Derby in Dairyland Championship Bout: (1e) Gotham Girls Roller Derby vs (3e) Windy City Rollers
|
DNN coverage of the 2008 WFTDA Tournaments is made possible through the generous support of Broken Cherry custom apparel and design services. Coverage of the Final Four is also brought to you by Sin City Skates.
|
Presented by:
Help keep DNN Boutcasts coming! |
I'm at work at cant pull in
I'm at work at cant pull in the video :/
Home Refs!
Why is Mr Rawk jam reffing in championshop game for his home league? There are plenty of refs to prevent that situation.
...
Why is Mr Rawk jam reffing in championshop game for his home league? There are plenty of refs to prevent that situation.
Hmm, that's a very good question.
re: Home Refs!
Very, very, very good question. I think the same thing took place in the Western Regionals championship game, as well; unjustifiable decision, IMHO.
Nigel Toughnails
Referee- Carolina
Problematic Calls?
If we have issues of impropriety, let's bring up evidence instead of vague allusions. Otherwise it's simply disrespectful (not to mention juvenile) towards persons who called games fairly and accurately.
It's also disrespectful to The WFTDA, who certified these officials.
This conversation is done as far as I'm concerned.
Murder
trying to clear up my confusion!
I'm not trying to imply anything. I was honestly under the impression that refs working their own leagues bouts at tournaments was frowned upon. I thought that the organizers usually tried to avoid those situations but they happened a few times at both Eastern and Western this year. Am I misinformed? I don't know...
RE: after party poll
ummmmm . . . I don't think there was anyone else but the entire GGRD team and a certain Grand Raggidy skater in the downstairs hot tub tonight . . .
inexcusable
no, the conversation is not over. a home town ref should never be put in the situation of jam reffing her/his own team. especially in a championship bout. it is unfair-to the teams and refs, and puts into question numerous calls. the familiarity between players/coaches/refs is impossible to erase. and it played into the game in a major way. to eliminate any questions about impartiality, refs should not have to do that. maybe we jumped the gun on requiring certified refs in the middle of tournament season. perhaps we will be ready next year. but that was a poor choice...it should not happen at nationals.
Agreed.
I have utmost respect for Vroom and Rawk as refs, however, I do not think either of them should have been reffing the championship bout between their home teams. At the VERY least- they should have had equal positions.
Regardless of how much a ref feels he/she can put personal preferences and opinions aside, the psychological truth is that we all have expectations and biases that we cannot control. Particularly in a situation where a snap judgment needs to be made quickly with limited cognitive capacity due to competing mental demands. There's loads of research to show this is the case.
It's a tough situation- While I respect WFTDA's desire to have the highest quality refs at the championship bout and (reportedly) team captain agreement on the matter, we should not have to worry about impartiality in critical calls.
Edit: Not to take any credit away from the Gotham skaters, who kicked ass. I was happy to see great skating by both teams.
Inclined to disagree
It's true, tournaments have typically tried to keep refs from reffing their own home team, but seriously, what if they are the most qualified person? Would you rather someone who is less qualified ref that bout? The only "bias" that can happen between a ref in this position, who would have to be phenomenal in the first place, is that the skaters know what he/she is going to call. That's not bias, that's a history of working together and if that was the luck of your draw, you'd probably be pretty stoked. The more refs get around and ref other leagues, the less of a problem it will be.
In the state of derby right now, we're stuck with a small pool of refs who can actually pull off a tournament like this and live up to the game being played. Even the best make mistakes and the rules are not perfect. It's going to take YEARS before both skaters and refs can be in agreement with everything and in the meantime, I would like the best of the best at my games, regardless of affiliation. Coming from a reffing background (and having run a small tournament before), I don't see the problem as long as the skaters are ok with it. Isn't this why we elect tournament head refs? We put faith in these people to make the right decisions.
Mathemortician
B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls
I, for one, would
"Would you rather someone who is less qualified ref that bout?"
Yes, I definitely would. Pursuit of impartiality in officiating sports is paramount. A "less qualified" ref may miss a couple of calls or be a little less crisp with hand signals, but they would likely affect both teams equally.
Besides, only hyperbole would suggest that there weren't over a dozen other qualified refs in the building. I'd suspect that there were about a dozen refs there that reffed games of equal importance at a regional tournament last year.
Nigel Toughnails
Referee- Carolina
Morti
Why you gotta be so opinionated mort. JK.
p.s. how's my house? we did it on the bathroom sink before we left. Not JK'n.
Recycle
Final Four Reffing
I agree with just about everything Mathemortician said except that there was no luck of the draw. The captains and coaches of the final four teams were all in agreement that we preferred experienced and certified refs for the final four games regardless of their home team affiliations. The head refs made every attempt to make sure that this was done as fairly as possible which is why Rawk and Judge Knot reffed the Philly/GGRD game and Rawk and Vroom reffed the Final. I'm guessing that if Vroom were able to Jam ref she would have but it seems that wasn't possible. I don't mean to open up a new can of worms but having reffed for a few years, my experience was that once the game started I could only really see colors and numbers. Anyway, the psychological snap judgement pendulum (if it exists) could swing both ways. Refs could call penalties even tighter against their home teams to avoid any appearance of impropriety.
Buster Cheatin- GGRD
Exactly
Buster has it exactly - it was home league refs, or less qualified refs. These refs officiate their own bouts in all other interleauge play, and no one has this big a problem with it.
In each of these cases, refs from both leagues were on the team for balance. Vroom is a fantastic jam ref, but had been pack/head reffing all weekend, and had impressed everyone who evaluated her in that role. There is a precise division of labor between jam refs, inside refs, and outside refs, and it made the most sense to keep people mostly in the roles where they had been all weekend. My understanding is that the skaters agreed that having certified/trusted refs was more important than avoiding league affiliation.
Whatever complaints people have about the officiating last weekend, I am completely confident that home league affiliation had nothing to do it. No matter how badly anyone may want their league to succeed, NO ONE wants it to happen like that, least of all nationally regarded refs like Mr. Rawk and Dr. Vroom, or incredibly hard-working teams like GGRD and WCR.
Stegoscorus
Windy City Rollers