A funny thing happened on the way to the GLE

[NewRefInGA]

I wasn't sure what else to title this question, so I made that up...

Team A is a man down. Team B gets possession outside of the box and begins to break the other way. B11 is running up the sideline. As he gets to the table area, a buzzer on the penalty timer goes off.

B11,thinking that this was the end of the qtr, stops his advance. A22(not the man serving the penalty) checks him (cleanly) and knocks the ball out of his cross and out of bounds.

I was going from Trail to Lead on the play, and only about 10 yds away, clearly heard the buzzer, clearly saw that the player had stopped, and so I awarded possession to B- treating it like an inadvertent whistle. (Nevermind why I was only 10 yds away in that situation, it was toward the end of my second game, and my dogs were barking.)

As you might imagine, A's coach was not real happy with my call.

My question is, in that situation, should I have ignored the buzzer, and awarded the ball to A?

[3rdPersonPlural]

NewRef, I would remind you to remind the players to 'play the whistle" and realize that the quarter isn't over until you say it's over, the ball isn't out of bounds, or in the goal, or restarted, or faced off until you blow the whistle making it so.

This is why a quick whistle is a sign of an experienced ref. In this case you didn't whistle the play dead because the quarter wasn't over and the play was still very live. The kid screwed up.

I would submit that you muffed that call. So be it. You have a few dozen more muffed calls right in front of the bench until you start to notice them happening less frequently.:grin:

[pboyd]

I agree with 3PP - play should continue. What if B11 "heard" a whistle from another field is same situation - would you make a similar call if you heard the same whistle?

[LaxRef]

Agreed. It's the player's fault for stopping when he thought the period was over.

On a side note, using a timer for penalties is an awful idea. Use the game clock, and just write down the time that the player gets released from the penalty. That way, when you eventually have 5 penalties going at once, you don't have to try to start and stop the game clock and 5 timers at once.

Finally, there should be a big difference between the sound of the buzzer on the timer and the horn to end the period.

[NewRefInGA]

All very good points. Thank you very much. I didn't realize that they were using a timer with a buzzer for penalties until I heard it go off. (Guess we should have discussed that with the table in pre-game).

I have no problem admitting when I screw up, and I would now agree that I did so here. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.

By the way, this game was a part of a tournament. (Not that it matters for the discussion above), but in the first game I worked that night, one of the teams didn't show up until 15 minutes after the assigned game time.

I may have missed it in the rule book, but is there a standard amount of time to give a team before a forfeit? And assuming that the team arrives before that time, at or closely after the scheduled start time, how much time do you give them to warm up?

This being a tournament, I would assume it would have a alot to do with what the tournament management says, but are there any hard rules on this? I suppose we could have flagged them for delay of game, at the very least.

[Woodenstick]

IP includes "avoidable lateness," which seems to mean that "unavoidable lateness" is not IP. In other words, if the team has a reasonable excuse for being late, such as traffic, no penalty. Tournaments may have special rules however, due to the need to keep the trains running on time.

[LaxRef]

IP includes "avoidable lateness," which seems to mean that "unavoidable lateness" is not IP. In other words, if the team has a reasonable excuse for being late, such as traffic, no penalty. Tournaments may have special rules however, due to the need to keep the trains running on time.

I consider traffic to be avoidable lateness: if you leave early enough, you beat traffic. There's always traffic around here.

OTOH, a bridge collapse or a closed highway due to a major accident affecting your trip is unavoidable.