“Casper, do you ever even listen to yourself talk?” With an arched brow, the son of Hades tilted his head in a questioning manner. Yukwon’s never really gotten along nicely with any of his family members     especially not his cousins or second cousins for some reason     but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t care if they’d just done something stupid that could get them in trouble or killed. “If you do this now and this backfires I will personally punch you in the face….you know that, don’t you?”

It baffled him at times, how dramatic people could get over the simplest of things. All that the younger had tried to do was to be nice—and perhaps his concept of being nice wasn’t entirely the same as Yukwon’s, but at the very least he was trying. ‘What? Nobody mentioned it was prohibited to help yourself to some of the goods.’ Though the loud music drowns out the disapproving click of his tongue, his expression reveals what cannot be heard. At the very least, he had expected the children of Hades to be a bit more fun than this.

Last weekend was British Champs T4 West game day three, which was my leagues home bout. We hosted in Nottingham and saw two great games of roller derby.

I was Penalty Box Manager for both bouts, supported by a new NSO from my league and a more experienced NSO from Nottingham.

This was my first public outing as PBM, having done it three times previously at closed door scrims. I felt as prepared as one can be, and read as much information about penalty box managers being empowered as possible.

A week before I was PBM at a scrim hosted by Nottingham, which was really useful. There was a jammer switcharoo that I was unprepared for and I got it a little wrong. However, I learned from this mistake and felt much better suited to deal with it next time. Which is exactly what scrims are for!

But I’m glad to say the day went mostly without a hitch from my perspective. There were lots of jammer switches, each one handled properly I’m happy to say!

There was an expulsion which was interesting to watch, and a foul out which was really unfortunate. A skater was on her sixth penalty and mistook my “stand” cue for “done”, and left the penalty box. I issued a penalty box violation and she sat for her seventh time.

I did feel bad for the skater as it is just one of those things that can happen in the heat of the moment, but my cue was loud and clear as verified by the two PBTs.

A skater also stepped outside of the box during a time out to get water. However I never saw her fully exit the box, as I turned my head to see her moving backwards to take her seat. A referee saw the skater fully exit the box and issued a penalty accordingly. I was a little disappointed with myself for not seeing that happen, as technically it should be my job, but all officials are on the same team and we all have each others back. I’m just glad someone caught it and issued the appropriate penalty.

Aside from officiating, the entire day went really well. Being from the host league I saw all the effort and planning that went in to the day, months before the date, and it really paid off. The day unfolded really smoothly and on schedule (as much as it can be). No technical issues, no last minute panics, and everything went to plan.

Also, Mansfield won their game - by a huge margin! While I couldn’t show it at the time, I’m incredibly happy for them. Well deserved win. The league spirits are very high at the moment, and hopefully that will carry them through the next fixture.

Wow, that was awesome fun! Gladly everything went without a hitch and as smoothly as anyone could wish for. All the NSOs showed up as expected, and I had a few last minute additions which really helped - especially with track repair! A position often overlooked but just as important as any other official.

For the first bout (female rookies) I was on IWB and doing some PW. A brand new role for me, and one I’ve wanted to try for a while. It didn’t take me long to get in to the flow of things, and I kept up with the pace apart from two jams which were quite penalty heavy. The referees were very helpful and filled in some blanks and the disruption to gameplay was kept minimal.

The second bout (mixed co-ed) had me doing PT. Another new role, but similar to IWB but perhaps a little more pressure. I did some PW too, echoing penalties for the IWB and other PT to catch.

I really enjoyed IWB/PT and would love to do it again. Taking time to study the NSO penalty codes and referee hand signals really helped. I only had to refer to my cheat-sheet once just to verify something, and seeing the hand signals was much easier than hearing the call.

As for being HNSO, it wasn’t too crazy on the day. The difficult part for that role is planning - something that I actually enjoy, so it wasn’t too bad at all. I was mostly just nervous for last minute changes and having to find solutions on my feet.

I had a great NSO crew, and the referees were all excellent.