Answering a question or two about no pack situations

Question: Can you engage the jammer in a no pack situation?
Answer: In No Pack situations blockers may not actively or passively engage a Jammer ... Or other blockers. This includes, but not limited to, hitting, booty blocking or merely standing in her way -- These are all penalties in no pack situations. Likewise, jammers may not engage blockers in a No Pack situation, as they are considered out of play -- jammers are still subject to penalties for an action to an Out of Play player. A Jammer can however engage the other jammer as long as both players remain In Play (on the track, upright).


Question: Who's responsible for reforming the pack in a No Pack situation?
Answer: The onus is on both teams to try and reform the pack, however only one person is required to attempt to reform the pack. If neither team tries to reform the pack in a No Pack situation, a penalty will be assessed to each team. If one team attempts to reform the pack, and the other team attempts to evade or keep the pack destroyed, then the offending team will be assessed the penalty. 


Question: What happens if the pack is destroyed by game play?
Answer: Destruction of the pack is generally considered a willful act. If the pack is destroyed via a block sending someone out of bounds or or down, referees shouldn't call a destroying the pack penalty. Destruction of the pack generally comes from one team willfully speeding faster than the natural pace of the pack or breaking excessively to slow down as the other half continues forward.


Question: Who gets the penalty for destroying the pack?
Answer: The referees usually assess a destroying the pack penalty to (in this order): The offending player who acts to destroy the pack, the player who orders the destruction of the pack, the pivot, the captain/alternate or the closest player to the referee.

Response - By the position

Cruel Whip made a great statement about the ability for skaters not to get locked into just one position on the track.

So important that teams understand the can’t rigidly hang on to the position they’ve been assigned when their teammates fall out for penalties, injuries or what have you. Pack structure may be rigidly defined, but the skaters filling those positions should be dynamic.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks to Cruel Whip (as always for the Tumblr shout-out, and for Chasey DC for reposting it on her Fast & Frightening Tumblr. 


I'm currently working on posts for the individual positions, so if you know someone who is an awesome player in her position let me know. I'm hoping to post about the No. 1 position within the week.

Managing Penalties - Part 2

While Part 2 of this multi-part blog (Part 1 can be found here) will primarily discuss jammers, it should be noted that the rules applying for those that wear the star, also apply to blockers and pivots.

The happenstances which will be discussed happen to jammers a lot, and it may be easier to envision these occurrences happening to a jammer.

Where as Part 1 dealt with keeping control and managing your team's penalties both as a player and as bench support staff, Part 2 will focus entirely on the track play and requires the astute attention of your players.

Cutting the pack penalties (and to some degree the Illegal Procedure plays in regards to players exiting the penalty box) are contingent upon the offending player's relative position to and within the pack.

In order to commit a Cut a player must step out of bounds and gain illegal advantage on one or more skaters.

There is no significance on which team member she passes. An offending player will obtain the same penalty whether she cuts and opposing player or one of her own.

The key definition for a Cut penalty is relative position within the pack, which means two things:
1.) The Cutting infraction is NOT  relative to your exit point on the track (unless upon re-entering at that point you've still ceded any and all advantage to the other players).
2.) The Cutting infraction is relative to the pack and only incurs upon an offending player who gains an illegal advantage on in-pack skaters. Thusly, if there is no pack or skaters are not in-play (within 20 feet of the engagement zone, upright and moving, and on the track -- there should not be a Cut penalty called.

That's not to say that in the heat of the moment the referees are not entirely sure of the pack structure, and possibly give a skater a penalty. It will happen, as pack restructuring is happening faster and faster as the strategies evolve, but also the higher levels of players are able to reform a pack on a dime.

Legal passes
Legal passes won't concern a blocker, but jammers live and die by legal passes. 

I should also point out that even if you wouldn't earn a  penalty for passing someone who is out of play while you're out of bounds, it is still not considered a legal pass. 

Legal passes on the first lap of the pack determine lead jammer status, as a player who incurs an illegal pass (or a non-legal pass -- which there is a difference) will not earn lead jammer unless she cedes advantage and tries to repass legally.

Legal passes on the second lap and subsequent laps are relative to individual points. Illegal passes or a non-legal pass, which is defined as the No Pass, No Penalty hand signal, are not scored, however any illegal passes will be reported as penalties.

This becomes the tricky part. On the first pass, it's in a jammer and her team's best interest to earn Lead Jammer and to maintain Lead Jammer status as long as possible. You are more likely to see a jammer cede an illegal pass or a No Pass, No Penalty in order to repass legally so that she may earn Lead Jammer status. On subsequent passes, that same jammer my happily take a No Pass, No Penalty -- forfeiting the point -- to not lose position within the pack particularly if the opposing jammer is close by.

Leave the cannoli, take the gun
That little play on a famous movie quote is intentional. In this instance the cannoli is the point you forfeit so you don't lose position in the pack.

In Part 1 I talked about watching your's and the opposing player's feet when you travel out of bounds. As long as you don't gain advantage on other players in doing so, once your opponent steps out she becomes out-of-play and you can step back on the track without incurring a Cut penalty.

By waiting for your opponent to move forward or to actively re-enter legally, a skater may lose valuable pack position, dropping back two, three or more spots - which can be crucial in key games. 

You see many high-level skaters (I'm looking at you, Suzy Hotrod!) make that kind of decision in a matter of milli-seconds.

Sometimes those one or two points can be the big difference in close games, but in less crucial situations, it is almost always beneficial to forfeit the one point and get back in as soon as possible.

Where's the pack?!
You can usually here me along the benches yelling "Call the pack!." I'll do this reffing, too. "Call the pack!" should be a staple in any referee's vocabulary. Defining the pack is key for so many other penalties, and sometimes in the heat of the moment you don't want to look away to see where the pack is located (Like if you're jam reffing). "Call the pack!" is a cue for someone to either say "Pack is here" or "No pack."

I'm a bigger fan of "Pack is here," "Pack is up," "Pack is back," "No pack" or "All in." (Thank you, Pork Chop!) These cues give you a much better idea of where the pack is without taking your eyes off gameplay.

As a coach I'm not usually one to scream that someone is out of play (OK, I lied). Recently, I've tried to get in the habit of yelling "Call the pack" because the pack definition determines Out Of Play and Cutting penalties. It asks a lot of the referees, but from the standpoints of being a referee, (pseduo) player and a coach, I recognize that 90 percent of roller derby game play relies on pack definition.

A good player will have an eye on the pack definition (and a really good player will use that to her advantage).

By passing a player (while you yourself are Out of Bounds) who is not considered in play because he or she is outside the engagement zone will not earn you a penalty, and will in face be a No Pass, No Penalty.  

Here's an example from Uproar on the Lakeshore, the WFTDA 2010 championships: http://vimeo.com/16595182

At 0:44 during the Gotham-Texas footage. Belle Star, the Texas blocker in white, manages to force Gotham jammer Suzy Hotrod out of bounds. Suzy keeps an eye on Belle, watching for one of her feet to come out of bounds. Instead, Belle loses her balance and falls, becoming Out of Play, at which point Suzy jumps back on the the track.

Jammers passing players who are Out of Play to the rear of the pack should attempt to do so legally to earn a legal pass or a point for each said player. By earning points on the rear-most opposing blocker, the jammer also earns points for players in the box. This may be the one example where it is a bad idea for a jammer to forfeit the point for pack position. If the opposing blocker(s) is out of play, she should be able to pass them without much effort. (If I'm the opposing players who just got passed, I hustle to the pack to re-engage the jammer again.

Jammers at the top of the pack, stuck behind an Out of Play opposing blocker, can pass her out of bounds without incurring a Cut penalty, but must be sure that in doing so that that player remains out of play. Cutting the foremost blocker will result in a major. It is highly recommend that passing an Out of Play blocker by skating out of bounds should be the last option, after all other options are extinguished.

The same standard holds true when there is a No Pack situation defined. A player should not incur cutting penalties when there is a No Pack situation, since Cutting requires gaining advantage on in-play skaters.

Managing Penalties - Avoiding and Forcing Them (Jammers)

Penalties impact a roller derby bout tremendously. Ask any jammer who has been called off for a major track cut on the last jam of the game when points matter.

The most obvious impact to the game: Jammer penalties. An opposing team can wreck havoc if your jammer is in the box, as they are able to manage multiple scoring passes. Likewise, if you're team is on a power jam, you want to maximize the score.

Whole offense and defense strategies have formed revolving around that sole idea.

Penalties range from as small as a minor (slightly affecting gameplay) to major (a massive gameplay advantage) to Misconduct and Gross Misconduct, which I won't go into but are similar to a super-group of penalties.

A skater can accumulate up to four minor penalties before being directed to the penalty box. (Currently, WFTDA is experimenting with a no-minor system and only time will tell if minors are completely wiped from the game entirely.)

Four minors equals a trip to the box. One major equals a trip to the box. Any skater with three minors, must essentially think of her next minor as being the same as a major, since it has the same effect. Acquiring your fourth minor sends you to the box, just as a major will do the same.

Again, our friends who wear the star covers serve as our example. A really clean-skating jammer with 1 or 2 minors, generally can make it through a jam without picking up her fourth minor, particularly if she has lead (which I'll bring up again later.)

And unless she's a super-clean skater, any jammer with 3 minors shouldn't jam except in the rarest of ocassions (as such if her team has a very explicit game plan, i.e. if she picks up her fourth we do X).

When a skater who usually jams has incurred her third minor, her team will set her up to intentionally acquire her fourth minor as a non-pivot blocker (or sometimes when she is the pivot). This is something you can control, as opposed to send her out there and she unintentionally picks up her fourth. This is sometimes referred to as poodling (a submissive term) or cougaring (intentionally picking up a minor).

Once her minors are wiped away, the skater can again jam again.

Instead of intentionally acquiring the minor, you can put the skater in the pack in the hopes that she'd pick up a minor. The downside being that if she gets called for a major (1 minute of penalty time, and she still has 3 minors), or in the process of picking up her fourth minor she also is awarded a major (2 minutes of penalty time, no minors). Obviously both are horrible situations to put a potential jammer into, so it's more beneficial to set them up to earn the minor intentionally (plus, it's something you have control over versus something you don't).

The most common penalties for jammers are Cutting (passing a skater while out of bounds) and Backblocking (making contact with an illegal target zone - the back). 

Cutting penalties will often occur in and around the turns, and usually on the inside of the track. This is because of a player's momentum and physics pulling her on the track. A player on the inside of the track has a much shorter path than those on the track or toward the outside.

It's very easy for a player to step off the track (to the inside), travel a short distance and accidentally re-enter the track ahead of one skater (generally a minor) or more skaters (a major, which is also called if the player Cuts the foremost, in-play blocker).

On the outside, Cuts generally are incurred because after being hit out of bounds, a skater steps back on the track ahead of a player that was beside her. Color does not have any bearing on the Cut, as the definition is player, not opposing team member. A red skater would incur the same penalty by cutting a another player no matter which team they play for (red or blue). Two players (indifferent to which team) or the foremost, in-play player becomes a major.

In the course of a game, avoiding these types of penalties remains incredibly important. It's important to practice these scenarios before the game. If you are a jammer who incessantly earns Cut penalties in the course of the bout practice the following:
1.) Watch your feet, when you near the track boundaries: If one foot goes out and you are endanger of cutting, get both feet out of bounds. Numerous cut penalties can happen because a skater drags a foot out of bounds, cuts a player and then brings that foot in-bounds. When you get one foot back in legally, bring both feet in as quickly as possible. (You are not considered back in play until both feet come back on the track, however you may incur skating out of bound penalties and you are legal to hit if you have one foot in play).
2.) Practice one-foot glides near the track boundaries: Try to hold the line as close as possible without putting your free foot (the one in the air) out of bounds. Practice moving your free foot around your body to work on your balance. Practice one-foot glides on both feets (sorry, personal joke) on the inside track boundary, and then on the outside track boundary.
3.) Work on your stops: T-stops, Snowplows, Sucide/Tomahawk stops, Hockey stops, One-foot hockey stops. On the inside it's important to work on the fastest stops possible -- Suicide stops and hockey stops. Since you are moving along a faster path than the in-bound skaters, you must utilize a faster stop. Simply trying to T-stop through a cut won't slow you down fast enough to prevent you from re-entering the track illegally. Likewise, if someone knocked you out of bounds on the outside and they're slowing down trying to force a cut penalty on you (you want to slow down or stop faster than they are so that you can re-enter behind them).
4.) Don't sacrifice your momentum if you don't have to: Just in the way that starting from a dead stop from a fall takes more energy than using your momentum to assist you getting up, so to avoiding a cut penalty by utilizing your momentum is easier than coming to a dead stop. I always encourage our girls to keep your feet moving because it takes more energy to start moving them again, than if they're already moving. Suicide and hockey stops are great for avoiding the cut, but you don't want to actually "stop." You are actually looking to change the direction of your momentum, to get back on the track legally. If the stops elude you right away, instead practice stepping out of bounds and then turning sharply in a tight circle to re-enter slightly behind the spot you exited. If you step out on the inside, you'll turn counter clockwise. If you step out on the outside, you'll turn clockwise. BE AWARE of other skaters and referees in the out-of-bounds areas, as making contact with them can create penalty situations. By turning sharply you avoid accidentally stepping back into play illegally; force yourself to come back into play behind your exit point; and you utilize your momentum by keeping your speed up to pass a slowed/stopped opposing skater.

To avoid Backblocking calls, a skater should learn to control her speed. A jammer who enters the pack at full speed must have a sharper focus and more agility to maneuver through a pack at 100 percent. Also objects in motion tend to stay in motion (Thank you, Isaac Newton), so if a fast moving jammer is hit out of bounds, she'll generally continue moving in that direction. By controlling her speed, a jammer can engage the pack without slamming in the back of an opposing player. Likewise, one of her teammates can eat a backblock from their jammer to check her speed, but I haven't seen that used too effectively to date. The above mentioned stops can be practiced, particularly the snowplow. Even if you practice on a slick floor, try and work on your snowplows and hockey stops, and force yourself to stop at shorter and shorter distances. A good jammer can go from 80 percent to nearly a dead stop in minimal distance. But don't try doing so until you are really comfortable with snowplows, as they can put a tremendous stress on groin and thigh muscles, and ankle strength. Working on lateral movement can also help avoid Backblocking calls, but a skater must move more than her upper body. A potential jammer wants to be able to move her hips to and around other skaters without losing balance (as this will also enable a legal pass on opposing skaters).

Most of these skills will help blockers avoid these penalties as well. My focus on the jammer is because of their direct relation to the score, so it makes for an easy example.

Your jammer avoiding penalties will have an impact on the amount of points they are able to score. You can't score points sitting in the penalty box. Same holds true for the opposing team and their jammer

I constantly see WFTDA jammers letting their team know how many minors she has and the other jammer has. If the opposing jammer has three minors, what is the best course of action?
Do you
a) give her a fist bump for being ballsy?
b) intentionally block your own jammer to give opposing jammer lead, because she's just that awesome?
c) want the opposing jammer to pick up a fourth minor?

If you answered "a" or "b" to that question, you obviously have too much fun just playing derby. If you answered "c," you are correct. It's easier to focus on getting your jammer through the pack if you aren't worrying about the opposing jammer. By getting her to pick up that key fourth minor, she's going to the box. In the course of forcing a fourth minor on her, she picks up a major even better. If she manages to make it out of that jam without incurring any penalty, she will likely try an intentionally pick up her fourth minor later (which will be a minute she's not on the floor or jamming).

By forcing a fourth minor on the opposing jammer, she loses the ability to earn lead jammer, calling the jam if she does earn lead or earn points during her penalty time.

If an opposing player has three minors, it does very little good to hope she magically earns that fourth. You have to actively force her to take that minor.

This can happen by convincing her to take an Illegal procedure penalty (the Jedi mind trick), forcing a Cut or forcing a Backblock. Forcing an opposing player to take a minor penalty is easier than a major, but again the same principle works: A fourth minor has the same impact as a major, i.e. a trip to the box. 

To force a major penalty, you will have to get an opponent to commit a pretty big error. If she cuts two or more players, or Backblocks someone hard enough that they completely lose their position or fall down, the opponent will incur a major.

To practice forcing cuts, I usually set players up in pairs in which one player leans/pushes/hits her partner out of bounds, tries to slow down and force the cut. This is good practice for both players in forcing and avoiding the cuts. The next step up is to set players up in trios, in which two skaters pair up to force a cut on the third player -- remember, two skaters is equal to a major.

Practicing Backblocks is a little more dangerous, particularly with newer skaters so it's not something I often condone. You can essentially perform any booty-blocking drills you want, but with the added goal of forcing a Backblocking call. I recommend using your league refs or veteran skaters who know their Backblocking rules. Remember, an opposing skater needs to earn major advantage (position) for the call to warrant a major penalty.

Consider this the first part in what will be a multi-part blog. I'd like to take a blog to focus a little more on managing penalties for blockers, and how important it is to manage penalties from a line coach standpoint.