Unicon (A) rules vs general rules
Comments about this discussion:
Started
Seeing as these rules are relied on for everything from friendly local pickup games to unicon and some countries have their own additional rules I was thinking if it would make sense to specify that certain rules will be stricter at Unicon (especially in the A-tournament) than what's needed elsewhere.
Examples include:
- Goals: game can be played with floorball and ice hockey goals, but Unicon will only use ice hockey goals
- Player identification: teams need to be identifiable. Local games can use overshirts for this (so only one team has overshirts and everyone without one are on the other team), Unicon would require teams to have the same color shirts (with one team using overshirts if there's a collission) and the A-tournament would require teams to have 2 sets with different colors and players to be individually numbered
- Play time: if we end up changing so we have effective play time that might be something that's not needed at all tournaments
This way we can keep making rules to make the game better at Unicon while still recognising that there might be places we can offer other tournament hosts flexibility for their tournaments.
Comment
I don't know whether it is worth the effort making a second "official" set of rules. If we set the rules as what we would want at an elite competition like unicon, countries can then remove whatever rules they want for their own matches. E.g. the german league voted to not use the single hit rule for free hits in their own league despite it being in the official rules and I imagine many places use floorball goals because thats what they have?
It would be nice to have a a quick rundown of what rules can be relaxed for beginner- intermediate players e.g. at unicon in grenoble referees in the C competition were more lenient on people holding the goals or walls.
Comment
It would b enice to have a quick rundown of what rules can be relaxed but maybe we look to do something like that when everything else is done and it wouldn't be part of an official rulebook**
Comment
I get that it's a bit of extra work and ultimately it comes down to what the goal for the rule set should be. I think hockey is somewhat unique amongst unicycle competitions in that most national leagues play with somewhat different or relaxed rules compared to Unicon rules.
I think it would be a disservice to only make rules for the A-tournament and then just assume everyone else figures out how they want the rules changed for their local tournament. It would be a shame if we need to navigate endless local rule variations when visiting teams playing in a different league and I would also worry that we wouldn't get good ref'ing at Unicon if refs are used to playing with different rules.
There are some rules where different choices can be made (like allowing flickshots or direct shots for free shots) and then there are rules that can be more or less flexible (like allowing floorball goals or teams to have numbered t-shirts). If there are different rules between the A- and B-leagues it'll have to be documented somewhere so we might as well include both sets of rules here (where they differ).
Comment
I don't think we should specify these additional rules. I don't think we can specify rules that are good for each "local pickup game". In such cases it is very easy to agree on rules that are not followed. Thus, I think the international rules should be quite strict as going back is always easier. Ultimately, we find rules that work for every situation.
In Switzerland, we basically only have additions (and some small changes to more referee related stuff) to the international rules to make them more clear where they are currently somewhat unclear or to be even more strict (e.g. numbered shirts).
I see the problem with having different rule variations, but specifying different official sets doesn't remove this problem but in the best case only makes it somewhat smaller. And ultimately, we can't influence this as it is up to every league / country to make their own rules. For this, it would be nice to have more people from countries that also have their own league(s) or tournament(s) to get more different opinions and potential problems of the rules.
Comment
There's a problem with expecting local leagues to create their own rules in that people will often look to the official rules to figure out how games are structured. This is obviously something that could be solved by having some other forum where league organisers can meet and figure out how certain rules are applied in other countries.
Having too many difference between local rules and international rules can lead to teams going to Unicon with an inherent disadvantage though (as with the floorball sticks) and sometimes that can lead to less engagement with the sport which is a shame. Publishing stricter and looser rules would probably lead to fewer local leagues making their own additional rules.
Comment
I also do not think that there should be several sets of official rules. Having different rule sets already in the international rule book would be confusing.
Yes, in the German league we also deviate a little bit from the official rules where we think the international rules are not precise enough. But we would like to close theses gaps and return to commonly shared rules, rather than further divide the rules between international, national and local games.