not again, again
- Thread starter SteveD
- Start date
Then the rules comittee needs to either 1) define a player or 2) broaden this rule. A player could be anything. I'm a player, you're a player, and I'm sure Pete plays paintball too.
I'd have to disagree here. Two points:
1. Just because Robbo spat on the ground doesn't give the right for an entire team to attack him.
and
2. According to the rule that you posted, engaging in physical altercations, except in defense of one’s person against an unprovoked aggressor, Pete had every right to defend himself.
Did Pete fight back? No. He merely defended himself, which according to the rules is allowed.
What sense of good judgement? He's a player, he asked if he could go onto the field, where's the error? If you want to get technical about the rules, show me where it says you can't spit on the ground?
rules
we've got a lot of different issues going on here, all of which can contribute to the kind of incident that occurred in Miami.
First and foremost, I've said before and will continue to maintain that so long as the referees can not halt the game and do not have penalties at their disposal who's consequences are strong enough to deter infractions, the officials do not really have any control.
Two issues: first one: the concept has always been that the game can not be stopped until a flag is hung or the clock expires. Right there, you have a huge incentive to break the rules. When I can post 90+ points on the board and the worst that will happen is that the other team gets a few extra eliminations added to their score, why shouldn't I be doing everything I can to get the 90 points? Looked at a different way: if team A hung the flag because one of their players cheated to do so, no amount of after-the-fact punishment is going to do team B any good, so far as the event is concerned: they were denied the right to earn their points (and with things the way they are today, all it takes is one bad game to screw with a team).
One for ones CAN be an effective during-the-game penalty, but only when it is used effectively; I watched a game once between a decent team and a team of known, habitual cheaters and the decent team's strategy for the game was 'let those guys penalize themselves right out of the event' (it worked when four near simultaneous 1-for-1s were handed out); but that's one game of tens of thousands and even in that case there was no love lost between the reffing team and the cheating team. I don't wonder what would have happened if the cheating team had gotten a little love instead...
Penalties themselves, and the refs that try to enforce them have ben hamstrung over the years by a bunch of misguided ideas, such as 'its wrong to kick a team out of an event when they spent so much money to get here', or 'we don't want the sport to look bad, so lets have offsetting penalties' - not to mention the incredibly twisted and incestuous relationships between players, teams, promoters, refs and industry folks.
It may be different in Europe, but over here in the states its extremely difficult to find a team that doesn't have some kind of business relationship with someone else in the industry - and I don't just mean sponsorship: sometimes I think that the lack of good calls on the field is due more to the ref trying to figure out what the consequences of the call to his business are going to be, rather than any deliberate collusion...
What this all really argues for is two basic changes to the game: first, at the very least, a set of penalties that actively deter major infractions; maybe playing on with a hit now becomes an automatic 3-for-1 instead of a 1-for-1. Maybe it needs to go even further - automatic loss of game for playing on (yes, playing on how? visible hit, felt hit? - but that's detail for now. the main idea is to find something that makes it tactically unviable to even consider the cheating move).
And, not to beat a dead horse, but we need that professional reffing crew. Now.
I've offered NPPL my contacts with NASO (pro reffing rep org for professional sports in the US).
I'll even go so far as to volunteer to ref: I've not been associated with a team for three years now, the company I do work for sponsors no teams (and hasn't for quite some time) and as anyone who was around during the formative years of NPPL can tell you, I reffed and adjudicated based on the rules and the facts on hand - despite the consequences to my 'paintball career'.
I think its time for those of us who have prior experience and who aren't still tied into a team to step up, offer our time and demand that someone, somewhere, figure out a way to fund this thing in an impartial, no-ties manner.
we've got a lot of different issues going on here, all of which can contribute to the kind of incident that occurred in Miami.
First and foremost, I've said before and will continue to maintain that so long as the referees can not halt the game and do not have penalties at their disposal who's consequences are strong enough to deter infractions, the officials do not really have any control.
Two issues: first one: the concept has always been that the game can not be stopped until a flag is hung or the clock expires. Right there, you have a huge incentive to break the rules. When I can post 90+ points on the board and the worst that will happen is that the other team gets a few extra eliminations added to their score, why shouldn't I be doing everything I can to get the 90 points? Looked at a different way: if team A hung the flag because one of their players cheated to do so, no amount of after-the-fact punishment is going to do team B any good, so far as the event is concerned: they were denied the right to earn their points (and with things the way they are today, all it takes is one bad game to screw with a team).
One for ones CAN be an effective during-the-game penalty, but only when it is used effectively; I watched a game once between a decent team and a team of known, habitual cheaters and the decent team's strategy for the game was 'let those guys penalize themselves right out of the event' (it worked when four near simultaneous 1-for-1s were handed out); but that's one game of tens of thousands and even in that case there was no love lost between the reffing team and the cheating team. I don't wonder what would have happened if the cheating team had gotten a little love instead...
Penalties themselves, and the refs that try to enforce them have ben hamstrung over the years by a bunch of misguided ideas, such as 'its wrong to kick a team out of an event when they spent so much money to get here', or 'we don't want the sport to look bad, so lets have offsetting penalties' - not to mention the incredibly twisted and incestuous relationships between players, teams, promoters, refs and industry folks.
It may be different in Europe, but over here in the states its extremely difficult to find a team that doesn't have some kind of business relationship with someone else in the industry - and I don't just mean sponsorship: sometimes I think that the lack of good calls on the field is due more to the ref trying to figure out what the consequences of the call to his business are going to be, rather than any deliberate collusion...
What this all really argues for is two basic changes to the game: first, at the very least, a set of penalties that actively deter major infractions; maybe playing on with a hit now becomes an automatic 3-for-1 instead of a 1-for-1. Maybe it needs to go even further - automatic loss of game for playing on (yes, playing on how? visible hit, felt hit? - but that's detail for now. the main idea is to find something that makes it tactically unviable to even consider the cheating move).
And, not to beat a dead horse, but we need that professional reffing crew. Now.
I've offered NPPL my contacts with NASO (pro reffing rep org for professional sports in the US).
I'll even go so far as to volunteer to ref: I've not been associated with a team for three years now, the company I do work for sponsors no teams (and hasn't for quite some time) and as anyone who was around during the formative years of NPPL can tell you, I reffed and adjudicated based on the rules and the facts on hand - despite the consequences to my 'paintball career'.
I think its time for those of us who have prior experience and who aren't still tied into a team to step up, offer our time and demand that someone, somewhere, figure out a way to fund this thing in an impartial, no-ties manner.
My sincere apologies Brian, he was pushing it as usualOriginally posted by PaintballChannel
Well, that made my post kind of useless...
and I really ain't in the mood for him to tell me nething !