14B.9.2 Long Shot - Why?
Comments about this discussion:
Started
I want to start a discussion on this as I am keen to see other thoughts.
14B.9.2 Long Shot
A goal is disallowed if the last contact with the ball was made when the ball was in one’s own half. The defending team gets a free shot (goalkeeper’s ball). This rule does not apply if the ball is shot from the opponents’ half into one’s own goal.
I have been thinking about this rule and am not really sure of what the point of it is. No sport I can think of (ice hockey, soccer, basketball, field hockey, rugby field goals, lacrosse, futsal, handball, waterpolo) has a rule that disallows you from scoring from your own half as it is useless because the further you get away from the goal the less likely you are of scoring as the goalie has even more time to move into position. All it would do in these sports is create an extra unnecessary aspect for referees to focus on during a match. If you can get a goal from further back well done you deserve it.
Pros of the rule in unicycle hockey:
· For novice teams opposition cant shoot from far away. (I think this is not a real pro because if a team is so bad that they let goals in from well over halfway then they are likely going to be easily beaten by the opposition anyway. If they cant save goals from over halfway they DEFINITELY wont be saving them from within their half. This is more about does a far superior team choose to play in a way that helps develop the inferior team or do they just pepper them with long range shots because they are bad)
· The rule provides a consistent rule with the start of game face-off i.e. you cant shoot from 4m behind the halfway while the opposition is stuck in their own half.
Cons of the rule in unicycle hockey:
· it makes ruling on flick shots at goal near halfway inconsistent as it is the moment the ball is released from the stick which matters and it can be hard to rule. I can guarantee that these are called incorrectly quite often.
· It creates a weird feeling of safety until the ball passes a certain line on the court which affects urgency in the game. Often you will not feel pressed to block a player if they remain 1m behind halfway which creates an unnatural feeling of safety. This seems like a weird thing to me when thinking about competitive sport.
Can anyone provide any serious pros to the rule apart from "its how its always been played!"? It has been in the rulebook for 20 years (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_MHkFaPCpQZdS1zX0NDN21SenM) but I have asked the people who developed the rules for unicycle hockey and they don't know why it was included.
I am pretty open minded about this rule, it was just ideas I was tossing up in my head when comparing how it would affect refereeing and what is common in field sports. I would love to see some open minded discussion of the merits of the rule if people can get over the fact that it is "tradition" and we shouldn't change anything.
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First up: good debate.
I think playing without this rule would change the game a bit. It's absolutely possible to shoot long and precise, so you would likely see a lot more longshots from all over the field if the rule was changed. I'm not sure if that would be a good or a bad thing, but I think the game would spread out more over the field if the rule was changed.
Another thing to consider is that even if these other sports don't have this specific rule, they do have some offside rule. In icehockey you can't pass to a player in the offensive zone, in football it's about the relative position of offence and defence, in rugby you can only kick forward, etc. Since most teams are (in my experience) ultimately well behaved, I think this rule is actually easier to enforce as a ref than some of the other offside rules.
Since it's up for debate I think I'll make sure to try out some combinations at the next club practice and see what works.
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It is true, I think in a kind of "tradition", like 5 player, ice hockey stick, sub/sib instead of "foul" and ...
I believe a change of this rule would massive change the character of our sport. A lot of tactic and positions of the players would change. Special training for long shots and set up against long shots will be required. For the moment I can not see an advantage for change this rule. I will wait an listen to further discussion.
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Our goalies and shooters in Australia are both not as strong as the best in Germany/Switzerland but with the exception of novice teams, goalies rarely let in goals from halfway, you have so much time to see the ball coming that they are very easy saves. I am not sure if realistically shooting from even further back will result in many more goals. In the beginning perhaps as people forget that it is possible but surely providing even more time to stop a ball will not result in more goals. (this is my assumption however).
Excellent point about offside rules Magnus. Though offside rules are completely different as a player can still score from their own half despite offsides being a think it does make one difference that I can think of having offside.
In unicycle hockey you sometimes have an attacker who would be deemed offside in another sport, often as a goalie you can come out of goals and mark that player yourself knowing that no one can shoot a long shot from over halfway at your empty net. So here it makes a difference.
These situations don't tend to occur in our tournaments though from what I have experienced. They tend to occur in weekend club matches where people play for fun and don't mark players appropriately.
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I'm also unsure why we have this rule, but I'm very interested in this discussion.
Good point from Magnus about the offside rules in those sports. I think inline hockey also has this.
I also agree with Herbert, as it would change the way the game is played massively.
In my opinion, I don't see a reason to change it for now; however, we should have a reason why we are keeping it or changing it. Is it because teams would immediately shoot from their half when the game has been resumed after they conceded a goal? This would basically mean that the opposing team would have to 'defend' in their half even though the ball has not crossed the halfway line, allowing the team with the ball to pass it between them in their half until they get a clear shot. In this case, you could have a game where neither team crosses the halfway line.
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The reason I can see that we keep it is because we would have to decide what to do in case of restart (this would be the only situation I believe that makes sense to disallow goals from over halfway) and also tradition.
I believe the benefits of not having it is less contentious calls in refereeing. Whether a player released the ball in his own half or just over halfway is one of the more contentious rules that appears in games, especially with flick shots. There is no video ref and it can be missed exactly where the ball was released on a flick shot.
Also it is quite common to play in halls with multiple courts marked on the field, however if there is more distance behind one end of the markings at either end we need to mark a new center line as one team will have a shorter distance to the goal than the other at each half.
Having two center lines in close proximity can then make it hard for the referee to quickly and accurately rule where the ball was released correctly.
Possibly other countries don't have the issue of using halls where multiple courts are marked on the floor.
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Very good question and topic Steve! I personally like it as is but that's probably only cause that's how I've always only ever played it and am used to it that way. Right now I'm leaning on keeping it unless someone can convince me otherwise (and I haven't been convinced yet).
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Last rule committee we decided that it was too hard to rule whether the ball had been touched twice in a flickshot or not so we made free hits require a single slap pass.
My opinion is that ruling the exact moment of release from a flick shot to determine if the ball was over halfway or not is just as difficult. Slap shots are easy but for flick shots when it is connected to the stick for a long duration, ruling whether the ball left the stick behind or in front of the halfway line is tricky and can cost teams a win.
So the main cons I thinks are still
Cons of the rule in unicycle hockey:
· it makes ruling on flick shots at goal near halfway inconsistent as it is the moment the ball is released from the stick which matters and it can be hard to rule. I can guarantee that these are called incorrectly quite often.
· It creates a weird feeling of safety until the ball passes a certain line on the court which affects urgency in the game. Often you will not feel pressed to block a player if they remain 1m behind halfway which creates an unnatural feeling of safety. This seems like a weird thing to me when thinking about competitive sport.
Pros:
· Tradition.
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I take Stevens point: "...halls where multiple courts are marked on the floor."
I agree to this, it not easy if you use the rule: The center line divides the field into two "equal halves", and the center mark is in the middle of the center line." exactly. I as an organiser of a tournament I use a line as center line (or goal line) with comes close to to the rule, mark very well the "center mark (and the corner marks) plus extra markes [use a special kind of masking tape (e.g. standard painters tape)] on the extension of this (these) line(s) on the walls or boundaries. All this marks and lines I show before of the beginning of the tournaments all team captains. And normally you will change sides in half-time and a possible advantage and disadvantage will change as well and I had no complains so far.
Back to the topic Why not long shot: Yes, it is a basic traditional key rule, it is a specific offside rules of our sport unicycle hockey, same as using unicycles or play with 5 player each team. I stick to this, it would change the way the game is played massively. If this comes to proposal I would open a discussion "numbers of players should be changed to six" to parry a long shot with a fixed goal keeper.
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If people haven't experienced issues with questionable rulings of whether shots came from over halfway then I am inclined to not put in a proposal as I think improving refereeing is the biggest benefit to this.
I would be interested to have comments from others on the committee who play/referee just so we know everyone's opinions however
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Summary
14B.9.2 Long Shot
A goal is disallowed if the last contact with the ball was made when the ball was in one’s own half. The defending team gets a free shot (goalkeeper’s ball). This rule does not apply if the ball is shot from the opponents’ half into one’s own goal.
Discussion 1 Is there a reason for not being able to score from over halfway?
Consensus: It is tradition and would change how we play.
Discussion 2 Do people experience questionable rulings (their own or those against their team) surrounding the moment of ball release after flick shots and whether it was released over halfway.
Consensus: Unclear
Discussion 3 Does the "shooting from halfway" have an issue with courts with multiple lines and no clear midline
Consensus: Unclear
Comment
I think for discussion 2 it seems the best thing we can do is to just make ref'ing better. Personally I think most players are so attuned to this rule that it I rarely see the ref have to step in to enforce it.
For discussion 3 I think it's up to the organizers to make sure the centerline is clearly marked. Same with the 6.5 meter line and the goals. If, for some reason, the court isn't centered on the gym it should be clearly noted at the beginning of the tournament/game and clear markings should be put in place. This is no different from marking up a court for an obstacle course or for freestyle/standard skills (back in the day).