a defender stick. Okay. Hold, please.

Okay. So it's come off a defender stick into a defender. Now a defender can't cause danger to their teammate. So the foul was not in that initial moment. It has to be what happens right after that. Okay. So that means. That the, that what we're looking at for now is whether it's hit the, the Indian defender inside or outside the circle.

And there's no advice possible on that. So what do you do? There was advice possible on the foul, on the first half of the foul, but there's no advice possible on the second half of the foul. So they keep their referral, but they don't get the result. So if, if Allie had been able to say definitively that the foul happened.

outside the circle. They would get the free hit awarded, but they would lose their referral. Okay. Um, are we voting for what we would have done, but for the VR? Yes, we are. One moment, please. I'll be right back.

I'm still muted. Sorry. Hi. I didn't really say anything important. It's okay. Uh, let's see where we are on polls and such.

Um, complicated VRs. So, free hit defense. Uh, for 10 for most of you, and one for PC, and play on, uh, moves to a PC, and then on this one, PC, you keep a referral. Very difficult and free hit, uh, attack key preferral was six votes to four. So there you go. Yep. I got it all sorted. Ha ha ha ha. Thanks, Anna. Thank you all.

We're,

and now I'm okay. Yes. I appreciate it. It is fine. Todos bien.

It's just one of those days. It's one of those days. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, you know, pour some more mate.

Do you like my new color?

Let's cover a few more announcements off, or a few more things. I just want to make sure that everybody knows, y'all, that this thing is, is still happening. We are still gathering people onto the waitlist. Now the waitlist for the season training plan, the STP as it were, you're going to have first bid on jumping into this program, because it's going to be a limited.

Okay, maximum 20 people are going to be included in this because we want to make sure that we are able to provide the best level of service, get the most amount of feedback so that we can provide. A real transformation and real value at the end of this. If you don't know what I'm talking about, we are doing a 12 week preseason training program for umpires starting July 1st and moving into, it'll wrap up the last week of September.

Okay, so once we've got that all sorted out, we're going to look at in season training as well and then run this program for people in different geographical areas. So Ana, for example, you might have a completely different season in Argentina. Um, I'm trying to think, how does that work? Because you're in the top of summer.

I think you do, I think you still have the same season as Europea, but you please tell me. Um, but you might live in Australia, you might live in New Zealand, you might live in South Africa, so you might have a very different schedule as to what the Northern Hemisphere or the European nations do. You might have a Canadian or Calgarian schedule where you have a four month outdoor season that is happening now, and it's very different.

Bunkers. So we're going to work with that, but we're just doing this for now so that we can have a concentrated group. So this is the link for the waitlist. Go ahead and sign up and we will be opening up sales on June 15th for this so that you can get on board. It's very reasonably priced friends. So please don't wait.

Don't hesitate, and if you sign up now, you get a really cool warm up pdf from Austin. From Austin. That guy over there. He's really smart. He knows stuff.

And we still have these things happening. This is a really good time to consider doing your mission critical positioning course if you were in the off season because it gives you the opportunity to go through the big ideas, maybe go out to summer league and test it out and get some questions that you can come back to me with.

Um, It's, and obviously if you're not as busy actually umpiring the hockey, you've got more time for this. So consider that to happen. But I think the biggest story is that last week we had a poll where I asked you if you liked my jersey, my ice hockey jersey, and you said yes. So guess what, friends? Oh, and it's just, it's going to take its time to queue up.

The third team ice hockey jersey of irony is now available in the store. Okay. Now your pricing is going to be different. This is all geographical, so don't all freak out. But yeah, look at that hotness. Huh? Huh? Third team all the way. It's very ice hockey. And you know what, you know what it really goes well with?

The bucket hat of irony, which is also about to come up on the screen. So. You can be as ironic as you want to be. Why did I make these products? Because you told me to.

That's all I can say. Okay. Thank you very much. I think it is too. It is a game changer and Shirt, you're, you're on board. Luke is awesome. I'm waiting for Steve Denman to buy one as a goalie swap. of the ice hockey jerseys. He said he would and I'm, I believe him. I believe him.

After all this one like, Alistair, you've got to refresh. You've got to refresh. I got more likes than that. I also have a thumbs down, but that's okay. Do that thing. Do that thing. And I would appreciate if you're getting value, if you disagree with what I say, if you don't think I know what I'm talking about, you can either click on the unlike, if you think that I'm wasting your time, I would suggest click away and go do something else and leave the thumbs down negativity for somebody else.

Okay. Look at, I just had to do it. Okay. I can't remember who pushed me into it. Somebody forced me. And then my ice hockey friends, I have a friend, a goalkeeper and a goaltender. She does both, both sides of the game down in California. Name's Lindsay Cooney. She's awesome. Santa Barbara. Love you, Linz. She and, uh, our friend, uh, Sam McPherson, uh, they helped me design it, and I modeled it, and now you can buy it.

Who knows, maybe, maybe I wasn't presenting my ideas very well, and it was, it was just not what this person had signed up for. And that's okay. I like a little disagreement. You know I do. It's totally fine. Ooh, we have a Christmas present coming up. I like it. And it works for you indoors. What, the bucket hat?

Oh yeah, I can do that. I can give you, I can give you one of those. Wait, I should have done it when I was on the screen, shouldn't I have?

Okay. Here's our skill session, looking happy and engaged. This was a question from Jay. Jay asked a very good one. Sometimes during matches, Jay is told that they can look disinterested or unhappy. Not because they are, but they're just focusing too much. Any tips for looking engaged, especially during those slower games?

Jay, I understand exactly where you're coming from because I had this feedback several times during my international umpiring career. I know exactly what this is like and the challenge of it. And some suggestions that you might get in this situation are things like, well, smile more. And no offense to the person who said that on the server.

You're, you're cool. Don't worry about it. But I like to get very tactical. And this is the kind of advice that I didn't get when I was umpiring that was very frustrating because I was like, okay, so I need to look happier. What do I do? Well, I went and got Botox to get rid of my frown lines. Did that help?

I think it did a little bit. Also, I look fantastic. But that isn't the point. What could I do when I was on the pitch? What habits could I build in order to change the way that I presented myself? Because like Jay, I would stand there and I'm just so focused trying not to screw up and trying to get everything right for the players and try to anticipate and I'm dealing with their descent and, and.

All these sort of things and I'm not feeling confident and it comes out with resting bitch face. I have resting bitch face. It's true. I'm okay with that. So what can you do to look more relaxed? So for me I look for ways that I can go outwards and moments that I can take in order to communicate things with players in a particular way.

So often when we're stressed and we're concentrating on ourselves, we're focused too much. We are very internal, we have turned ourselves into, we're thinking about us and it's all happening within our heads and the frown comes because we're defensive and we're building this little wall and everything's happening behind it.

So when, what you need to do is you need to Step over that wall and reach out to the players and do things for them that help them and do it in a very particular way. So I umpire, I, I've ended up umpiring a lot of high school hockey here in Calgary this season. Uh, I did two games last night, uh, quarterfinals of Div 1 Seniors, I think.

Was it all Div 1? Anyway, with seniors. And, you know, they're, they're not the most Attractive games, but they're games that I still want to do a great job in. And all of the high school games that I do, how can I contribute to that game and how can I find ways to relax myself and not have my resting bitch face is to say, to look for every opportunity I can proactively communicate with the players and to do so with a smile on my face.

So I'm not just saying smile more. You've all heard of Smarter Goals, right? Smarter goals are, uh, specific, measurable, attainable, uh, you know, whatever, all those things. So a smarter goal, a, a, a not so smart goal is SMART more. A smarter goal would be every time the ball goes out of bounds, I am going to Smile at the player, and show them where I want the ball before they've gotten there.

So now I've paired a moment where I can actually communicate with the player, I can help them, I can serve the game better, and I'm telling myself I'm going to pair that. Behavior that I want to do with the smile. So that's where I get to exhibit the behavior. Cause you can tell yourself, I'm going to smile a lot, but what if you're smiling like over there, or you're just kind of smiling to yourself and nobody's seeing it, but in the moments where people are actually interacting with you, the players are interacting, you've got that frown.

So I'm picking a time. It's measurable. It's attainable. It's something I can do. It's a low stress situation where I'm not worried about whether I've got the color. It's just out of bounds. And what I'm doing is I've got all these moments in which I'm putting myself into a, I'm going to say this gently.

I'm going to be helpful. It's an easy time to smile. Hey, it's just right here. Thank you. And suddenly I'm smiling more often, it sends signals to my brain that all of my face muscles are doing the things and my eyes are doing the things that construct a smile. That sends the chemicals to my brain, Oh, you're relaxed.

And then I'm able to exhibit more behaviors more naturally that show that I'm relaxed and I'm happy and I'm not resting bitch face. Okay. So that's something that I specifically do. In order to get over that, your particular habit, your particular tactic might be a little different, but I'd suggest that as one that you could try to give you something.

tactical to look happier. When it comes to engagement, engagement is, uh, one that will not only change how you look, but it will change how you umpire. And slower games are a great time to practice habits and get something entrenched that's going to serve you in other games. And it's not moving around more.

It's not moving your head more or appearances. It's actually Taking your brain through exercises that give you the information that you're going to need to make better decisions. And it's all about anticipation. So do little exercises like, Okay, the right half is the key player in this attacking structure.

And I'm going to predict, I'm going to try to predict every time she's going to receive the ball. And How she's going to move the ball on. So in two passes, she's going to get that ball in one pass. She's good. And now she's got the ball and you're, you're doing an exercise forces you to try to predict what's going to happen.

Or, Oh, defensive team is at a half court press. If this score doesn't change by this moment, I think they're going to a full court, so I'm going to be ready for that. And this is what I'm going to change in terms of my positioning in order to accommodate for that. Oh, the captain has just left the field.

They've subbed off. I think that that's going to cause some issues in their defensive structure. They're going to be more likely to turn over the ball because they don't feel as confident because they don't have their quarterback on. So I think there's a good chance that this press is going to come.

They're going to turn over the ball and it's going to end up. You know, in my circle where I'm going to have to make some big decisions, you're looking for things to read. You're looking for reasons to get yourself into the future and you practice that in slower games and you might be completely wrong.

It doesn't matter. That's not the point. The point is that you're practicing, not thinking about the things that have already happened or the things that are happening in that moment, but the things that are about to happen. When you are in that, train, that's going to make you more effective as a habit that underlies the way you perform in the more challenging games.

You can play all kinds of games with yourself. You can make all kinds of, you know, whatever you think might help. And you'll, you'll know after a period of time, you'll say, Oh, you know, that exercise actually doesn't help me figure out anything about this game. I'm not going to do that one again. But be intentional about the way that you watch.

And the way that you move in order to watch and test yourself, try things out, see what interests you the most, see what helps you the most. The side effect of that is that you will be engaged. You are engaging yourself, so you don't have to appear. You simply are, and you're umpiring better. Does that make sense?

Okay. I wrote a lot of that, probably a little more articulately in the server. If you want to see that conversation, come into the, into the server, uh, FHumpires. com forward slash D S. And we would, I would love to hear your thoughts in there. I'm going to just have a little bit of a gander comments and things like that.

Uh, for Scott, you're thinking, talk a bit more, but not commentary. Say decisions as well as signaling, but not inviting discussions. Um, yes, telling players they're taking the free hit from the correct place. Yes, the proactive stuff. So not, not explaining your decisions. Absolutely not. I, I really try to get umpires away from doing that.

They can explain what they're seeing in the moment, but you're not having the conversations afterwards, because ain't nobody got time. You have to be thinking about what's happening next, and you're not changing your decision because you have a conversation with a player, right? You wish you'd gotten these tips earlier?

Well, yeah, I wish I'd gotten these tips when I was umpiring at the junior world cup in 2005, but I didn't get them. I didn't get them in 2009. I didn't get them in 2011. I didn't get them at any point. I think about these things and I try them. And I keep working at them. And then I try to pass it along to you and ask you to try it too.

And feedback to me, does this work? Get it, get your friend to, to video you in two situations, like have your previous stuff and then have a, have a match where you're trying these active tips and have a look at it and see if you look different. Let's see. Right? We have to be intentional about all this stuff.

Colleagues you can trust can help. Yep. You can, you can use colleagues for that, but I think it's important that you want to build a habit that is within your control and not within, not that you have to depend on a particular person or a particular skill set in another person that you're working with and your skill sets will help you help them as well.

Because the more engaged you are, that very subtle difference in your movement patterns, your positioning will give indicators to your colleague that when you're supporting, you're, you're there to help. You'll be there if they need it. And that will make them feel more confident. So lots of great side effects to all this.

Okay. Good stuff. Radio. Um, next topic. How are we doing for time? Oh, wait, two o'clock. Yeah, we're almost up. Let's look at, um, that's fun.

Hold please. How did this work? Hmm. Okay. We'll just look at this one because

the first one has disappeared. It's disappeared.

Okay, so this one caught my attention for a specific reason. It's about the commentary, uh, and I wanted to clarify this because we've been ha we've been working through this. within, you know, this community quite a bit. The difference between, uh, a breakdown of an aerial against an initial receiver interfering with the five meters.

In contrast to legitimately attempting an interception and that interception failing and that resulting in an unintentional foul or not actually really attempting an interception and that being an intentional breakdown. So what I was mindful of in this instance is that The penalty here, the foul, is not missing the aerial, okay?

The way that it was being described by Mace on commentary is that she didn't take it cleanly, therefore it's going to be a penalty corner. That's not true. She's allowed to attempt. And she's allowed to attempt so long as it's outside playing distance and not dangerous. And she's allowed to miss it. But if she misses it and it goes to the initial receipt receiver, she can't then interfere with the five meters after that.

And we see that quite a bit. We see instances where the attempt is made, it's missed, and then the player stays in and tries to dispossess the ball from the initial receiver. And that is going to be

In this case, I don't think that the call was made for interfering or, yes, infringing on the five meters after the interception was made. Because if you watch carefully right now, the whistle is coming up and this umpire is one who doesn't put their whistle in their mouth early. They, they, they react with their whistle and they were reacting to the playing distance.

So this umpire wasn't happy that that was outside of playing distance. that interception attempt. She had already missed it by the time the decision was made. Okay. So I hope that that makes sense in terms of processing it. We have to be very careful about the languaging that we're using because we're going to start to penalize bad skill instead of bad intent and reckless as to the result.

And we don't want to do that because missing the ball is not a foul. Interfering with five meters after you've missed the ball absolutely is. Okay. I hope you can feel the difference on that. And yeah, I'll just go to that. And that's probably the wrong,

I'm just going to try to fire that one. There you go. So that you have, you have the right poll, but it's probably a bit too late for that. I don't know where that video actually disappeared to. I don't know. It's pretty crazy. I could go to the poll, but nobody will have voted. So I won't, but I'll, I'll come to this right now and I'll just, God is talking to colleagues for ideas.

Yes. Absolutely. And I think it's incumbent on people like you and I, Godders, honestly, as coaches, we're the ones who should be, we don't necessarily have to give the ideas to umpires, but we should be coming up with processes that help umpires find these things for themselves, or we give them, you know, suggestions that they can try and that it's, it's just not enough for us to point out that there's a problem.

We have to be able to. Coach people into improved performance and be able to lead them in that respect. And that's something I think that many of us miss as umpire coaches, managers, assessors, what do you want to call us? But if we're in the business of making umpires better, we have to have these tactics on hand.

We have to, we have to try these things. We have to run experiments with people. We have to test them out and have these discussions. Because if all you're saying is, you're not engaged enough, you gotta look happier, all we're doing is just, we're just grading them. We're just assessing them. And we're giving up the rest of our responsibilities.

I think that that's not right. So, Scott, I, so, as I was saying, I don't think in this case, let me go back to this, to this replay.

I don't think that the call was made because she didn't step away. She didn't even have a chance to step away before the call was made. Okay? I think she was Intercepting within playing distance in the judgment of that umpire, because she didn't even have a chance to step away. She'd already, she had, she had missed the ball.

Let's, let's actually play the, the video with sound again. Sorry.

So you can see the timing of that was so fast that it wasn't because she didn't step away. She didn't have a chance to step away before the, the penalty corner had been awarded. Okay. No, the umpire wasn't slow. Okay, the umpire was pretty fast. I think it is so difficult. It is so difficult in order to figure out when to blow in these situations now, because you're trying to give the players the opportunity to intercept properly.

Okay, hi. Well, you made it just in time for your question that we will do quickly. Okay, let's see if anybody's had a chance to vote in the poll. And if you haven't, That's my bad. Don't worry about it. 4B. Okay. Um, yes, everybody's with a, most people are with penalty corner, 75 percent of you, and one person wants to play on and that's okay.

We can't see the angle. We can't see very well whether that's playable distance or not. And when I can't see and I don't know, I go with the umpire. And I, I think that's a good one to do. Free hit defense. Um, interesting. Okay. If you voted that, I'd like to know. And of course, I just voted for three penalty strokes.

One for each team, and one for the umpires. Thank you very much, friends. Fraser, always a delight. Um, Godders, defender ran back into receiving attacker and interception with him playing distance. Yeah, I agree. And, and so We, we need to listen critically and apply our understanding of the rules to what we're seeing and what we're hearing in order to make sure that we are learning the right processes and we're going to apply the right principles as we go forward.

Okay. Last topic to get through really quickly, and this is more of a exploratory question that comes in from our friend, Darren, right here. It's okay. Too many vowels, but nobody get on his case. Everybody occasionally puts too many vowels in my name. I'm not greedy. I don't need so many vowels. I don't need the extra E.

At international levels, asked Aaron, with such speed of the game and so much going on, especially at corners, do you think there's a case to be made for three umpires?

That's you!

Because look, you match! I hope you don't mind I put up here, but it is a really good question. And as a rule, I try to stay open minded about absolutely everything. When you get a little more long in the tooth. Don't let the Botox fool you, friends. I have been around for a long time. You start building that reflex of, Hey, you kids, get off my lawn.

You don't want any changes because you just get tired of All the changes. If that's your mindset, a lot of people would say, no, we don't need it just as a reflux, but I like to, to challenge myself. I like to challenge my thinking. I like to experiment and I like to think critically about these things. So the first thing that I would look at here is.

Given the way that I think is the most effective way for us to position ourselves on the pitch, if we're relying primarily on two umpires and they have prioritized their circles as the areas that they are going to get correct, those are their mission critical areas, where are the weaknesses in the mission critical positioning style?

They are on the sidelines near the center. Everything else and, and Maybe a little bit that's in the middle of the play, if there's equal number of players, and it's like amoeba hockey, and there hasn't been any structure, and it's just like, it's just in the middle, and there's bodies equally both ways.

That is possible. So, the first thing I think of is, well, three doesn't work, because where does the third umpire go? I think you need four. If you're going to add anybody, because you want essentially two lines, people who can monitor things that happen on those sidelines, the way that football referees do.

So that's why I added in the poll, which hopefully is, did that get added in there? Yep. I added four umpires in the poll. Okay. Darren, you've been thinking about this for a long time, especially when you used to umpire at much higher levels. You're a lot fitter back then. I was a lot fitter back then too.

That's strange. Godders, in most games, you have at least 24 on the pitch and more on the bench. And that's without egg spectators. Salute. You are very correct.

That's fantastic. And practically speaking, Rachel, you're absolutely right. At most levels, there's such a shortage of umpires, it would be extremely difficult. And I guess, you know, it's, it's one of those things that we want to be careful about, not just dismissing an idea out of hand, just because it would be.

It would be hard, but because it isn't effective. Two video umpires, any even number would be bad in case they disagree with each other, that would, uh, there would be a need to break ties. Yeah. I put that down as an idea to, it was like, okay, well, if we're going to play with this idea, let's talk about whether there needs to be more than one video umpire as well.

And that is the dilemma. is that when you add people, unless you have a good system for responsibilities and who has primary responsibilities, and you'll see this on the pitch with two umpires, is that what happens when those two people disagree? And we have systems in place about, you know, what do we do when there's a coat hanger and why?

In mission critical positioning, for me, it's who's got best visibility. Who's got the fewer number of bodies in between them and the ball? In traditional European j hook responsibility, it's, is the ball on one side of that line or the other? And I think that sucks. I don't think it works. That's the system.

And if it's on the line, then which direction is the ball going to? This is what I did for 20 years, so. I get it,

but the more umpires you add into the situation, the more chance you have people who disagree because it doesn't matter. Okay. Let me rewind that. As you can see from the number of live streams that I do and the discussions we have and the difference of opinions we have, we're not good enough at coming up with consensus.

We don't agree. well enough. We don't understand the principles. We don't apply them effectively enough. We haven't trained enough. We don't get things right as a community enough to add more people into the situation. That's what I see. The downfall is of adding more umpires is that you just add more people who don't get it.

Who are just going to muddy the waters and that the most elegant solution is often just to say, well, one person made a mistake and that's okay. If five people make a mistake, that's terrible. And that's what you have. I'm guessing in sports ball VAR is that there's a whole bank of televisions and there's like 14 referees sitting in a very sophisticated production room and they still managed to come up with the wrong decision.

Groupthink is dangerous. And the desire, it's, it's, it's proven psychologically that people want to go with their, their peers. If they hear their peers coming to a decision, they will go with that, even though they know it's completely opposite. I should have thought of this and been able to throw out the link.

I'll put it in the server later. If, if y'all remind me, it's, it's something about whether the, it was a psychological test about the, uh, length of lines. The lines like this and this. And so it was a very objective, like easy to see are all these lines the same length? And then there would be one that was like, whoop.

And they would plant, so like 20 people, 18 of whom would say, oh yeah, they're all the same length. Then a couple of the plants would say no. And then the test subject would be like, I guess, I don't know, I guess I'm wrong. That is. The power of groupthink. So the more people you have, the more groupthink you have.

So that would be a danger for me, for sure. And yes, breaking ties, you start getting into You know, all that kind of thing. So more comments. Ooh, there's lots of you. We need to multivote. Um, did I not set it for multivote? Sorry. 22, one for each player. I think there should be 22 plus one for each player, one for each sub, one for each staff and lower level with only a few viewers, one for each viewer.

Sure. That, that sounds pretty good. Nils, you want two umpires, two video umpires, 22 umpire coaches, or 22 umpires, coaches being umpires and spectators too. Yes. And it's, it's something that I think, um, Goddard's saying it's something to consider. I, I honestly don't think we should dismiss it out of hand.

The practical considerations, like Rachel says, particular at lower levels, struggles to find enough people, already a problem. Uh, that's a big deal. Uh, also the overall messaging that we're adding to the administration and the bureaucracy of the game. When costs are being constricted, travel is more expensive, you know, all these sort of things, like the more, one of the things I hate about hockey fives, for example, is that they've reduced the number of players, but the number of coaches and physios and umpires and everything is, has stayed the same and technical staff.

So we've reduced the number of players. But nobody else has had to cut back and I that just gives me a bad gut feeling. How does that work?

That's why we need that. Okay, pause back. Main umpire in the middle and one on each side. They call it football. Yeah, I know, right? And I mean I've done lots of games solo in my lifetime, junior levels, and The idea of the, uh, the idea of MCP kind of gets you closer to that model, and as much as I, Our larger hexagonal decorated ball friends, uh, there is something to be said for being able to see all those angles and to be closer to the most important aspects and being able to run in the middle with more practice in a hockey match.

Like I've, I've done it and I've done referee like running and if it weren't for penalty corners and needing. Believing I need to go to the end line. I'm running like a football referee without knowing anything about football.

Kind of like soccer, but the end umpires would be primarily responsible for the circles with the middle umpires backup. Backup for what? What is their job? So if their job is to help with the things in the middle that are difficult for umpires, you're prioritizing the ends can see. There's kind of two middles, unless they're in the middle of the pitch.

Which would be interesting. I think you could, you could theoretically move one umpire to each, like towards each sideline so they could see, but

the, the things that you're, you're blocked from when you're doing MCP are things that you see on an exterior angle. So you want to add those two people in. So you'd need to. More umpires, more angles. Good. More umpires, more like I have decisions. Bad. Yeah, it's both ways. Alex, I don't know, man. I don't know what you've wandered into.

Who knows? Sherid's like, don't worry, you're a pretty little head. It's all good.

You don't want to miss out on your groupthink? I don't know. So, I think this is a worthy thing to continue to talk about. And, I mean, Darren certainly isn't the first person to, to I've lobbed this idea out there, I've heard players and coaches talk about it, I've wondered that if there was, uh, an umpire who was perched up high in a super high chair, like tennis but even higher, and could see both sides and see from the center and not block any of the spectators and, and have that kind of angled, all the things they could see, a spider cam umpire, uh, who is watching if you've Yeah, sorry, spider cam.

So there's a wire that's threaded between essentially the two, the middle of the two goals that go center and there's a camera that goes That's motorized and runs along that wire and you get beautiful shots, uh, only seen it at the, at world cups and Olympics, basically it's, it's not cheap to run that camera, but an umpire who's on that camera, uh, as an extra video umpire, that could be enough.

Perhaps. So you're kind of splitting up video umpire responsibilities between one who can help with sideline decisions and those other ones and then video, uh, the sort of the, the circle video umpire who helps with those things. Hmm. That's an interesting one because they're watching for different things.

And you also have spider cam umpire for video umpire for serious misconduct everywhere in the pitch. Oh, your girl is starting to like this. Samantha, you've done video analysis in the nest up high and an umpire there with a radio, um, with, uh, something else. Yes. Drone umpire. There you go.

So, so yeah, there's, there's some things there. Um, yeah. Samantha, on your angle, I've watched when I was at, uh, when I was in Wellington, helping with the New Zealand Masters, I was high up on a hill often. That's where I perched myself. High up on a hill on one end, and I was videoing from there and I was watching and the things I could see up there, despite being a little bit further away, but from that angle were amazing.

It was like being tower, but, um, but more grass. And more gin and tonics. And that was a really, uh, good way to, to watch the game as well. Jetpacks. Refbot. Okay. Um, a radio with a live feed would, would work great. Yeah. And that would be one of those, those things that, you know, we can experiment with now that radios are the norm.

Why don't we have, under agreed circumstances, agreed protocols, when. A video umpire, a spider cam umpire is helping and saying, green ball on the sideline. Because for some reason, people get really, really worked up about sideline balls in the middle of the park.

Not my circus, not my monkeys. I shouldn't say that. It's definitely my circus, but unfortunately not my monkeys.

Okay. Come into the server for more discussions. As always, um. I will do this. We, you know, some of my, uh Most interesting thoughts come because of things that people challenge on and and pose questions on in there, so please do come in and ask. We have a ton of watch parties coming up in the next couple weeks because Three tournaments at once, don't threaten me with a good time.

It is a good time. But it is, it's a lot. It's a lot to keep up with. So What Up Wednesday next week is going to be full of more Pro League and Nations Cup. Footage because Nations Cup starts tomorrow, Friday, Friday in Poland. And then there's a Nations Cup in Spain happening soon after that. So we will have all of that for you coming up.

If you're not part of the FHU third team, then you, you need to get on board because that's how you get to join in these experiences where I talk. Poop about everything that's going on, especially what the commentators are saying. With love. With love, Mace. Don't worry. With love. Okay? Thank you very much for joining in today.

And yes, this went very, very long. And thank you for hanging out with me, uh, waiting for that extra half hour so that we could watch a little bit more of the Pro League. I hope you've had a fantastic hockey week. Looking forward to the next coming up and we'll see you.

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