braindump

I’m currently at the Kurt De Fris tournament in Adelaide, which is the national 15-and-under ice hockey tournament run by IHA. I’m one of two interstate referees who’ve been flown in to ensure we have neutral referees for the games (although all the linesmen are local).

We’re currently in the seven-hour break in the middle of the third day of competition. I’ve just had a nap after getting up at 4:45 am for the first game which was at 6 am (although I wasn’t required on the ice, I did man the penalty box).  The last game (which I’ll be refereeing) starts at 6 pm, so it’s a fairly long day. The regular public skating sessions, which bring in by far the most income for ice rinks, are in the middle of the day, so the tournament has to fit around them.

Up-to-date stats are on the stats page; with two games remaining in the round robin, Vic is currently leading with NSW just behind on goals. This may change with the next game, the big NSW-Vic contest, which is a replay of last year’s final, and probably a precursor to this year’s final as well. Ryan from WA has the pleasure of refereeing that game, while my game following between SA and ACT will decide the ordering of the lower three teams, and who misses out on the finals.

This is my first national tournament as a referee, although I’ve travelled a few times before as a linesman. The national referee-in-chief isn’t here to supervise, but the feedback I’ve been getting from the SA RIC has been pretty positive, so I’m happy with that. Assuming there aren’t any disasters in this evening’s game, I can expect to get one of the semi-finals games, and either the bronze or gold-medal game.

Update: NSW beat Vic, and SA beat ACT (which was my game, with 44 minutes of penalties!), so the final standings after the round robin are NSW, Vic, SA, WA, ACT. So the semis tomorrow morning are NSW v WA (which I’m reffing) and Vic v SA.