The Great NPPL Reffing Debate

[JTHM]

Originally posted by shamu
. Consistency is one area that can be improved. A good example is the obvious hit rule - what one ref may consider a self-check area another ref may not. This could result in a player hit in the back (for example) being 1for1'd on one field but not another.

This one scares the bejebus outta me. For instance, a hit in the upper back, 1.) you could use your hand to check for a break, 2.) call for a paintcheck. In case 1. you could get a wipe penalty if the timing of the ref is off a few seconds. In case 2. acccording to stories of Vegas you would most likely get 1 for1'd.

A little help here guys.

 

[cjohns]

I want to bring up Shamu's point about self check zones and gray areas. Not only did my team experience two costly bad calls, but I also witnessed other teams get awful non self check zone calls against them and I heard people ranting about it all weekend. The bizarre thing was that all these calls that I witnessed, was a part of, and heard about, were coming off of fields that had Sweddish refs. Now before you go flying off the handle, I know some Sweddish players from my 4 years in Europe and a few that were reffing there were people I know and have no problem with at all. But the 1 for 1 calls that were being made for pack hits and pod hits, which is clearly a non self check zone, was absurd. This happened to my team twice, once on the NPPL field by Mikey, and once on the Raven field. These 2 calls I can honestly say cost us the 2 games and when you pay that much money for an event to go and not make the cut because of bad calls, you tend to get a little pissed. We had teams that we played come to us and say that we basically rolled them, but then got bad calls which took our advantage away with BS 1 for 1's that cost us games. Myself and Bacca were covering the event for PGI and our impressions will come out whether good or bad.

 

[shamu]

Originally posted by JTHM
This one scares the bejebus outta me. For instance, a hit in the upper back, 1.) you could use your hand to check for a break, 2.) call for a paintcheck. In case 1. you could get a wipe penalty if the timing of the ref is off a few seconds. In case 2. acccording to stories of Vegas you would most likely get 1 for1'd.

A little help here guys.

JTHM - According to the rules, if you're hit in a location you should feel but can't actually see (upper back, buttocks, top of the head), you should immediately have a teammate check you. If a teammate isn't available (often the case), you should immediately call for a ref to check you. If you do that, there shouldn't be any penalty. If you keep playing and don't have the hit checked, it could be considered playing on and result in a 1 for 1.

On the fields I worked, we laid this out very clearly before each game on Sunday (Angel for quarterfinals and Zap for semis and finals). Players knew what we'd penalize and we had very few problems.

The pack isn't considered a self-check zone unless it's clear the player noticed the hit. For example, the player is hit in the pod and sees the hit when he pulls it out (this happened in one of the semi-finals games - pod got hit as he was taking it out of his pack, I pulled him and pointed to the pod in his hand, no arguement from the player).

I can't really comment on the calls Chip mentioned because I wasn't there to see them, other than to say I hear you. I've been on the bad end of calls before and know how aggravating it can be. I sent Chuck my impressions of the event and what we should work on for Chicago. One of the things I talked about was the need for consistency in reffing. This is based in part on the feedback from Chip and Baca, as well as other sources (so yes, someone is listening to you).

Hopefully the NPPL will continue to improve with each event and continue to provide the highest quality events. I'm looking forward to PGI's write up.

 

[cjohns]

Thanks for speaking on our behalf. Good to see someone listens to all our ranting and raving.

 

[raehl]

The most important change that needs to happen is the people who ref this event need to be the same people who reffed the last event. As it stands, you're pretty much starting over every event and that hurts. This is one reason I believe you will never get quality officiating from teams who participate in events. You're only letting them actually DO the job once a year, and instead of putting one or two new people into a crew with otherwise experienced refs, you're starting with a completely new crew each time around.

Now, whether that's even FEASIBLE is another matter entirely. Where do you get 10 fields of referees qualified to ref PSP/S7 level events, 5 times in 5 different locations each year, who do NOT want to play those events?

The only solution I can come up with is having NXL players ref S7 events and S7 players ref PSP events. As if.

- Chris