i mentioned before that a referee I worked with in a dual had a habit of pointing It at the ground. Truly didnt stop play. The last time I wore a finger whistle I got hit in the hand by a deflection and the whistle exploded. I still have them, and will use them when I learn how to skate to do hockey!
9 players on a HS girls team have come up positive for covid. I officiated the boys from that school last week.
I like having three different tones at my fingers. Helps for those of us who always ref on side-by-side fields where the whistles can get confusing.
I've now done two matches with the electronic whistle. Really haven't had an issue with it. I am generally a slow whistle, so haven't had the inadvertent whistle that I'm hearing others say. My biggest issue is what to do with my hand when I call a foul now that I'm not bringing it up to my mouth. Its like an odd combination of jazz hands and thinking I have a laser pointer in my hand.
I'm one section to the right of Herkimer. Most of the conferences opted for spring play. Only two conferences are playing, one of them being the big AA/A conference (Minus two of the better teams). I've got 6 games this season as of now. I'd rather ref deep in the fall in upstate NY as opposed to the March/April season that they are proposing. March is always brutally cold and April is what most people would imagine what March SHOULD be like.
Most school in my area are playing in the fall. There are about 10 schools that have opted out. My assignor doubts that there will be a season in the spring. First off, there are too few schools playing, and secondly, if the season starts in early March like it's supposed to, we will still have feet of snow on the ground and won't be able to play!
The original poll that started this thread indicated that 60% of the referees would be doing less games or none at all. Of the hundreds I know in my area, not a single one stopped doing games and am unaware of anyone who has scaled back their schedule. This coming from a state that is one of the hardest hit in the country with a recent resurgence. At this point, I've had two games postponed this fall the night before because of "possible COVID exposure" with kids/teens in their local school having teachers who had just tested positive. Some leagues have had tried to "spread out" fans across the facility by having the substitute benches on opposite sides of the field as well as their fans . No one will be surprised to learn it's not working. Did a game today where I'm AR1 and only the home bench is on my side but instead of the fans being behind me (as per the league rules), they're standing on the other side with the oppposing team fans and with the other bench players. Now you actually have more folks standing together in a certain area than you would have pre-COVID, defeating the whole purpose.
In my area, we've had... I think 30 games since March. There is an indoor league an hour down the road starting up soon. two nights a week, 3 games each night for 12 weeks. We'll see how that goes. That's it so far though.
my association of HS officials is down nearly 50 members with some simply retiring and others taking the year off. I am doing at least one HS match a day. All Varsity. 90 per cent boys. It’s kinda draining.
I actually had a U19 MLS NEXT game tomorrow (Sunday) and this morning received an email saying it had been canceled due to a positive COVID test, however, the other ages are still playing. I wonder how the teams are doing it. Like are they testing, how often, only certain age groups, or did this kid just happen to go get a regular test and test positive? Are all of the teams required to test? I mean, I’m happy that I’m not going to be exposed to the virus, but it kinda sucks that I probably won’t get that game back.
March 8 was my last match. Don't plan to return until there's a vaccine since we keep having wave after wave.
I haven’t reffed since last March. Our local leagues have started up, but they are operating at about half their normal. My 96 year old mother-in-law lives with us, so I am using extreme caution. High school soccer In Texas is supposed to start in late December, state and local governments allowing. I haven’t made a decision on whether I will join that fun. I suspect we will be shorter on refs than usual.
I'm keep looking at electronic whistles thinking that maybe I could come back soon if I use one of those with a mask.
This is wild speculation on my part, but I'd assume the person involved was symptomatic and got tested, or tested positive after being in close contact with someone who tested positive. I haven't heard of any high schools or youth sports testing everyone as a matter of course. In my area we've had a bunch of HS football games get canceled, but I haven't heard of any other HS sports or youth sports dealing with COVID positives. But that may simply be a result of HS football getting much more press coverage than anything else. HS soccer's regular season will start up here in 4 weeks. I don't know the exact numbers, but I hear we'll have considerably fewer refs than last season.
I love mine. I might not go back to a regular whistle. I'm not an epidemiologist, but all of the data so far suggests transmission during a game is really unlikely. A University of Wisconsin survey actually found a lower incidence of COVID among soccer-playing teams than among the general population. Possibly some issues with how cases are reported, but I feel safer with the kids running past each other and distancing on the sidelines than I do with my wild neighbors.
We had a boys high school team in Kentucky that had to forfeit their first round state tournament game due to contact with a player from an opposing team in the previous game. We also two teams in our region, one boys and one girls, that had to forfeit in the regional semi-finals due to positive tests within the teams.
Here in my neck of the woods (Upstate NY), the HS season started later than normal. The first games were October 1 instead of the end of August. Varsity teams are only playing 12 games this year instead of 16 and junior high teams are only playing 6 instead of 8. Also, there are no playoffs this year. Normally, I get in the low to mid 20s for the number of games in HS. This year I've gotten into the teens. The COVID rules that we have involve players having to wear masks and there is a mandatory mask/hydration break halfway through each half. Of course, we have been told that officials are not to enforce the mask rule. We are only there to enforce rules for the game on the field. It is up to the school administration to enforce the mask rules.
One of our local HS volleyball teams is just finishing its 2nd 14 day quarantine from play. The first was from a tourney before classes started back in August. Multiple HS football teams have taken 14 day quarantines and subsequent forfeits in district play.
Where I do HS, our conference has 48 teams. Several have been quarantined (number is under 10 teams). All incidents of the illness were traced to out of school/sports parties. I have been lucky enough to have refereed 3 of those teams well before the outbreaks.
No HS in Iowa in the Fall. I didn't think I'd do as many games this Fall, but I think I've done more because of fewer refs instead of fewer teams. No games cancelled because of covid, but several because of weather ( snow last weekend and cold this weekend). The coaches didn't bother to cancel the refs either time, so full crews showed up to get paid for the trip.