Let's make this easier for the refs

Now that it's been a little while, I'm going to go ahead and express my displeasure with how the reffing was at Worlds, provide some suggestions, and make some general notes about the rule set.

There were way too many dangerous and blatantly irresponsible plays that were not even warned. The refs just plain didn't speak up enough. I hate to say this, but if you have a B-type personality or aren't the kind of person who is comfortable (nay, enjoys) yelling at large groups of people, you should not be reffing. Refs need to be vocal throughout the entire game, but productively so. Saying stuff like "hey watch the mallet!" isn't in any way productive. You need to inform the players about actions that you, as ref, are going to take. Tell them things like "next mallet under the front wheel is a double tap" or something similar. Also, there needs to be a lower tolerance on more dangerous plays. In the high-light video, when Capriotti T-bone/blasted Manu on L'Equipe, that should've been at the very least a double tap. Similarly when Dillman ran straight into my back wheel on Sunday. I'm not saying that either of these things were intentional and if they're accidents, they're certainly less reprehensible, but rules exist for a reason. However, a t-bone is a t-bone is a t-bone. You must penalize people for dangerous play even when it's accidental. Now that's not to say you should penalize someone who has their chain break or something. You get what I'm saying though. Inattention isn't an excuse as far as I'm concerned. There's no point in having a hierarchy of infractions if we don't use it accordingly.

There was a discussion about hands on the boards while playing the ball as well as keeping yourself up on the goal (during a play on goal and when you're not adjusting it) both being a dab, but I saw people do both of these things A LOT until later on Sunday. The problem is that it's really, really hard for a ref to see what's going on from where he's sitting. So I'd like to toss out a few ideas here. First off, the most important thing to do when designing a set of rules is to have them be easily enforceable. I feel that right now that's just not the case with bike polo. So what does it mean for something to be easily enforceable? It means two things, one: the rule is well defined with little gray areas and two: breaking of the rule are easy to observe. So again, first, easy to determine IN PRINCIPLE when rules are broken and second, easy to determine IN PRACTICE when rules are broken. Now I'm going to give some examples of rules that fall short in one of those two ways.

RULES WITH GRAY AREAS

1) What exactly is 'incidental' bike on bike contact? What I think of when I hear 'non-incidental' is intentional. That is to say, you cannot intentionally put your bike into someone else's bike. But people do this all the time. If I'm sprinting forward with the ball on my right and someone is slowly coming into my line at a 90 degree angle, some folks feel that I should have every right to push the ball under or around them and "power through" their front wheel. That means intentionally putting your front wheel into someone else's because you know that you have the momentum and they'll just barspin/jackknife and because you're hardcore. They call it incidental because I'm really just trying to carry the ball forward and I recognize that given their position, they can't stop me. However, I feel that allowing that could get quite dangerous. So my proposed solution: allow front wheel on front wheel contact in front of the fork at low speed. I say in front of the fork because you can hit someone's front wheel and t-bone them quite easily. Now I know someone's going to say that "low speed" is a gray area. I don't think we can do any better though. The question here is which is easier, defining low speed or defining incidental. I think the former not by a longshot.

2) Bike to mallet contact - there's actually nothing in NAH about this topic. Obviously I shouldn't be able to ride my front wheel into a tripoded mallet head and claim that they have to tap for making me dab. But should I be able to roll up next to someone who is tripoded and swing my wheel into their mallet? I think so. The way I think we should deal with these sorts of scenarios is as follows: First off, you obviously can't tripod directly in front of someone's front wheel, causing them to dab if they roll forward. It's bullshit to claim "WELL MY MALLET WAS THERE FIRST" because that's not what the rule is or should be. Second, if a player is carrying the ball and does not initiate mallet to wheel contact, then they don't have to tap. Imagine the following two situations. 1) I'm moving forward with the ball on my right, shuffling it. It's making constant contact with my mallet, I'm pushing it along like a hobo with a shopping cart full of precious empty cans. Someone comes up on my right at such an angle that their front wheel runs over my mallet and they dab. I don't think that I should be required to dab because I didn't initiate the contact, they turned into me! But imagine another situation where you DO initiate the contact... (2) I'm shuffling the ball on my right just like before and someone is approaching me front my right. I go to make a shuffle pass, extend my mallet, and it goes under their front wheel. Even though I was playing the ball, I should have to dab there because I initiated contact. I think "I was just playing the ball" is a bullshit excuse for putting a mallet under a front wheel. What matters is who initiated contact, that is, who caused the mallet to go under the front wheel. So this can be applied to other situations as well and I think it's pretty easy to see when someone moved a mallet into someone's line vs. when someone aggressive takes space where a mallet already is.

RULES THAT ARE HARD TO SEE

1) Grabbing the boards and playing the ball - refs just don't have the best angle to see when someone's grabbing the boards. My solution: allow all of it. You can grab the boards, fence, whatever in any way you want AND play the ball at the same time with one exception: wasting time. Crandall smartly abused the hell out of this rule in one game at Worlds. The boards were on his right and the ball was between his front wheel and the boards. He was holding the boards with his mallet hand, clearly not playing the ball. But he was in the way and you couldn't foot him down. And it was perfectly legal. Still, it was kinda silly and I don't want to see it become common. Imagine 2 players on the same team pinning the ball in a corner, grabbing the boards, and holding on for dear life for minutes. BORING! So if you're trying to pin the ball and waste time, then I think you should be instructed to get rid of it. A ref should then shout "DELAY OF GAME" and count UP (not down, it's not the end of the game) to 5 seconds and if the ball isn't released and the player doesn't move by then, it should be a turnover or a dab or something. Pretty easy to ref, yeah? If you want to waste time, you should keep the ball moving and keep it away from the other team! The Europeans were very, very good at this. You see it in soccer all the time, just passing the ball around the back until you get under too much pressure, then clearing it as far from your goal as you can. That's fine.

2) Leaning on the goal - there are certainty perma-goalies who I will not name who blatantly lean against the goal the entire game. Their hips and steering forearms are against the top of the goal at all times. If you can hold your mallet straight up in the air for 3 seconds (while I'm trying to sweep it to move you) without shifting your body weight or moving at all (and you're not fixed or a member of Cirque du Soleil), then you're probably leaning on the goal. And that's bullshit. But it's really hard to tell when someone's leaning on the goal, especially if the goal is really heavy like at Worlds. So here's my solution: nobody can touch their own goal unless you're adjusting it and there's not a play happening. This should be EXTREMELY easy for the goal judge to see, especially if he's not standing directly behind the goal. If you're using the goal to stay up, then you're not using your bike handling skills and that's lame. But really, if you're a perma-goalie and you lean on the goal, you're not good at goalie, you're good at cheating. You know who you are.

That's about it, I'm tired of typing. There's more, I'm sure, and I'd really appreciate if others could bring up rules that they think are difficult to enforce either IN PRINCIPLE or IN PRACTICE and discuss alternatives. Thanks for your time.