marka

Howdy, If you can get a Pelican case for half the cost that holds the Sparx, there's no question at all that that's what I'd do. Those are great cases. You're going to have to configure you're own foam setup (either the packing foam it shipped in or pick and pluck foam I'd imagine). Mark

Howdy, So... Been occasionally reffing here and there. Slowly getting better at stuff, still have quite a ways to go. A thing I particularly suck at is recognizing a penalty. And I suck even more about mentally marking and remembering who it was on. Same thing in terms of "who scored and assisted?", but the adult league I ref with doesn't track that, so I sidestep that problem. I'm pretty comfortable with positioning now in a 2 ref system. Starting to be better about watching the players vs. just the puck. Anyway, I reffed my first upper level game last night. B League game here in Pgh, which is the highest level we have in the organization I play/ref with. The guy that runs the league was out of ref options and he talked me into doing it despite me not thinking it would be a good idea. I'm glad he did... It was quite a bit of fun. The play was a LOT faster, so I was skating more and harder which was great. It wasn't so fast that I couldn't keep up, but was fast enough that I stayed warmed up and loose vs. the lower level games I've been doing where you don't skate as much and then tighten up some. It was also a lot easier to read the play, since players typically made decent passes / didn't fumble fuck the puck. So, for instance, if I was at the blue line and a defensive player had the puck on their stick without much pressure exiting the zone, I could cheat off the line since they were unlikely to turn the puck over stupidly. I definitely needed to be better about not being in the way... With the players moving faster and able to change directions much quicker, I needed to be better about reading where they were going and more quickly getting out of their way. It wasn't horrifically bad (I don't think), but for sure there were too many times that a player had to abruptly change direction to avoid me (usually away from the play, when their attention was up ice, not so much where they were going). Also need to be better about dropping the puck. In the lower leagues they're not as keyed into any movement of my arm at all. So I adapted to that and all, but frequently when I'd drop the puck it wouldn't land flat since I was dropping it in one motion from my waist line and I'm just not very good at that yet. I blew one covering the puck call pretty badly... I was on the side of the net at home base, the puck/offensive player went to the net and the goalie was down covering that side. I got screened just a touch and when that player moved through I saw the goalie down with blocker and stick cemented to the side of the net like he was covering the puck, so I blew it dead... With the whistle sounding just as the puck / player emerge into my vision from the other side of the net. Sigh. The guys seemed pretty understanding about it, which was nice. Anyway... Despite some serious misgivings I had a good time doing it. We'll see if I get any feedback from the other ref / teams via the league organizer as to just how awful I was but I'd do it again for sure, if they wanted me to. Mark

Howdy, If someone had offered me a bet that the Pens and Tampa would be 0-fer in the first three games I'd have lost A LOT of money... Damn. Mark

Howdy, Their performance over the past couple seasons makes me wonder just how important Tocchet was. Mark

Howdy, Well, I don't think anyone saw the Pens getting blanked in this series, but at this point its hard to see how it goes any other way. Mark

Howdy, Sorry to read that. It certainly seems like you might have suffered from some self inflicted wounds in your saga, but its unfortunate that True wasn't able to work with you to come up with a solution anyway. Good luck with the CCM/other options. Mark

Howdy, You guys dealing with the medical stuff... Damn. I can't imagine. I also don't know what to say about it other than "good luck" and that I'm thinking of you. Keep fighting! Mark

Howdy, I've seen stuff like that in beginner leagues where its more of a group "do over" type of decision. But never in anything particularly competitive. Is this the reason for the FB post? Mark

Howdy, Interesting. I notice that it doesn't have the 50 flat profile on it... Are there others from Prosharp like that one? I also never knew that the various quads were like the zuperior, where there's a specified size window for each profile! Mark

Howdy, Yeah, just a short sleeve T-shirt before. Reffed 3 games Saturday with the long sleeve cotton t-shirt over a short sleeve T and it worked pretty well. Hands maybe just a touch cold, but nothing crazy. If anything, my elbow pads stayed in place better as well, so win all around. If I find a good deal, I might try and find some long base layer pants vs. just underwear and impact shorts. I've never liked any of that stuff as a player, so I don't have any laying around. Slowly picking up experience. My last game on Saturday was a bit hairy as the guy I was working with had to leave early in the first since he wasn't feeling well. That left me doing it alone with a group that wasn't super fast, but still faster than I could easily go from behind the play to caught up. I kept up fine with offsides / icing / goal calls, but some chippy-ness started away from the puck that I didn't see much of and it escalated a bit. At least one really pissed off guy (who's not "that guy" normally), which sucks. Mostly all "learned hockey as an adult" players, so differing expectations as to allowed contact, etc. etc. Next time if that kinda thing starts happening I'll probably try and focus on it more vs. positioning / keeping up with the play. Maybe even stop the clock and have a quick chat with the captains. I also just generally need to get better/more consistent at the difference between "two relatively unskilled folks trying hard with limbs everywhere" vs. "penalty worthy". That's improving with experience, but it remains a weak point. Mark

Howdy, I'll add one to their causes... You might have a grinding wheel who's center doesn't match the others. My 5/8" ring needs 3 to 4 clicks to get the same edge heights as my other rings. Not sure if its always been that way or if its a wear thing (the ring is in the last 3rd of its life). Mark

Howdy, Yeah, you're going to have to see if other edge checkers also do this before you can know what's up. Could be either the edge checker or a tapered runner. Mark

Howdy, So, first go with a long sleeve t-shirt helped for sure. I was able to ref the game without gloves and without feeling like my hands were going to fall off. One question on doing this 'for real'... I'm registered as a player for USA Hockey. Do I need to register independently as a ref as well? I'd like to access the online course materials now, vs. waiting until the next season stuff opens up, but I don't want to waste $45 for 3 months or whatever. Mark

Howdy, Let's review. * A customer gets his skates. The skate for _his shorter foot_ isn't long enough. * Skates are sent back to be remade. * True contacts customer to say "Hey, we're going to have to increase the holder length". * Customer (understandably) responds with "what? how come?", because nothing he's asked for would seem to indicate that the holder size would need to be increased. None of that is "expects long detailed messages". At this point what I know about custom True skates is that of the two local guys I know that have bought them, one seems in love and the other is on his 3rd go-around of shipping them back to be fixed. In terms of online experiences, the issues people are raising don't seem to be in the category of "fine tune the fit, like you'd expect" and are more in the category of "The skate was so jacked up that it needed to be completely remade". If I were True, I would be concerned with my image. There is absolutely no question that I would explore options other than True at this point, whereas a year or so ago that wasn't the case. YMMV. Mark

Howdy, FWIW, I think an edge checker is perhaps not _required_ but for sure an "If you're serious, you'll want one" purchase for one of these. If I had to pick between the two, I wouldn't spend money on the optical alignment tool, I'd just get it somewhere near and then dial in with the edge checker (since, in my experience, you have to do that anyway). Mark

Howdy, Did my first games for pay last night... Three games. Went basically ok. I need to be more decisive on penalty calls I think. I think that will come with some experience and self confidence... Looking forward to taking a seminar next spring, as right now there doesn't seem to be much scheduled around here. Question... I've been wearing black mechanics gloves since my hands get quite cold. I'd like to get away from that since I seem to be the only one doing it and Dr. Google suggests its a little unaccepted. The same Google says that either that I skate more / faster or I wear some thermal base layers to try and get my core temp up. I'm doing pretty slow games at this point and don't feel like I'm really out of position in terms of keeping up with the play, so I'm looking at base layers to retain warmth. Any recommendations? I'm worried about elbow pad slippage, since the elbows I use for reffing already aren't great about staying in place. I know there's hockey specific long sleeve base layers, but I'm assuming they're not designed to retain warmth. I'll probably just try a long sleeve t-shirt next time out, but figured I can't be the first person to run into this... Mark

Howdy, Put something 4" or so long that's flat across the blade and eyeball it. Worst case, use a quarter. My experience is that edges have to be out a decent bit (visible by eye like the above) before it makes a difference. But having said that, I don't have as much experience as most here. Mark

Howdy, Yeah. Our school system went from "watch the news / check online" to "call, email, and text both parents". And apparently there's no way to say "Hey, uh... We'd like to keep just the texting part?" Mark

Howdy, So doing this, would you attempt to overtake the play to get ahead of it when a turnover occurs? Otherwise being ahead of the play immediately turns into being behind it, right? Mark

Howdy, Anyone got any links to positioning videos for reffing as a single ref? I've seen plenty of 2+ positioning, but nothing that really talks about strategies for doing it alone. Mark

Howdy, So, got back out again this morning. This time with the guy that offered to coach me some. It was definitely nice working with him. On positioning, one thing he said really helped me... Basically that I should be thinking like I'm a 3rd, really conservative, defenseman (2 ref system, btw). So I'm down at home base, then as the play transitions out of the zone, I follow the play up, staying even / slightly behind the defensive players. As we get into the offensive zone, then I stay on the neutral zone size of the line and wait for play to transition the other way. When it does, I try and stay even or slightly behind the defenseman again until I'm back down at home base. It's not exactly that simple (I assume) since I may need to call zone exits in the offensive zone and zone entries into the defensive zone, but the concept helped me for sure. Also worked on just dropping the puck. I probably spent five minutes throwing pucks at the ice after the game and just that extra bit of practice helped. I think as part of my warmup routine when I'm reffing I'm going to drop a few pucks just to try and get into that same groove. Worked on signals some as well. The guy helping me is pretty particular on signals that aren't lazy or "happy" / "excited". I would say that when I play games I don't see refs that are that diligent about them, but its still good for me to learn. Anyway... It was a good morning. 🙂 I feel like I'm slowly learning some stuff and working on building my skill set. Hopefully as I get better I won't need to think so consciously about some of this stuff. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, For sure! Already on the calendar for me and Laura. Mark

Howdy, Yeah, my issue is that when I'm reading through this stuff in the rulebook, it pretty immediately gets way too deep for me. Like the picture of that page... I read that and my overriding reaction is "Um, WTF?" Maybe it doesn't matter, at least for now? In the men's league games I've played in, there's basically only been minor penalties and game misconducts. I don't recall ever seeing a major or misconduct called. Mark

Howdy, Another one... As a player, I just go sit in the box until the ref tells me I can leave... That's not going to cut it. 🙂 Is there some straightforward guide to this somewhere? I get individual minor penalties. I don't necessarily get coincidental penalties, how more major stuff works, etc. As a dumb for instance, I don't know when you play 4v4 vs. 5v5 when a player from either team gets penalized. Thanks! Sorry about the dumb questions. Mark

Howdy, Yeah, I have a copy of the basic manual and read it. Thanks for the info! Mark