[Uwh-announce] Rule of the Week-Escalating Calls for repeated fouls

[Angus Sinclair]

G'day all,
This week is about call escalations. So it comes under the "poolside chat" category, both as a player and a referee. What does this mean, you ask? Well, basically, if particular foul occurs, and that fouls is occurring time and time again, the severity of the call needs to escalate to discourage people from doing it. This means kick-outs for players who fail to heed the warnings. CMAS Rules Volume 2, page 40, Table 17.7  has a fantastic summary of and infringements and subsequent penalties.

Let's take gloving as an example. Somebody gloves the puck. A warning may be given to the person who gloved the puck (depending on severity: an immediate kick-out may be warranted if the foul is dirty enough!), advantage puck is awarded to the other team. If there are subsequent gloving fouls, the calls need to escalate to team warnings and kick-outs if necessary. Now there is room for the referee to make judgement calls, but bottom line, if calls aren't escalated, then there is no real consequence for repeating the foul. As  a guideline once a team has been identified to do the same foul three times, they should be warned. Next time the same foul is committed that is 1min, and all further fouls of that type should be at least 1min kick-outs, or 2min if needed.

Is this a problem? Well, from experience, it takes most teams between 1-3 minutes to work out calls aren't being escalated, and therefore the is no significant punishment for repeating the same foul.

Result: The game descends rapidly into a squalid free for all, and zero fun is had by all.

So everybody is on notice here. If the refs are starting to give kick-outs, this may be why. If you fail to listen, expect a rest on the side, with your team mates cursing the reduction to 5 players. And for all the referees, if you don't escalate (where appropriate), you may find yourself managing an angry mob wielding black and white sticks calling for somebody to be sacrificed. Usually that would be the ones in red hats, and we don't want or need that.

Remember:

Regardless of what you think of the call, it's what it is. Live with it, and move on.

One last small thing. We have changed our rules from the WAA rules to CMAS rules. What does this mean? Not too much, the rules were pretty similar, but from this point on CMAS rulings will be the final measure.

See you all poolside

Angus Sinclair
Chief Referee, Tasmania

P 03 6237 6401 | F 03 6233 5800
M 0427 501 890
email: angus.sinclair at development.tas.gov.au<mailto:angus.sinclair at development.tas.gov.au>


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