Officials' Review: Penalty Code Telephone

As our friend Ian Fluenza is fond of saying when he is Head Reffing games, "Officials crews live and die by their communication."  The intensity of play may vary, the sound quality of venues may vary, but when Refs and NSOs are not communicating well, a game will derail very quickly. Knowing this, we created the following drill to help us train and understand the full process for communicating penalties.

Penalty Code Telephone

Objective: Training Refs, NSOs, and rules-loving-skaters on the procedures for calling and communicating penalties.

Length of drill: Can vary depending on the number of officials being trained.

Participants: 3 or more.

Materials needed: Index cards or scrap paper; a whiteboard and marker; copies of the Penalties from the WFTDA Rulebook, the WFTDA Official Hand Signals, and the WFTDA Official Verbal Cues.

Skill level: The skill level can be varied for everyone from beginners to seasoned officials.

Preparations: On each of the index cards or pieces of scrap paper, write out the names of three or four different penalties, creating penalty-cards. Arrange the participating officials according to the diagram below:

How it works:

1. Official A picks a random penalty-card and makes the corresponding hand signal for the first penalty on the card.
2. Official B calls out the penalty being signaled by official A.
3. Official C writes the code for the penalty being called by official B on the whiteboard.
4. The process repeats until all of the penalties from the penalty-card have been communicated.
1. The officials gather to check if they had the corresponding response to the signal passed to them correctly.
5. The officials rotate positions and repeat with a new penalty-card.

Next Steps: the Verbal Cue variant

Prep: Make penalty-cards with the Verbal Cues for three or four different penalties, of different penalty types.

1. Official B picks a random penalty-card and calls out the first penalty on the card.
2. Official A makes the corresponding hand signal being called by official B.
3. Official C writes the code for the penalty being called by official B on the whiteboard.
4. The process repeats until all of the penalties from the penalty-card have been communicated.
1. The officials gather to check if they had the corresponding response to the signal passed to them correctly.
5. The officials rotate positions and repeat with a new penalty-card.

Extra Fun: run this drill while skaters are doing laps.

If you can think of any other variations or scenarios share them in the Comments section below.

-Ducky

Duck N. Shover - POD’s Head of Officials & Interleague Liaison