Fledgling Flamingo discovers the importance of paperwork - Penalty Tracking + HNSO

Last weekend I NSO-ed at my first ever away game down in Bedford!  It was also my first ever time Penalty Tracking, and boy was it a baptism by fire...

Here I am, concentrating hard...

By now I'm reasonably happy in the penalty box, but for this game our Head NSO realised we didn't have all the expertise we needed, so I trained up as a penalty tracker/wrangler/inside whiteboard person.   For clarification, all three of those positions do the same job, just for different reasons:

• The Penalty Tracker writes down the penalty and jam number for each skater on the paperwork.  This ends up in the official game stats.
• The Inside Whiteboard person writes down the penalty on - surprise surprise - a big whiteboard in the centre of the track.  This enables the refs and team coaches to see what the skaters have done, and if any of them are likely to foul out soon.  It is also visible to the Penalty Box Manager, for that same reason.  If a skater has committed 6 penalties she is described as "Hot", and at 7 penalties she will be kept in the box until the end of that jam, and then asked to leave the game.
• The Penalty Wrangler is like a Penalty Tracker, but less stationary.  They get to follow the refs round the track and are therefore usually in a better position to pick up any penalties that the other two don't spot or hear.  They are essentially your mop-up person.

First Game

So how did I find it?  Weeeeellll...
The first game was certainly interesting *raised eyebrow*.  We were missing a Wrangler, and tracking a live game, in an echoey sports hall, with nearly thirty players yelling from the track and sidelines, plus a crowd, plus at least six refs to watch at once is very different from watching a casual private scrim with a much smaller ref team.

The first game had a very fast learning curve for me in terms of what to watch and when.  We missed quite a few penalties to start with, often seeing the skater numbers as they left track but missing their offence.  There is a chance to check in with the refs between jams, and this is expected e.g. because sometimes they might give a signal with their back to you so you can't see it, but often we were just missing them because of the chaos!  They knew that I was new and that we were short a Wrangler, but I still felt a bit bad for bothering them as often as I did.  We managed it somehow, but it was quite a scramble at times.

Second Game

I'm a quite a quick learner when I'm allowed to be hands-on, and by the second game I'd more or less got the hang of it.  I was much more on the ball, spotting the majority of the penalties, and only needed a handful for clarifications from the refs throughout the game.  Way happier with my performance, to the point where I'd definitely volunteer myself to do it again.

I'm glad this was the case because we had some trouble between games and I didn't want to add any undue stress to the officials team.  Our Head NSO hadn't brought all the right paperwork, and what we did have wasn't pre-prepared (didn't have the skater rosters already written on it).  One of the refs, already tired after officiating the first game, had to sit down and sort it all out.  She knows who she is - You were a real trooper and saved everybody's butts.  Thank you.  I spent most of my break running round collecting skater numbers to put on the whiteboard, although there was just time to grab a slice of cake.

I suppose the good thing to come out of this was that I now vividly understand the importance of an HNSO with a little organisational nowse.  If you're ever in that position, you need to KNOW and BRING with you:

• A list of the volunteers you have, and what NSO position they will be in for games 1 and 2.  Each team playing should be fielding you NSOs.
• The skater roster (skaters that will be playing in the games) - their names and numbers.  Again, each team should know this in advance - if in doubt, hunt down the bench managers and ask them.
• Game 1 paperwork, with the skater numbers filled in beforehand.
• Game 2 paperwork, with the skater numbers filled in beforehand.   Keep the two sets separate, and maybe even put them in their own folders.

It won't take long to do, and most of it is just knowing how to use a printer!  I've actually applied to be Deputy to our home team HNSO now, just based on that new understanding of how vital it is to have that structure of roles behind a game.

Proud moments: 

• Every time I recorded penalty based on the hand signal alone.  I did not hear most of the penalties being called, but every time I caught a hand signal I knew what it meant.  All that dancing paid off!
• When I remembered to run over to the penalty box and pronounce a skater as "Hot" to the Box Manager and Head Ref.

Top Tracker Tips:

• Don't watch the game, watch the refs.  I know it's hard, because the pack is more dynamic and catches the attention, but you want half an eye on each ref in front of you AT ALL TIMES.  And yes I know that can be three and a half eyes.  Don't worry, you will see the game, but don't let your main focus rest on it.
• You can ignore the Jammer Refs for the majority of the time (sorry JRs!).  Once the jammer clears the pack and skates out of the engagement zone, they are seriously unlikely to penalty so let them and their ref skate out of your eyeline.  FOCUS ON YOUR PACK REFS.  Learn who they are, learn their names if you can.  That way, if you miss the hand signal you know who to ask for it.

Filling in the Tracker paperwork is pretty simple, and doing a good job mainly comes down to being constantly aware of where your pack refs are, and knowing all the hand signals off by heart.  The more you do, the quicker you'll get at spotting and recording all that vital info.