ctreferee
01 Jan 2008, 02:12 PM
Just got back uesterday from the Tampa Bay Sunbowl, i had a great time and i figured id give everyone a little report.
Wed 26th- Flew down to tampa and stepped out of the airport to find sunny, 80's+ weather, quite the change from CT. I was picked up by a few other guys from my state and we went and checked into our hotel, a Ramada that left a little to be desired unfortunatley. We attened the meeting that night, there were about 130 teams and 94 referees from not only all over the country but groups from Canada, Germany, Belgium, and the UK were also present. We were given the tournament rules and our schedules for all games through the semi-finals.
Thurs 27th- I had U15 boys today at a very nice complex near out hotel. They tried to group the states together at one compelx so that carpooling would be simplified. I worked with a national and a state from CT and another state from Iowa that day. I had two AR's and then my center in the morning, the two AR's went pretty smoothly, a player broke his collarbone in the first game and was unfortunatley done for the tournament. By the time my center arrived at 1:00 the temp had climbed to the low 90's and i could tell my relative lack of cardio activity over the last few months was catching up to me. My game was between teams from virginia and atlanta, it was realtivley one sided, a 4-1 score to the eventual runner up for that age bracket. They started to get a little chippy and i believe that i did a pretty good job, gave a couple talkings too and the game stayed calm. That night we went and saw the lightning get trampled by montreal, there had to be more montreal fans there than lightning.
Fri 28th- U19's today with a few guys from my state and a referee from germany who proved to be a great guy. A word about the germans, they are very, very good referees and they did a great job in all the games i saw them REFEREE. They are however poor AR's owning to the fact that they say they AR very infrequently. Again today i had line-line-middle and my two lines went by relativley calmly with some great play in both games. My middle was a 1-0 game that i feel i let go in the 2nd half. I gave three cards, all deserved but i failed to clean up the little chippy stuff going on in the 2nd half leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
Sat 29th- Two u-19 lines in the morning today. First game was AR1 on the game that would decide which team moved out of group stage, both undefeated, 1 team let up 1 goal the whole tournament, the other none. It was a local team vs a team from up north, it was 1-1 going into the last mintue of play when the local team made a fantastic goal to win the game and move on, one of the best games of the tournament for me. My second game that day was between two already eliminated teams and was really a poor game. After that i went to see a fellow CT referee and poster on this board go an do a great job on a very hard fought 19 boys semifinal, Shane Butler was an AR on the other 19 boys semi on a field over, so i also had to take a few minutes to go watch that. That night we went out to a local sports bar to watch the great pats-giants game. I came back to the hotel that night to find out very late that i had an AR on the 15 boys final the next day!
Sun 30th- CT ended up going very good with final assignements, one of our states got the line on a 19 boys finals, our national got the center on a 17 boys final, and one of our other states and myself both got line on the 15 boys final. My game was at 1 so we went early to watch the 19 boys finals at 11. it was really pretty cool watching the two 19 finals referees as te field were right next to eachother, they were Shane Butler and Mark Geiger, and MLS referee. My final was between a team from virginia and a team from georgia, with a state from cleveland in the center, unfortunatley the players looked exhausted by then and i was a very low key game not requiring much work from any of us, it ended 1-0 on a lazy goal.
That was the end of my tournament and i flew back to CT yesterday morning. Overall it was a great time and it was awsome to meet and work with other referees from all over the country and the world. I will hopefully be back next year, if anyone is interested in going and wants to ask some additional questions feel free to PM me.
Wed 26th- Flew down to tampa and stepped out of the airport to find sunny, 80's+ weather, quite the change from CT. I was picked up by a few other guys from my state and we went and checked into our hotel, a Ramada that left a little to be desired unfortunatley. We attened the meeting that night, there were about 130 teams and 94 referees from not only all over the country but groups from Canada, Germany, Belgium, and the UK were also present. We were given the tournament rules and our schedules for all games through the semi-finals.
Thurs 27th- I had U15 boys today at a very nice complex near out hotel. They tried to group the states together at one compelx so that carpooling would be simplified. I worked with a national and a state from CT and another state from Iowa that day. I had two AR's and then my center in the morning, the two AR's went pretty smoothly, a player broke his collarbone in the first game and was unfortunatley done for the tournament. By the time my center arrived at 1:00 the temp had climbed to the low 90's and i could tell my relative lack of cardio activity over the last few months was catching up to me. My game was between teams from virginia and atlanta, it was realtivley one sided, a 4-1 score to the eventual runner up for that age bracket. They started to get a little chippy and i believe that i did a pretty good job, gave a couple talkings too and the game stayed calm. That night we went and saw the lightning get trampled by montreal, there had to be more montreal fans there than lightning.
Fri 28th- U19's today with a few guys from my state and a referee from germany who proved to be a great guy. A word about the germans, they are very, very good referees and they did a great job in all the games i saw them REFEREE. They are however poor AR's owning to the fact that they say they AR very infrequently. Again today i had line-line-middle and my two lines went by relativley calmly with some great play in both games. My middle was a 1-0 game that i feel i let go in the 2nd half. I gave three cards, all deserved but i failed to clean up the little chippy stuff going on in the 2nd half leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
Sat 29th- Two u-19 lines in the morning today. First game was AR1 on the game that would decide which team moved out of group stage, both undefeated, 1 team let up 1 goal the whole tournament, the other none. It was a local team vs a team from up north, it was 1-1 going into the last mintue of play when the local team made a fantastic goal to win the game and move on, one of the best games of the tournament for me. My second game that day was between two already eliminated teams and was really a poor game. After that i went to see a fellow CT referee and poster on this board go an do a great job on a very hard fought 19 boys semifinal, Shane Butler was an AR on the other 19 boys semi on a field over, so i also had to take a few minutes to go watch that. That night we went out to a local sports bar to watch the great pats-giants game. I came back to the hotel that night to find out very late that i had an AR on the 15 boys final the next day!
Sun 30th- CT ended up going very good with final assignements, one of our states got the line on a 19 boys finals, our national got the center on a 17 boys final, and one of our other states and myself both got line on the 15 boys final. My game was at 1 so we went early to watch the 19 boys finals at 11. it was really pretty cool watching the two 19 finals referees as te field were right next to eachother, they were Shane Butler and Mark Geiger, and MLS referee. My final was between a team from virginia and a team from georgia, with a state from cleveland in the center, unfortunatley the players looked exhausted by then and i was a very low key game not requiring much work from any of us, it ended 1-0 on a lazy goal.
That was the end of my tournament and i flew back to CT yesterday morning. Overall it was a great time and it was awsome to meet and work with other referees from all over the country and the world. I will hopefully be back next year, if anyone is interested in going and wants to ask some additional questions feel free to PM me.