Violenteering

Last night I got back to helping out with my friend's roller derby practice. Some time ago, I helped run the penalty box in a practice game and then a scrimmage. I found that interesting and challenging. I resolved to do more when I could, but my schedule mostly did not cooperate. This year things have changed, and I'm more free to join in the roller derby. I was to be a part of a real game last week, but my birthday interfered.

Last night though, the stars aligned and I went to practice. I assumed I would be there to build on the experience I'd gained with the penalty box. It was not to be. Instead, I was assigned the more important task of timing jams. The game consists of these jams, which can run up to two minutes long, but which can also be cut short for different reasons. I had been afraid to take on the job before, but there was no choice this time, as they don't bother with penalty box timers if there is a shortage of people.

I found mainly that being a jam timer is not so hard, really. You time the game, simultaneously timing the jams, the time between the jams, the timeouts and the other stoppages. You don't have to worry much about the game timer, so there's mainly just the one stopwatch that gets a ton of action. It's kind of neat being responsible for each jam getting going. It's like waving the flag for a stock car race over and over.

I did make some mistakes, but it seemed to me that there were very few. I could evidently have been louder (which is not usually a problem for me) in calling out the five second warning before jams, and I was mistaken about some of the rules and points of protocol which govern the conduct of the jam timer, but in general I thought I did better than I had with the penalty box, which may in fact be the harder job in addition to being the one more easily dispensed with. I don't think I'll mind too much doing it again, but the odds are I'll get some new and different job. It'll be interesting either way.