[pl_video type=”youtube” id=”V9dqK4rdjXM”]
DENVER, CO – Sometimes I feel like when we officiate games at home between two random high school or college teams, we tend to take the national anthem for granted. It sort of just blends in to the pregame. Another thing we have to do before we can actually play lacrosse.
As you might expect, it’s wholly different at an event like this.
Last night, wind and hail of epic proportions rained down on Commerce City, Colorado, wrecking a ton of infrastructure here at the venue, and crushing tent after tent (including blowing over our ginormous industrial style officials’ tent).
One of the casualties of the storm was the sound that was being used to play each nation’s national anthem prior to every game. This is a problem which is unfortunate, but easily fixed. The teams are all singing their own anthems.
I had two games today: Columbia vs Spain and Finland vs Mexico (more on this one in a minute). The Columbians have been about as jacked up as any team just to be here. Their enthusiasm during the opening ceremony was palpable, and right along with the Ugandans, you can see their national pride just pouring off of them.
It seems like the whole team carries flags with them, and they’re rambunctious and bouncing around through the venue.
Well, when it came time for them to sing their anthem during my game this morning, they basically shouted it. It was awesome.
The Columbians played their first international game and were shut out. So, they entered their game with Spain still seeking their first international goal, which also brings with it another tradition. As you would expect they might, they scored about mid-way through the first quarter. We stop all clocks, get the ball out of the net and the head official goes and presents the ball to the head coach. It’s a cool little tradition.
Well you would have thought they won the Super Bowl after that goal got scored. Party on, I say.
The result wasn’t a great one for Columbia, a 14-2 loss, but they got what they came for in that game, and it’s only going to get better for them as they keep playing through the years.
In my second game of the day (Finland vs Mexico) I was the Chief Bench Official. This was the first time I had ever been a true CBO in a game. (Be prepared casual readers, here comes some lax jargon for the next few paragraphs.)
The CBO is nothing like what we do back in Jersey with the box official. In International play, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, differences in terms of the rules is that the only times you can freely substitute is after goals, team timeouts and end of periods.
What that means is, subs are on the fly all the time. For example, Red slashes blue. Flag down, whistle blows. In the US game, the man-up and man-down teams all come sprinting on the field. In International rules that’s a big no-no. The man-up team needs to wait to sub 1-for-1 through the box as if the ball was live. The team that committed the foul can’t bring on another player until two players come off (the player who committed the foul AND another player who is actually exiting the game for the substitute).
Lost yet?
Well as the CBO, it’s your job to make sure that all goes smoothly. And let me tell you it’s not an easy job by any means. You have to be incredibly proactive with both teams. You never coach one team in terms of how this all goes, but if you can guide both squads to keep them out of trouble you’ve done your job. A flag-free, whistle-free game from the CBO and you’ve done alright.
I actually had to make two calls as the CBO, but I couldn’t avoid either of them. I felt confident because I got them both right, and both were necessary. It gets confusing in there sometimes, because after a foul you kind of need to know what the foul was for (personal or technical) because if the opposing team comes on the field too early you need to know whether to just blow a whistle (if the on-field penalty is a technical) or to throw a flag (if the on-field flag is a personal). I nailed both my calls.
I got a great compliment from the Mexico coach who came up to me after the game and said, “I just want to tell you that you have a great demeanor in there with us and with our kids. Thank you.”
That is about as nice a thing that someone can say to you after you’re the CBO. All you have in there is time with the teams. Knowing when to try to keep it loose and talk to everyone as opposed to sensing when things are serious and you should just your mouth are critical skills in that tight space. It was another lopsided game, (the Fins are quite good) but it was a fun experience for me nonetheless.
Shortly after my second game concluded we headed back to the officials tent, which is the farthest thing away from civilization at this tournament. For the second day in a row, the weather started rolling in, and we all grabbed our stuff and whatever other stuff was in the tent and bolted toward the stadium (our staging area when we are in weather delay). It was basically a half mile run with my heavy bag in a monsoon. Great times.
We all congregate in the press box (my old stomping grounds) when we have awful weather so we can get the updates on when things are re-starting. I hadn’t had my debrief with the assessors yet either, so we did that up in one of the TV broadcast booths.
I don’t know if I mentioned it, but we get assessed on every game we work here. It’s a pretty in-depth analysis. All you refs back in Jersey must be thinking “Good. About time we gave that clown a dose of his own medicine.” And rightly so. (I am the observations coordinator for the NJILOA, so I schedule all the evaluations of officials.)
Anyway, we got done with our post-game critique and headed back out toward the fields. The United States was playing Australia on one of the turf fields (the big stadium won’t be used again until the Finals on Saturday) so we wanted to check that out.
We headed down there, grabbed some food and then we got banged with another weather delay. Sirens, announcements – it’s kind of crazy. So we took our food inside and sat in the concourse and ate and hung out. Not the worst thing. We eventually made it down to see most of the USA game, but headed back on the 8:15 p.m. shuttle. Didn’t wanna get stuck there until the 9:45 p.m. shuttle. We all had to get back here and do laundry (the glamorous part they don’t tell you about in the brochure) to get ready for today.
Most people, when they go on vacation, say “oh I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone by!” Well, we’ve been here a week, and let me tell you I feel like I’ve been here for a month! The next few days are sure to fly by, though. Now that we are out on the field doing our thing, it’s definitely making it go by quickly.
