This will be fairly long 
First - the positives (and they are many):
What a great event!
Best layout of a European venue to date.... everything was close by for the players!
The new turf is awesome - plays like lush freshly cut grass, but without the problems that weather or repeated use may create.
Disney is a fantastic venue, and the amount of non-paintballers that stopped by and watched games, surpassed any other European event before.
Airsupply was great as usual with H-pac
Toilets and paintsupply situated close by and toilets kept nice and clean all weekend (I DO think however, that the paint suppliers would have liked to have been issued ear protection, because 3 days of listening to paint being shot continously into a metal container 20 feet away, must have left those poor guys semi-deaf!).
Great to be able to hand in scoresheets right in the players area.
Security seemed to be fairly tight.
Tradeshow was great.
All the security and event staff was extremely courteous and pleasant.
The negatives:
What was up with the announcers? - It seemed like they had no idea what they were talking about, and were forced to backtrack and correct announcements all the time! - PLEASE have someone manning the microphone who knows what is going on at the next event (the girls looked cute though... but that is rather beside the point)
The games were allowed to fall extremely far behind schedule on the first day, with no apparent reason.
And finally:
- Yes.... as usual... the reffing is not good enough.
None of our results (or lack thereof) were due to poor reffing.... so these are very general comments, based on a lot of games I spectated..... and I found a lot of room for improvement!
There are some really good and dedicated refs in the MS reffing squad, and they work their butts off trying to cover for their less talented colleagues.... but most of the refs seem to be too timid to penalise playing on and wiping, and too keen on penalising little things (like a barrel being 1 inch away from the backboard at the start, or a player voicing malcontent or whatever).
I think a change of focus would be a good idea.... because at the moment, too many of the teams at our level and in division 1 are getting away with murder in many games.... and we will continue to do so, as long as many refs choose not to penalise "us" for playing on.... and focus more of the little things that are not really game altering penalties.
Once refs start to pull those penalties consistently, the cheating will drop off to a level where it is much less game altering than it is now.
Field position of the refs is still horrible in many instances, where refs position themselves so they are looking at players from the back, and also, even after 3 days of play, still are not in position to watch paint going in on runners that take 40 and 50 bunkers that teams have been taking all weekend.
Honestly, I don't understand why it is so hard?.... the ultimate could spend 1 hour at each field the first day, take notes of the most common breakouts and most commonly used bunkers at breakout (expecially for the teams in the upper divisions, because the teams in the lower ones will copy that as the event progresses), and then set up field position for each field according to that - for the remainder of the event (with the field ultimate having some discretion to change things ofcourse).
- and then ofcourse instruct the refs that they are supposed to stay ahead of the players, and move to be in a position to see players during anticipated moves, rather than tagging along behind them!
That having been said, it also seems like the MS is underpopulating the fields with refs..... for instance on the JT field, the two corner tombstones on the players area side, were left completely unguarded for most of the weekend, allowing players to wipe time and time again, and never getting caught....
If the MS wants the most important part of their events - the reffing - to work..... the NEED not only to do more training, but also to hire enough refs so that every field has 10 refs..... you CANNOT effectively ref a modern day 7 man field with fewer refs!
- And it's not like those extra 2-3 refs per field would kill the budget.... is it?
Last, refs also seem to have been instructed too harshly to NOT call players neutral.... and so they allow the player to hide hits from them, because the ref does not want to interfere with play..... I saw a LOT of players get hit this weekend, and then just change their body position to hide the hit from the ref, thereby making it impossible for the ref to check them properly, without calling them neutral..... and so the refs just fiddled about a bit looking at the players from different angles, and then called them clean.
I call on the MS to get the reffing sorted out..... because the cheating is getting worse and worse.... and every team out there is FORCED to start cheating more, if they want to compete.... because the refs are allowing their opponents to do so!
Nick
First - the positives (and they are many):
What a great event!
Best layout of a European venue to date.... everything was close by for the players!
The new turf is awesome - plays like lush freshly cut grass, but without the problems that weather or repeated use may create.
Disney is a fantastic venue, and the amount of non-paintballers that stopped by and watched games, surpassed any other European event before.
Airsupply was great as usual with H-pac
Toilets and paintsupply situated close by and toilets kept nice and clean all weekend (I DO think however, that the paint suppliers would have liked to have been issued ear protection, because 3 days of listening to paint being shot continously into a metal container 20 feet away, must have left those poor guys semi-deaf!).
Great to be able to hand in scoresheets right in the players area.
Security seemed to be fairly tight.
Tradeshow was great.
All the security and event staff was extremely courteous and pleasant.
The negatives:
What was up with the announcers? - It seemed like they had no idea what they were talking about, and were forced to backtrack and correct announcements all the time! - PLEASE have someone manning the microphone who knows what is going on at the next event (the girls looked cute though... but that is rather beside the point
)The games were allowed to fall extremely far behind schedule on the first day, with no apparent reason.
And finally:
- Yes.... as usual... the reffing is not good enough.
None of our results (or lack thereof) were due to poor reffing.... so these are very general comments, based on a lot of games I spectated..... and I found a lot of room for improvement!
There are some really good and dedicated refs in the MS reffing squad, and they work their butts off trying to cover for their less talented colleagues.... but most of the refs seem to be too timid to penalise playing on and wiping, and too keen on penalising little things (like a barrel being 1 inch away from the backboard at the start, or a player voicing malcontent or whatever).
I think a change of focus would be a good idea.... because at the moment, too many of the teams at our level and in division 1 are getting away with murder in many games.... and we will continue to do so, as long as many refs choose not to penalise "us" for playing on.... and focus more of the little things that are not really game altering penalties.
Once refs start to pull those penalties consistently, the cheating will drop off to a level where it is much less game altering than it is now.
Field position of the refs is still horrible in many instances, where refs position themselves so they are looking at players from the back, and also, even after 3 days of play, still are not in position to watch paint going in on runners that take 40 and 50 bunkers that teams have been taking all weekend.
Honestly, I don't understand why it is so hard?.... the ultimate could spend 1 hour at each field the first day, take notes of the most common breakouts and most commonly used bunkers at breakout (expecially for the teams in the upper divisions, because the teams in the lower ones will copy that as the event progresses), and then set up field position for each field according to that - for the remainder of the event (with the field ultimate having some discretion to change things ofcourse).
- and then ofcourse instruct the refs that they are supposed to stay ahead of the players, and move to be in a position to see players during anticipated moves, rather than tagging along behind them!
That having been said, it also seems like the MS is underpopulating the fields with refs..... for instance on the JT field, the two corner tombstones on the players area side, were left completely unguarded for most of the weekend, allowing players to wipe time and time again, and never getting caught....
If the MS wants the most important part of their events - the reffing - to work..... the NEED not only to do more training, but also to hire enough refs so that every field has 10 refs..... you CANNOT effectively ref a modern day 7 man field with fewer refs!
- And it's not like those extra 2-3 refs per field would kill the budget.... is it?
Last, refs also seem to have been instructed too harshly to NOT call players neutral.... and so they allow the player to hide hits from them, because the ref does not want to interfere with play..... I saw a LOT of players get hit this weekend, and then just change their body position to hide the hit from the ref, thereby making it impossible for the ref to check them properly, without calling them neutral..... and so the refs just fiddled about a bit looking at the players from different angles, and then called them clean.
I call on the MS to get the reffing sorted out..... because the cheating is getting worse and worse.... and every team out there is FORCED to start cheating more, if they want to compete.... because the refs are allowing their opponents to do so!
Nick
