Officiating in the USA/Canada game

[AUSTINREF]

Has anyone ever required manditory water breaks in any games before? I've never heard of this.

I also had a Disco ref sighting...luckily he had on an undershirt.

[RockStar]

The water breaks are apparently an ILF rule. I'm told it's in response to a bunch of severe heat exhaustion cases during a previous World Championship tourney.

You wouldn't see such a rule in NCAA, for example, because they're never playing like five afternoon games in five days during the hottest part of the summer. You'd never see it during MLL either, because while they're playing in the summer, they're never doing five in five, and they're almost always playing under cooler conditions in the evenings.

Note that it's actually not a terrible idea - It keeps players healthy, and represents a made-for-TV solution to give time for commercial breaks.

There's a similar unwritten rule for canadian box lacrosse - timeouts for goalies to get water are granted and not charged.

[tjklax01]

I have this year. Halfway between each quarter, we called an officials time-out so players can get water and cool down.

There is a rule in the NFHS rule book under officials time outs (I don't have my book in front of me), but it is similar to what is described above for the IFL.

[Woodenstick]

I have this year. Halfway between each quarter, we called an officials time-out so players can get water and cool down.

There is a rule in the NFHS rule book under officials time outs (I don't have my book in front of me), but it is similar to what is described above for the IFL.

"In the event of harsh weather conditions, officials may call additional T-Os during a dead ball...." Rule 4.27 art. 6.

[TheKOB]

I heard it was 113 degrees. It seemed warrented....

[Expressgoalie01]

The officiating was horrible...sigh. Aside from that I think the TOs killed the game. Momentum(sp?) is everything and this takes that away. I know it was hot out there but some of those breaks seemed too close together. Thats just me though....

[Park City Pole]

Yes I thought the officiating was uneven, not baised, rather inconsistant with the way one usually sees that gae called. Except for the unecessary roughness calls which I thought while consistant. I didn't agree with how closly they were calling it but hey that's what they gat paid for so. The every five minutes stoppage for water seemed excessive, since in that time it seems like substitutions could be made for the purpose of hydrating a player. Probably tougher on the officals though. I agree that something was probably prudent due to the density of games scheduled in a the short period of time alloted and it's freakin hot out there.... I thank someone for scheduallng our game tonight for 830p, when it ought to b only be 90 F at the whistle instead of well over 100 F .....