TIME OUTS

[TOTALHOCKEY]

RULE 502 OF THE CRHL RULE BOOK
1. Each team shall receive one time out per game
2. Time outs will start when the referee notifies the official scorekeeper of the time-out and shall be one minute long.
3. Time-outs must be called during a stoppage of play.
4. All players must return to their respective player bench for the entire duration of the time-out.

Can anyone tell me where I can find the current rule book since this is not what I was told at nationals. The rule I was told was basically no back to back time outs, unless you notify the ref during the current time out. I do not see this in the current CRHL rule book.........

[CollegeFan02]

I do not have the rule books in front of me, but I dont remember seeing that in the CRHL rulebook either. There are a lot of rules that are not in the CRHL rule book that were being used this past weekend. Basically if it was not in the CRHL rule book, then you had to defualt to the USA rule book.

If you ask me, this is crazy. What CRHL is telling us is that we need to know all rules not only in the CRHL rule book, but also those stated in the USA rule book. This is absolutely ridiculous to force teams to know not just one rule book, but two. I feel that this screwed some of the teams this weekend that complied with CRHL rules. Are there any other leagues out there that require that players participating must know more than just the Rule book for the league they are playing in? What happens if CRHL does not partner with USA hockey next season? Do we have to learn another rule book once again?

[MBurke]

This argument brings to the forefront the need for a much more comprehensive CRHL Rule Book - as the book is right now, there's not enough in it for it to stand on its own as a rule book.

Mike Burke
Commissioner
Eastern Collegiate Roller Hockey Association
http://www.ecrha.net

[JMUDukes26]

I believe this was discussed at the Captain's meeting. The Referee in Chief spoke at length about when you can, and cannot take a Time Out. There were also some other rules which teams may not have been in tune to, which were discussed at the captain's meeting. At NCT they also enforced a rule that 15 seconds after a whistle is blown, the puck will be dropped. While these seem a bit nitpicky, they are necessary to keep the games on schedule.

One rule that is very clearly stated in the CRHL Rule book, was that all D1 teams must wear pants of the smae predominant color, despite this rule being discussed at the Captain's meeting, and in the rulebook, some teams chose to disregard it.

It could have just been one of those things that no one thought would matter, but in reality, it proved to make a difference.

Gary

[DNA2]

How did not having matching pants make a difference in the end? That seems a bit unlikely.

[JMUDukes26]

I think the issue is that many teams went to great lengths to ensure that they were within this rule. I ran around like an idiot getting away jerseys with correct numbers for some players on my team that lost them, only for us never to wear them. For a team to show up with mismatch pants isn't fair to the rest of the teams who did go to these lengths. It's even more ridiculious, when the kid wearing mismatch pants, is forced off the rink by the referee, walks into the locker room, and puts on pants that match the rest of his team. I understand that sometimes teams have problems, but this is Nationals, shouldn;t every team look their best?

Gary

[CollegeFan02]

The question is, How do you define "predominant?" I dont think you will ever see CRHL kick someone out of NCT because they feel that the pants are not a predominant color. (there is always the situation where someone is wearing green pants the the rest of the team is wearing black - thats obvious). Once they kick someone out, CRHL better be prepared to deal with every teams complaint about other teams pants, and be able to justify why or why not. This can become the next major issue at a NCT, and I dont want to be there for that one.

[CheckMate]

collegefan

i read in something els of yours that you are a director of a region. Dont you enforce uniform rules? seems to me that the uniforms issues are not enforced in the regions. In ECRHA there really arent those problems since the rules are muchsticter then CRHL. most of the CRHL teams looked good so what is the problem? predominant pants arent a problem when you have matching uniforms. otherwise predominant color is usually the color thats more then 50% of the pants or what you predominantly see from the front. what is so difficult about that. CRHL did enforce that this event. i know cause i had on pants that ECRHA would never allow me to wear and was sent off by an ECRAH ref who laughed at me.

[JMUDukes26]

I think the rule is enforced within reason, one of the decisions made by CRHL officials concerned a player who's team wore black and yellow pants, while one of the players wore pants which were blue and white. In this situation, it didn't really appear that this player had any regard for the rule at all. I can't say for sure exactly how tight CRHL would enforce the rule, but when it comes down the black and yellow versus blue, the rule is pretty clear.

As for the teams of the ECRHA...
This rule was in the CRHL Rulebook long ago. ECRHA prides itself in being the example, not the exception. Aside from the first few weeks of the season (when teams are still ordering uniforms) ECRHA strictly enforced this policy.

The rule is somewhat flexible, JMU ordered 2001 Mission Type M pants last season. This year, the old Type Ms were hard to come by, but we were able to find some pants which were very similar, and used those for the players who didn't have Type Ms. I doubt many teams, if any, noticed the slight differences in pant design.

The rule doesn't ask teams to buy new pants each season, or even buy the exact same pants each season, all it asks is that teams make an honest effort to look reasonably uniform.

Gary

[Lindenwoodhockey]

This seems to be a recurring theme with the CRHL. To me the logical choice would be that if you are going to team up with USA Inline hockey that we should just adopt there rule book and maybe amend their rule book if you thought it was necessary. I talked with all the referees who officiated our premier games, and all but one had never received or seen a copy of the CRHL rule book. To me that is a problem. If we go through USA Inline for our insurance shouldn't we play by there rules? To me if there was an injury an attorney would have a field day by saying there were not playing by our rule book, but I'm just a hockey guy not a guy with a law degree from the University of Michigan. It just seems to me that the CRHL is always trying to reinvent something or put a different twist on something just so the people involved don't lose their hold on the sport. I have some real issues on where this sport is going and whether that direction is in a positive way. I have seen the presentations that showed a five and ten year plan for the CRHL and the steps they want to get accomplished as far as NCAA affiliation and other growths of the league. We have seen a few aesthetic changes such as broadcasting the games and up to the minute game details on the internet, but I am talking about real advancement in teams support from their universities. My question is why isn't every university on the radio or local television, almost every school has a school radio station or television station. Why don't most universities have home rinks nearby campus where they can draw students and put on more marketable games. From my point of view is that our leadership in the CRHL is not motivating and/or giving the tools to each school or region to develop their programs. My fear is that the leadership in the CRHL is comfortable where they are at now and don't want to see the league get any bigger because they don't want to lose their piece of the pie. I want to say that I appreciate all the hard work that has been put in to all the divisions and regions of the CRHL, in my opinion you should be compensated for your efforts and I do believe if the CRHL was run like a business like the NCAA you would be able to benefit financially for your efforts, but this also comes with a price. That means your tournament director can't be concerned with what team is throwing the biggest parties or referees drinking with teams while the national tournament is still going on. Their is a certaing professionalism that needs to be put forward and it has not always been the case with the CRHL. I work with a university that puts a lot into our program, and our program has been scrutinized and even held back to try to level the playing field. To me the status quo is not good enough for our program. I would invite the leadership of the CRHL to look into the way club lacrosse and ice hockey work, I think those are two examples of successful club leagues that would be excellent models of how we want our league to operate.

In closing I would like to congratulate all the winners from the competitive nationals and thank all the people who were involved for their hard work in putting the national event on.

[JMUDukes26]

I can't comment on everything you mentioned, but I can speak knowledgably about the way things work at my university. The infrastructure for Ice Hockey and Lacrosse is much more complete than Roller Hockey's is. The 1980s-1990s were a period of Ice Hockey explosion in the wake of the 1980 olympic games, and the prime of Wayne Gretzky's career. With thousands of quality facilities across the country, it is much easier to develop a club hockey program. Lacrosse can be played on a soccer field (with redrawn lines), the most popular sport in thw world. Roller hockey is capital intensive (Sport Court, Boards, Glass, bleachers, locker rooms, and a massive building). While some private schools have the ability to raise funds sufficient to build a quality roller hcokey facility, many public schools do not.

At JMU we received a whopping $1754 this season towards our Roller Hockey season. It's simply unreasonable to ask a school with 35 sports clubs to build a facility costing no less than half a million dollars to accomidate one club, or at most 2 or 3.

Without an adequate infrastructure in which to promote the sport, growth is limited. To have CRHL run like a business, puts it in a catch-22. There are 2 ways to generate money, through ticket sales, and through sponsorships. Major sponsorships become difficult, as CRHL is generally opposed to turining teams into billboards as in European Hockey Leagues, consistent with NCAA. Ticket sales are difficult, as so few teams have home rinks. The few tickets sold would put a furthur burden on the parents of the CRHL player, many of whom bear the burden of these expenses already.

As for the differences in the rule books, the CRHL rulebook is in need of revision, this is undisputed. USAHIL has a comprehensive rulebook, which could possibly serve as a model for a future CRHL rulebook, or THE rulebook, perhaps with certain amendments,but I would not rule out a self-standing CRHL Rulebook. In any case, CRHL is an organization with some new leaders who are taking positive steps towards progress for Collegiate Inline Hockey, but they ahve limited time to offer, and limited funds with which to work.

I realize that Lindenwood's program is miles ahead of the rest of us, but we are making steps forward. All things take time, but I think the splendor of NCT V is a sign of what is to come. It was by far, among the greatest hockey events I have attended in my (granted short) life.

Gary

[mackertm]

"At JMU we received a whopping $1754 this season towards our Roller Hockey season. It's simply unreasonable to ask a school with 35 sports clubs to build a facility costing no less than half a million dollars to accomidate one club, or at most 2 or 3."

This is the key to the problem... At Michigan State we're lucky in that we have a SportCourt floor on our campus. But the floor is in an old building with poor lighting that gets used primarily for IM sports. We couldn't play home games on this rink, because the lighting isn't up to par. MSU is under a budget crunch, like so many other schools across the country. If I was to try and tell people here they should build a new, nice facility on campus for our use (and maybe a few other IM and club teams), they'd probably kick me out of the graduate program here - as I'd clearly have lost my mind or somehow slipped through the admissions process. Blaming CRHL for the fact that there aren't many rinks on or near college campuses is ludicrous. Major universities have bigger things on their minds than building facilities that could be used for roller hockey - like making sure they keep tuition down for students, encourage research programs and projects, keep their professors and research assistants well paid, etc.

The same goes (more or less) for blaming CRHL for lack of school television/radio coverage of games. In 1999 when we won our first NCT, we had to fight hard to get a small little article in the school newspaper. The paper actually changed its policy a bit and now does cover club sports in a limited fashion, mostly because of us. But where would the money come from the fund someone from the school to cart out television or radio equipment to broadcast our games? There are bigger priorities her than covering club sports on campus radio/television.

As for comments that the CRHL doesn't want to grow so it will lose its piece of the roller hockey pie... I don't even understand the logic there, really. But from my understanding there might be a few new regions coming onboard in the next year or two, including regions in the northwest, Rocky Mountain area, and Kentucky area. So CRHL is still growing just fine.

I do think there are plenty of things the CRHL can do to improve. This is an organization that's only five years old, it's still in the earliest stages of development. Any five year old organization is going to have plenty of room for improvement, and I'm sure that over the summer CRHL will continue to work and address its weaknesses. But saying that it's somehow (or even partly) the CRHL's fault that there aren't many rinks on or near campuses, or that games aren't being broadcast, is simply off the wall (in my opinion).

Mike Mackert
Michigan State University

[CollegeFan02]

Checkmate,

Yes, I am a MO director, and yes, I do require that my teams have matching jerseys. Did you happen to see how alike the jersey was? This person played 24+ games in my league, and was playing his 6th game at NCT. The jerseys were so alike that I never noticed it during our season or at NCT. But if people want to get technical, according to CRHL rule book, I could have picked out about 6 players who should have never of even played 1 game at NCT because they wore the #0, and that includes about 3-4 of them coming from your region. All you have to do is open up the program and count 6 of them. Those 6 would never had a chance to play at NCT because their away jerseys were also #0's, so in my mind that is actually worse than not having a matching jersey. Imagine getting caught with that. According to CRHL rules, even if there was another jersey available to wear, the player is rostered under that # for the entire event. Only way you can change #'s is due to injury or blood, straight from the CRHL rulebook and the CRHL staff as they told me. I am not trying to start some inter region fight here, as I have the upmost respect for the ECRHA and those who run it. They are the model of the league and all MO's should strive to be like them. ECRHA has been around a couple more years than we have, so in time we will be at the same point ECRHA is. So I think the word that comes to my mind is consistency. CRHL needs to be consistent when it comes to enforcing the rules. Either enforce them to the fullest, or make exceptions when something falls through the cracks.

Mike Jimmerson
SCRHA Director

[JMUDukes26]

I actually noticed that too at NCT. A few players wore 0, and one or two others wore 00. I figured it wasn't a fight worth fighting though. But that is pretty clear in the rulebook as well.

Gary

[bonesy21]

lindy,

i understand the rules issue, because we too had conflicts all year with what rule book was being used. its unfortunant that again, a rule book dilemma comes into play and i can understand your points and views. as far as the whole expanding the crhl thingy goes, the crhl will never be an NCAA sport. its physically not possible, hence the reason why most schools dont have access to audio equipment such as the school radio or even tv recorders (whatever you call those things that record the games...lol). but basically, i agree with you on the majority of the oranizational arguments that you brought up, but at the same time, since you and your school has been active as of late with the growth of the sport at a national level and at your school, why dont you guys do more to help. Lindenwood is a prime example of what needs to be accomplished, and by your photographic image, you guys are now in the spotlight and will be for a long time. On the quick note, congradulations to all the teams that participated in the competitive NCT, and also to the teams that won. I think this was one of the closet, most balanced NCT's that have ever partaken. again, congrats on a job well done, and good luck next fall.

Bonesy