Face off clarification 1
Comments about this discussion:
Started
I find there is not a lot of information about how a facebook can be completed by a player. Players usually attempt to scoop the ball backwards from a facebook. Can the players have their stick on the opposition side prior to the ball being dropped or should they stay on their side until the ball leaves the hand of the referee?
14B.9.4 Face-off
To resume the game without penalizing one of the teams, a face-off can be used. For
the face-off, the referee drops the ball between two opposing players. The ball should
be dropped from below hip height of players in the vicinity. One player from each team
may take part in the face-off with all other players' unicycles and sticks at a distance of
at least 2 m from the ball. Play starts when the ball touches the ground as signalled by
the referees whistle. A face-off during the game is executed where the ball was when the
game was interrupted. Exception: Within the goal area, the face-off is executed at the
closest corner mark.
Comment
It kind of makes sense that a face off has each player and their stick on their "own" side of a line until the ball is dropped. The problem would be agreeing where the line is for faceoffs other than for starting the game but it could be specified that the line is always parallel to the middle line
Comment
I think it would be good if we add where the players have to be when completing the faceoff (just unicycle or both unicycle and stick). A line parallel to the middle line should do the job in my opinion. Adding more specific rules could make it unnecessary complicated and hard to check for the referee.
Comment
Yes a line parallel to middle line is ideal. This means that players are in positions with their body facing up and down the court. Never side to side.
And the ball as held by the referee is the line that the sticks must each be behind? The sticks must be behind this line until the referee lets go of the ball?
I.e. as soon as the referee drops the ball the players may move their sticks forward to pull the ball backwards. They don't have to wait until the ball hits the ground to move the ball backwards as otherwise I think we would not be able to ref it well.
Comment
By "their body facing up and down the court" you mean just were the players are and not in which direction they look, right?
Yes, I would say the ball marks the location of the line and the players both have to be on their side until the referee drops the ball. I think this is simple and also easy to judge.
Comment
Sorry yes. I meant they would be aligned body's facing each other, one in front of the other. A line drawn between the two players would be parallel with the long side of the court.
I dont think a specific direction of their wheel should be stated.
Comment
I think this clarification makes sense. Would it also make sense to clarify which side of the face-off the ref should stand on (presumably the one closer to the side wall). I don't think player position matters so much as long as the wheel and stick are behind the line and the player doesn't interfere with the ref.
Comment
No, I don't think we should clarify where the referee should stand. I prefer to be on the side where there is more space (depends on how the players stand towards the face off and on which side their stick is).
I think we could proceed forward to a proposal with this.
Comment
I agree with you in most points here, but would like to point to you one or two aspects of this.
What do you think about having the defending player (closer to his own goal) be facing away from his own goal and the offensive player facing towards it? I think this is how it rather is handled now. The extreme would be a face-off at a corner mark, where the line between players would be vertical to the middle line. As a defender i would rather be in the line between the offensive player and my own goal.
Why would you have the players keep their sticks behind the dividing line? Now it is more common to place sticks side by side to each other before the referee drops the ball.
In some of the last tournaments i spotted some players instead of using their sticks to rather use their hands to bounce the ball away from the opponent after it jumps up from the face-off. I think this could render dangerous if one player uses the stick and hits the other player using the hand. It is nontheless completely legal to use the hand.
Ciao Ole
Comment
We shortly discussed this topic during our meeting on Friday. We agreed that we have to specify where the players have to be when executing a face off. More specifically, the unicycle and stick should be behind (in direction of play) an imaginary line drawn parallel to the extended goal line / middle line where the face off is executed.
However, for face offs at the corner mark we didn‘t come to a conclusion in which direction this line has to be drawn. I remember that Ole, you would have said the dividing line should be perpendicular to the extended goal line while Steven and I thought the line should be the extended goal line.
Another topic we very briefly touched is the height where the ball is dropped for the face off. We had this discussion also in the last rulebook. Back then, I tried to push for a lower height. I personally like to have something like knee height in the rules. I think you liked this idea too, right?
Comment
Knee height is a good height to shoot for but I think it should be expressed in cm so it doesn't change depending if you have short or tall players. Anywhere from 60-100 cm seems reasonable (as long as we just pick a height).
Comment
I agree that we should express the height in cm.
I think 1m would rather be the height of the hip (so the current rules). If we want to lower the height where the ball is dropped for the face off, I would go for 50cm.
Comment
50 cm is around the diameter of a 20-inch wheel so it'll probably be a pretty easy height to go for in practice. I'm in favour