Guess we can't follow the Euro league schedule after all

One point of discussion regarding the MLS is, should the MLS season follow the Euro league schedules?  That is, start play in August and end in May.  For the Northeastern and Eastern Canada teams, that would mean the potential for some brutally cold games in Dec/Jan.

Well, to an extent our season in Colorado is active year round except for December.  That's correct, we do have outdoor tournaments in January (albeit friendlies), then small tournaments in February, then our season kicks off in March.  We have post season tournaments in May and June, some summer friendlies in July, then preseason in August, and then the Fall regular season that lasts until November since inevitably there's going to be snow outs in October.

Our January friendlies went well.  Indeed, the weather was nice (but not atypical for the Front Range).  Then old man winter struck.

Snow in inches in Denver Metro area Feb 2 - Feb 4 storm

We don't receive warm rains in February like the east coast, and chinook winds are generally a January phenomenon.  So when that much snow falls this time of the year, it's going to stick around.  Stick around it has.  For the foreseeable future, the games are limited to turf fields.  Some foothill/mountain communities of course need the turf fields; otherwise, they wouldn't play until May.

Last weekend a girls U-14 tournament was played.  The kickoff temperature on Saturday morning was +9F.  You read that right.  9 degrees above zero Fahrenheit.  I was not involved in that tournament.

So I get started this weekend with 3 games at a preseason tournament - turf fields of course.  I've spent most of my off-season healing my left foot and knee.  I stayed in shape the best I can (even skied), but I'd prefer to be in better running shape.  I'm ready and excited to get going!

Closing out 2011

Some final thoughts on 2011.

1. Had an interesting experience with a CR running one of my son's games this past October (that I never blogged.)  He made a call on a foul, and someone on our side yelled "Geez".  Or possibly "Jesus".  I'm not entirely sure which.  So this CR comes over to the parents side and informs us quite loudly "I do not tolerate profanity at my games.  One more word and I'll remove all the parents."  Now of course *everyone* on my son's team knows I'm a ref (indeed, I often ref just before his game) so *everyone* starts badgering me with questions.  "Can he do that?"  Yes.  "Would you do that?"  The use of that term does not meet my definition of Personal, Provocative, and Public.  Public certainly - it was loud, but it wasn't Personal and it certainly wasn't Provocative.  So I would've let that go.  "Have you ever thrown a parent out."  Almost, on 3 separate occasions.  They certainly received the "you can watch the rest of the game from your car" spiel from me.  I cynically suggested we just start shouting "Allah" to see if he would react to that.

Seriously, if someone chooses to use their divine entity's name in vain, it won't offend me.  Do others care?

Respect Campaign from FA

One more post coming to close out the Fall Season.

In the meantime, I attended a mentoring session on how to handle Dissent.  While the session itself fell short (IMO), they showed this video from the FA "Respect Campaign:  http://youtu.be/r0qGeADPzAs.

It is well known that we lose a lot of young refs due to, well, obnoxious parents and coaches.  Perhaps USSF should borrow this idea from the FA and make it required viewing by all parents and coaches.

Bye Week

I took a self-imposed break in the Fall Schedule last weekend.  Well, there were no regular season games, but THREE big tournaments that, as usual, were sending constant email blasts looking for refs.

Side question to other refs - does your area have sufficient refs?  Reading other referee blogs, it's tough to tell.  Granted, the games available are generally youth games, but I receive last minute requests for Adult Amateur refs too.