Only you can prevent forest fires

A person who I know as both ref and skater, fairly new to both but who I have found to be consistently pleasant and receptive to feedback, recently made some assertions about the state of roller derby that have been described as uninformed, poorly argued, ill-conceived, and generally inappropriate.

This is unfortunate.

An observer who has earned, through years of hard work, the respect of many skaters and officials (including me) felt the situation was so egregiously bad that the original orator should be called out by name as an unredeemable douchebag.

This, too, is unfortunate, though I think it was handled with as much care and introspection as possible.

Reactions were varied. Most surprising to me were a couple of other people who seemed very eager to jump on the "this guy's a douchebag" bandwagon, even reading things into his statements that I don't see (more on this in a later post).

Ultimately, this bothered me more than the actual situation or the calling-out, but I think I did a poor job expressing that. Unredeemable douchebag is an extraordinary claim, and thus it requires extraordinary evidence before we should agree with it, even if we generally trust the source.

 

To be honest, I'm still digesting the situation. I cannot ignore the claim of douchebaggery, because it comes from a reliable source, but I also have a hard time accepting it when it's so counter to my own experience. I like to think that if I were one of the others, hearing things second-hand about someone I don't know, I'd still be as skeptical. It's hard to say.

In the meantime, it looks like a good time to remind folks about professionalism in officiating. If everyone had stuck to these simple tips, I wouldn't have felt compelled to stay up late rambling at you.

1. Don't be a douchebag.
2. Shut your pie hole.
3. Are you an obnoxious drunk? The afterparty isn't for you. Go home and hang out with a couple close friends (they can be skaters or officials or whatever) and drink there.
4. No, seriously, zip it.
5. Any official you don't know can be assumed to have earned your professional courtesy. Negative feedback is (usually) best done in private when everyone's sober, or at least attempted that way before going public. Drunkenness is no excuse for being a douchebag, of course, but we are always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, one time, that no one previously took the time to explain tips 1 through 4 above.
6. You are also entitled to professional courtesy, but only to the extent you give it to others.

7. ¡Silencio, por favor!
8. Have you ever noticed there are so many clever little aphorisms that cast a favorable light on keeping one's mouth closed and none that encourage talking? There's a reason for that.
9. That reason is "put a sock in it."
10. We are all in this together, to have fun advancing a sport that we enjoy. It's not perfect, and everybody knows that. We—all of us—are invited to make it better. Well-reasoned written arguments with concrete suggestions on how to improve things can be given serious consideration; drunken rants cannot.

One last note (which I hope is obvious): you are always invited to discuss things here, but if you know who I'm talking about (even/especially if it's you), or the substance of the rant, keep those data to yourself. That's not what this post is about. It doesn't matter what stupid thing was said to whom by whomever else, only that we should discourage our peers both from saying stupid things and from reacting stupidly when they're said anyway, and that we do so most effectively by examining ourselves and setting a good example.

Some Thoughts About NSOing (guest post)

We encourage guest posts here at The Third Team, and that includes anonymous posts as well. In the interest of sparking discussion and thought about NSOs and NSOing, we're posting this recent anonymous submission. -- Anne

Hi, my name is ***** and I am an NSO.

I've been involved with roller derby for more than a year now strictly as an NSO. I got into derby as an official because I genuinely enjoy the game, but chose not to skate.

Being a big sports fan, I knew what being an official meant. All of the ire, none of the glory, and I'm fine with that. That I would be nigh invisible if I did my job right, and completely exposed if I did my job wrong, and I'm fine with that.

"It's so hard to not cheer."

I hear this excuse...a lot, and it is unacceptable. Referees and NSOs do their level best to be seen as impartial facilitators. I was at a bout recently and saw two NSOs visibly cheering. One was an outside whiteboard and one was a scorekeeper. Again, this is NOT acceptable.

Look at the major sports. There is already a perception that certain referees, umpires, and judges (in tennis) are biased. A better example being the Olympics and number of incidents of biased judges. What do you think would happen if they were actively cheering for one side over the other?

I understand that in many bouts, NSOs are staffed by injured skaters, rookie skaters, derby widows, etc and are taught their jobs on the fly. I think what gets lost in that process that is the understanding that even though this may be the only instance of performing an NSO position, that you're an official for the duration of that bout or bouts. There is nothing wrong with wanting your league or team to win, but under no circumstances should you be visibly cheering or reacting. All it takes is an opposing skater or coach to see that, inform a referee, and suddenly a protest or grievance is filed because YOU found it too hard to "not cheer."

"You're an NSO, you don't skate? What do you do?"

I hear this one a lot as well, and it can be discouraging. When I get this question I give a brief summary as it relates to what is happening on the track, and I usually get a "Oh, I didn't know that" as a response and I feel a little good about myself.

If you're an NSO, you're not going to get pictures taken of you, no one is going to ask for your autograph, and the chances are pretty good that no one will even remember you before or after the bout even if you have introduced yourself multiple times, and you need to be okay with that.

I know I am.

Things We Learned* at ECDX 2012

*or, at least, were reminded of

Reflections on another amazing weekend in Feasterville, by the whole gang here at The Third Team:

• 4pm on Friday is the worst possible time to try to get from Connecticut to New Jersey. Fuck you, Tappan Zee Bridge. - Bender
  My total tolls for this trip back and forth from MA? $6, both for bridges ($1 one way, $5 over the Tap on the way home). Let me recommend traveling through scenic New Hope, PA (plus then you can see the Honey Badger scuplture). - Anne
• Hail can dent sheet metal.
• The womens bathrooms pretty much always have a line and smell bad. The mens rooms, less so. Maybe someone wasn't drinking enough water. Maybe there are just fewer dudes at the event. ProTip: check the Rink 1 bathrooms, they're often easier to get into and generally cleaner.
• No, seriously, drink more water. Even if there's a line at the fountain.
• Rita's Water Ice is amazeballs.
• When running an Inside Whiteboard, bring knee pads so you don't destroy your legs doing squats over and over.
• Rink 1 is not Outer Mongolia. It's disproportionately fun, in fact. Spend some time there. You're allowed to volunteer for unstaffed shifts there, too.
• Sweaty pads dry out pretty quickly when left to bake a little in the sun inside your car.
• Failure to take advantage of the healthy food options should get you blacklisted. Seriously, people, there's good food on-site. Not every tournament can say that.
• There's a Wegmans grocery store about 20 minutes away in Warrington, a straight shot down Street Road. Great place to pick up last-minute supplies like Clif bars, Gatorade, or bagels for your hotel room so you don't have to buy breakfast.
• No matter the job, one of the most important qualities of a good official is adaptability.
• Roomshare with other officials. It's fun, you can talk shop (even when one of your roommates starts the day with a rules question before he even gets out of bed and you're not even sure if he's talking in his sleep or not).
• This happened in New York. https://ssl.panoramio.com/photo/62408600
• I really need to get over to Europe to see the explosively growing derby scene over there first-hand. And to hang out with the amazing officials I keep meeting who are from over there.
• If you're used to New England Dunkin Donuts, Wawa may be a better choice in Philly when you need some coffee and food on the way in. Still, get there earlier than you think you need to. - Ian
  On the other hand, there's a DD between the Holiday Inn and Sleep Inn that's open 24 hours and rarely has a line at 7:30am. Unless it's full of derby people. - Bender
• Sunday morning B&W scrimmage is probably the most consistently fun thing I have ever worked at ECDX.
• When feeling grouchy and/or overtired, blast "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder. Universal pick-me-up. Never fails.

Picking a helmet for derby

About a month ago, I took my second or third hard spill on concrete this season. After the game I was testing the protective lining on my helmet (a Bern Macon Hard Hat) and noticed that the inner liner was way more squishy than it's supposed to be, especially around where I'd fallen and hit my head. So it was time to replace the helmet.

Picking a derby helmet is a tough thing to do, because no one really makes helmets specifically for derby. There are lots of different helmet certifications, but which one is actually most appropriate for derby? There's no simple answer, but here's some of the information I've collected on helmets, which I hope you find useful for making your own decision. By the way, a great starting point for research on helmets is the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, who maintain an excellent website with everything you ever wanted to know about bicycle helmets and the associated standards.

A single-impact helmet is designed to destroy itself in the process of absorbing an impact. Bicycle helmets are the best example of this. If you fall off a bike and hit your head, your helmet becomes useless. On the plus side, these helmets are very very good at absorbing the force of that one impact. On the down side, that's pretty useless for derby, because if you fall down, you're going to need to get up and keep skating (whether you're a referee or a player). The U.S. CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) publishes a certification standard that, by law, everything sold as a "bicycle helmet" in the U.S. must adhere to. But you absolutely should not use a bicycle helmet for derby.

Multiple-impact helmets are, perhaps obviously, designed to absorb the impact of a single hit and "bounce back" so that they are still able to protect the wearer from further impacts. No multiple-impact helmet is going to be able to protect as well as a single-impact helmet, but a helmet designed to protect against multiple impacts will last longer (and doesn't have to be replaced as soon as you fall). Helmets designed for skateboarding are usually multiple-impact, and sometimes (but are not required to) adhere to the ASTM F1492 testing standard. The major difference in testing is that F1492 helmets are tested with a series of one-meter drops. The CPSC single-impact standard uses a two-meter drop. It still seems kind of weird to me to imply that skateboarders only fall a little more than three feet before their head hits the ground, since most people are at least five feet tall, but that's what the standard tests.

For a long time now, the most popular helmets I've seen on derby skaters and officials are skateboard (or "extreme sports") helmets: the Triple8 Brainsaver, the aforementioned Bern Macon, or its visor-enhanced brother the Watts. But none of those helmets comes with any sort of certification. (This is why Bern calls them 'Hard Hats', which I think is a nice piece of truth-in-advertising.) Does that mean they're bad helmets and won't protect you? Not at all; I believe that these companies would not be able to stay in business if they made helmets that weren't any good. Plenty of people use these helmets for derby and like them.

Recently though I've been seeing a new trend in derby: wearing helmets designed for ice hockey. Hockey helmets conform to the ASTM F1045 testing standard, which involves multiple drops at different temperatures with an instrumented headform inside to measure the amount of force transferred through the helmet. It also tests the strength of the chinstrap, which I think is an often-overlooked aspect of helmet safety. (An ill-fitting chinstrap, or one that's stretched out, means that the helmet has a higher chance of slipping out of place during a fall.) When doing equipment checks on skaters, I've noticed that hockey helmets seem to fit more closely to the head, and don't have as many problems with the chinstrap being not tight enough. They also cover more of the head, which is potentially useful. And of course they're designed to absorb multiple impacts, so they're good for derby in that regard.

So when I needed to replace my helmet, I asked around. A number of the skaters for the CT Rollergirls and Connecticut Death Quads have recently started using the Cascade M11. This helmet was designed in the past couple of years to take into account modern research on concussions and concussion prevention. It doesn't come cheap: $120 retail, or $140 if you buy from a hockey supply house that only stocks the ones with the face cages like I did. I've had it for a couple of weeks now and took it to Spring Roll, so here's some notes on my experience so far:

Likes: Adjustable fit, thanks to a ratchet along the back of the helmet. Goes on easy when the ratchet is open, tightens as snugly as I want it to. I have a relatively large head and a size L fits okay. It was easy to modify: I didn't want the ear shields or the face cage, but it only took me about 15 minutes with a Phillips-head screwdriver to take them off. When it's on, it's on. It doesn't slip or slide off my head no matter what I do, even if the chinstrap isn't buckled (which I obviously don't recommend). It covers more of the back of my head than the Macon did. And when you're moving, the extra ventilation is great.

Dislikes: The padding does not absorb ANY sweat at all. If you're used to a helmet with a soft foam liner, this will be a shock to you. I wear a head sleeve anyway which does the job. The padding itself feels like it's very loosely attached to the helmet shell. I think this is supposed to be a design feature but it feels a little strange when I'm wiping the sweat out of it after a scrimmage. The helmet is rather expensive, but I hope that gets amortized over several years as the documentation implies that it will. The chinstrap is way too long and gets in the way once it's buckled (easy enough to fix with a good pair of scissors). Did I mention it's expensive?

All in all I've been very happy with it so far. I haven't taken a major spill and head bump yet, although I did roll over my helmet once at Spring Roll, so the jury is still out in that regard. But the fit is very good (although I might get an XL next time) and adjustable, and it just feels like a very solid and protective helmet when I'm wearing it. My one major complaint is the sweat thing, but that's manageable with additional gear (which I already owned).

If you're in the market for a new helmet, you owe it to yourself to take the time to shop around and consider the options. Try not to do what I did, which is to destroy your old helmet a week before a major tournament, and have to go rush out and buy a new one immediately. Shop now while your current helmet still works. Visit a couple of skate shops and/or hockey supply stores and try on different models. See what feels right on your head in terms of protection and fit. Good shops will have people who can talk you through how to tell if a helmet fits you right and how to adjust it so that it does. It doesn't hurt to do the research into the certification standards as well, but unfortunately there isn't really one right answer when it comes to figuring out what the "best" helmet for derby is. Just remember, you only get one brain, and even though the general consensus is that no helmet will ever 100% prevent concussions, that doesn't mean you shouldn't invest in a good one. Of course 'expensive' doesn't always mean 'better', but it's not worth it to save a few bucks just for the sake of saving a few bucks.

In conclusion, a couple of words on helmet maintenance. Proper fit is a significant piece of a helmet's ability to protect you, so make sure that you re-check the fit regularly. Make sure your straps are all in the right place, that the chinstrap hasn't stretched out, and that the sizing buckles are still keeping a good grip on the straps. Inspect the lining and padding regularly. Squish it with your fingers when you first get the helmet so you know what it's "supposed" to feel like. If you ever take a serious fall, make sure you re-inspect the lining after the game. If the padding is damaged, your helmet's ability to protect you is compromised. Finally, helmets have a useful lifetime. The M11 claims to be certified for five years. Most skateboard helmets will last 1-2 years. Replace yours regularly.

A Note from the WFTDA Annual Meeting

The annual meeting of any distributed organization like the WFTDA has two primary purposes: to take advantage of the gathering to conduct as much business and planning as possible (we all hate meetings, but they're usually faster than phone calls and emails for complicated issues), and to energize the membership to go home and do all those things we just talked about. The afterparty is just getting started as I type this, so it's a little early to tell for certain, but I'd say this year's meeting succeeded on both counts.

About the first goal, I can only say that we live in exciting times.

And I want to go have a couple drinks at the party, so instead of trying to inspire you with a huge motivational speech to cover the second (I'm not so good at those anyway), I'm going to leave you with a quick little nugget of wisdom. If you love this sport, put in some effort to make it better. Work on your own skills, and work on building a community of respect and trust.