#qcrg

Since the events of the last blog I have only had the opportunity to ref once even though my league has had some bouts. I’ve skated in scrimmages and practices and I am learning how to jam ref.  At first I was stupid nervous…but now having done it 5 or 6 times, I kind of like jam reffing.

I’ve been dealing with a confidence issue since the events of the last scrimmage. I go between times where I want to give up and others where I just want to skate my butt off to achieve my goals. There never seems to be any in between since that fateful Monday.  Life goes on and it won’t wait around for me to wallow in self pity. One thing that I didn’t allow to change, I am always the first one on the track at practice/scrimmage/bouts and I try to utilize any track time I have to practice getting better at my skills.

This past weekend I had 3 days of derby. First up was for QCRG where we had a Friday night double head. Their were so many NSO’s signed up to work that I only worked one of the bouts which freed me up to do some volunteer work at will call for the event.  It was nice to do that. I also got to sit and watch the 2nd half of the bout which, i’ll be honest, was the first bout I have had the luxury of watching at QCRG. Since I joined the league, I have NSO’d or reffed all of them. The 2nd game was between the Furies and Orangeville who just gained their WFTDA status last week.  It was a hard fought bout and Orangeville won. It was a bit of a shock but Orangeville played a hell of a game and deserved it.  

Next up on Saturday night was an NRG double header. I have a blast every time I do anything with this league.  Every league is full of fun people but this league I think has an over abundance of fun people.  I helped oversee the Lineup Trackers for the first bout and learned Inside White Board for the 2nd one. It was a fun night. I think I may have laughed more than I should have for this event because the people I worked with were amazing. I hope to ref up there if a spot is every open when I am available.

And finally Sunday comes…..a triple header in Ancaster and I am reffing all three games. The day started out good. I went and picked up my kids and started to head up to Ancaster for the day.  The Canadian border agent asked me where I was headed and I told her I was going to ref roller derby in Hamilton. This got the kids and I hauled into immigration. Apparently she had never heard of derby and thought I was either running away with my kids or getting paid to do it even though I assured her it was volunteer only.  The woman in immigration chuckled when we walked in and quickly had us on our way

Most of the crew for the junior bouts.

Two junior games and HARD’s Peach Cup. I volunteered to jam ref for the juniors games and that was a lot of fun. It was an experienced crew which eased my nerves a lot. I also advised everyone to give me feedback as we went a long and to feel free to tell me I am doing it all wrong so I could make my game better.  When you work with an experienced crew, you learn a lot. For the first two bouts, I learned a lot about communication between the Pack Refs and the Jam Refs. It is amazing the confidence you gain in something when you are placed in a situation where it is required that you do it. I made a couple mistakes. Forgot a lap point at one time but I corrected that at the end of that jam. And at one point in the 2nd game, I had a brain fart and followed the wrong jammer out of the pack.  That was a bit embarrassing but the other jam ref had done the same thing in the previous half so we had a good laugh about that.

The final game was the championship game for HARD. I was rear OPR for this one and I skated my tail off.  This, by far, was the fastest pack I have ever been on. The other OPR and I decided that we would try to maintain our position on the outside of the pack instead of doing the rotation.  For the most part, we kept up. There were only a few jams where I needed to peel off and pick up the pack in turn 3 and 4. But man…I skated my butt off. This bout being the final of 3 for the day made for a long day. I felt good about my performance and everyone has told me I did great. 

I really enjoy refereeing and NSOing. I absorb all the feedback I get and try to step up my game whenever possible. The next blog will most likely be in a couple of weeks after I participate in Winter Wipeout 2016.  This is a tournament in which I will be reffing at least 6 20 minute games over the course of a day and I can’t wait.  

I am going to try to start making these shorter. I know I have written some books so far and don’t want to bore you all to death! And I am a little grumpy tonight so this might come off in a grumpy tone.

Since the last blog I have had the chance to ref a bout and a scrimmage.  The bout was fun. It was a mash up of QCRG’s two travel teams, the Furies and the Sirens.  I was OPR for this bout with two other refs.  This is only the 2nd bout, that isn’t juniors, that I have reffed and I am still learning a ton.  Mostly I thought I called a good game.  I did make a couple of mistakes which come with the territory. No ref is 100% perfect. Especially  not a new one.  The great thing about this bout is that there was footage and I was able to go back and see where I could improve.  My biggest mistake was calling a track cut on a jammer on the inside line. Not only was the call wrong, but when a jammer cuts the track to the inside, I should allow the jammer ref to call that penalty.  I was confronted about it and at I took the input from the jammer ref and thought about it a bit. I was almost sure I had it right. We talked about it at half time and mixed up the call with another one I had made in the course of the game. As we were exiting for the 2nd half we talked about how we can improve communication. After that, for the most part, the rest of the game was mostly uneventful from a ref perspective. Afterwards, I was able to hang out with people a bit at the after party! OMG...me? Social? I don’t get out like that often so it was nice to sit there and chat with derby people outside of derby.

There were a couple of other newb things that I missed that I put in my mental filing cabinet and filed them under need to improve or never do that again.  The good news is that I am not nervous anymore at the start of bouts and I feel my skating is getting better.  It’s not perfect but I am doing more things without thinking about them which is the place that every skater strives to get to. I know I am new and I have a lot to learn but I am grateful for the opportunities that I have been given to learn my new skills.

Monday marked a scrimmage with skaters visiting from NRG and HARD. It was a blast. It also marked the first time SWGMID and I would be applying our trades on the same track  It was a fast paced night.  Due to the number of skaters, the teams decided to play 4 on 4 instead of 5 on 5.  With more space on the track, there is more speed.  This pack was flying. No super man this time. After the first jam the OPR’s decided that the rotation was the best strategy for this game so I was able to work on hand offs and skating non-derby direction. 

Near the end of the first half there was some excitement. The pack was flying around the track and I was skating full speed on the outside coming around turn 4. A skater in the pack went down about 5 feet in front of me at the exit of the turn. Later I found out this skater was actually my derby sister Biblo. I had to make a decision. Quickly. And honestly it was like time slowed down. There was no room for me to go to the outside. The black team was standing there and if I went to the outside I would have smacked at least two of them and the wall at pretty much full speed. Then dropping to my knees came into my head but due to how close she was to me this would have ended up with me getting my knees down just in time to knee her in the head and back and probably badly injure myself in the process. Remember, I am at full speed.  The third option...is the one I chose....I decided to leap over her. I figured this way, worst case scenario, the only one who had a shot at being hurt was myself and besides....we learn how to jump in boot camp for circumstances like this. So.....I leapt.  I cleared her. Then I landed off balance and more on my rear wheels and landed on my butt and skidded into the penalty box chairs.  Nothing I hadn’t landed on before. I got up and kept on reffing.  Referees gotta ref right?

White team asked me immediately if I was ok and I said yes as I kept on skating.  The black team, especially the skaters standing near where I would have hit if I would have attempted a dodge to the outside thanked me for not taking them all out. I am sure I would have been in trouble if I would have injured one of the Siren’s star jammers the Monday before they head up to Quad City Chaos. Then I got .....sternly talked to....and I was stunned. I was told I am never to go airborne and to just crash next time. 

I get it...I shouldn’t be going airborne over any little thing. For me as a ref, jumping is reserved for when there is no other option. I had no other choice. My goal when I left my feet was to avoid injuring someone else. If I would have just crashed, with the speed I was carrying and how close she fell to me I can almost guarantee that at least her and I would have been leaving in an ambulance. It would have been bad. I am still baffled at how the decision I made was the wrong one given the circumstances. Normally I have excellent jamnesia but this one has stuck with me since Monday and I can’t seem to shake my bewilderment. I keep replaying the scene in my head to see if there was another option I could have safely taken......

Overall the scrimmage was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. I got to work with an experienced OPR who gave me some great pointers.  Yeah, I missed a couple of things but the only way you fix these things is by getting more experience. Everyone makes a wrong call from time to time. It is part of the learning process.