Top 5: Things NOT to Say to an IM Official

If working for Northeastern Intramural Sports has taught me anything it has taught me how to take a whole lot of abuse from peers. As a result of that abuse I have come to look at the role of a referee in a new light as well as speculate as to how smart students who attend NU really are. What follows are 5 things you should never say to an IM official unless you are A) looking to make yourself look like an idiot or B) looking to get yourself banned from IM Sports and the Marino Center.


5. He hit me first!

Unfortunately I did not see him hit you first, if I had he would also have a penalty. And no I am not going to take your word for it, if I did that I would be calling a "penalty" on someone every 30 seconds. Besides that, did your mother never teach you about turning the other cheek and being the better person? Or maybe you learned about proportional responses? Sort of along the lines of being pushed to the ground and then turning around and slugging the guy in the face, I think that was not a proportional response on your part.

On top of that I have one set of eyes and unfortunately they both have to look in the same direction at all times. So yes I miss calls occasionally, it happens, get over it, losing a IM dodgeball game should not be up there with the murder of a family member.


4. Have you played Hockey before?

I love answering this question because in fact as a Hockey ref I have played hockey once or twice in my life (wowzers!), to be specific I have been skating since I was 2 and been playing Hockey since I was 4, so what's your next question Mr. Lipton? Do I know how to blow a whistle? Do I know how to lace up my skates properly? Do I sleep at night? Am I blind? I have a question for you: can you read? In particular the part of the rules where it says this is a "non-contact league". I don't care how hockey is played in the NHL because believe it or not this isn't the NHL and you aren't Sidney Fucking Crosby so stop whining like him and serve your two fucking minutes.

3. Shut the #%&@ Up! (and all manner of swearing thrown in my direction)

This one puzzles me; why would someone think it is all right to verbally abuse the person who controls their playing eligibility? It's liking bitching to a cop for a speeding ticket, what do you want a busted tailight and reckless driving tacked on? I can throw you out of this game for looking at me the wrong way (sadly I haven't found a pair of IM eyes I couldn't stare down) and no one from my boss to the President of the University would fault me for it. But yet you think it's ok to tell me to go fuck myself and how to do it? Do I look like the dumbest guy in the world to you? On second thought don't answer that question, just be quiet.

2. What's your name?

What are you going to do with my name? Complain to my boss about me? He likes me and he doesn't like you. More importantly he doesn't like people questioning the calls of his officials. So what on God's green earth do you think he is going to say to you, do you think he is going to fire me because my interpretation of a hooking penalty is a bit different then yours? I think not.

1. You want to fight outside after this is over?
This isn't as much of something not to say to a referee as much as it is a fear I have. I am waiting for the day when I'm walking down the street, ordering a beer at a bar, or grabbing a box of Cheeze-Its from the shelf at Shaws and suddenly someone blindsides me with their fist. And all that because they couldn't understand why I threw them out of a game for jumping over the boards and playing the role of Killer from Slapshot. It's going to happen, maybe not tomorrow and maybe not next year, but someday it is going to happen.


Just keep the audible noises from your throat to a minimum and behave like the decent human being your mother and father brought you up to be. That's all we ask.

A Brief (but Lethal) History of Broomball

Broomball is a very large part of my life, not necessarily a part of my life that I particularly care about, but a large part all the same. I decided that you the readers should know a little more about what I spend most of my weeknights doing.

Pertaining to the NU version, Broomball is an absurd game that places many ill-footed individuals on a slippery surface, only to have them run willy nilly, this way or that way. The result is many a bruised body and ego.

Though all in all the results are never much worse than something that can be treated with a band aid or an ice pack. Never are they fatal.

But that has not always been the case, back in the days of yore when the game was known as Knattleikr to Icelanders, it was not uncommon for a Viking or two to die during game play. These ancient Broomball matches were usually played between whole villages and were known to last for up to 14 days.. Writer Hord Grimkellson once witnessed a game between Strand and Botn in which "before dusk, six of the Strand players lay dead, though none on the Botn side."

Now that is a version of Broomball I would be happy to officiate.

The Grumbling Effects of Hurricane Underling

Because of dinner at the Top of the Hub Restaurant (thanks to a $250 gift card from Katy's boss) and a trip to the Symphony (which we left early because we were falling asleep) we got to dress up yesterday and decided to test out Katy's photo equipment one last time (which resulted in that finger pointing outwards from your screen) before we head to Egypt (yes I'm going to Egypt next week). As a result of this and work (Borders and Broomball the past two days) our apartment looks like this:


(Warning: For all of you who have visited this apartment and remarked on how clean it looks, this may come as a bit of a shock to you. All those with heart conditions, avert your eyes)



And because we are going to see M. Ward tonight (at the Somerville Theater), and I have work Thursday and Friday one should not expect this to start looking cleaner any time soon. So if you thought about breaking in and stealing something I suggest you turn on the lights first.

Of inner city lakes, beer and Eric Lindros

I have said it before and I will say it again, I should have gone to school in Florida.

I know you people in Alaska, Minnesota, Canada, and Siberia (Scandinavia your standard of living is too high to complain) experience terribly cold winters, and I am sorry for that but you have nothing on New England weather. We may not get many below zero days as you do but in all do respect 33 degrees and sleeting is the worst experience in the world.

Yesterday started out as a decent winter day, high 20s and snowing. I'm ok with that, because snow is not wet, unless you get it inside your clothing. Of course the day didn't stay that way, not in land of 75 degree days in January! Oh no, because when I emerged from Spanish it was sleeting! I'm fine with the sleet itself, so what if I get soaked to the bone but at the same time I'm turning blue with cold, it's really the lakes that develop along the sides of each street. Lakes varying from 1 inch to 1 foot deep and because of all the icebergs floating on the surface you have no idea how deep they are until your leg is halfway submerged.

Needless to say the Odyssey back home, back to NEU, and then back home again was fairly taxing. On the journey I went through two coats, a pair of gloves, countless socks, two sweatshirts, and a pair of pants. Terrible right? Couldn't possibly get worse right?

Wrong!

Because that is only half of why days like yesterday are terrible. Days like yesterday include above freezing temperatures and rain which leads to the washing away of all the salt laid down throughout the course of the day. Then, as night arrives, the temperatures drop below freezing and because of the non-existent salt every surface freezes over. Including the sidewalk in front of my apartment.

Well as all of you know I supervise Broomball most nights during the week. This requires me to leave my apartment at about 9:30 PM.

Leave at precisely 9:30 PM I did just that, and about 9:31 PM I found myself lying flat on my back staring up at some guy with a case of beer in his hand saying "are you all right?"

Now this has happened only once before in my life (staring up from my back into someones face wondering how I got myself into such a predicament), and that is when I was 6. What happened? Let's just say there is a reason why at the YMCA pool (and most pools for that matter) they have signs that say RUNNING IS NOT PERMITTED.

Of course this time I got right up, made a few jokes with the guy about the ice and how maybe I should go get a case of beer and call in. Then I walked (carefully) down to Marino and made light of what happening, worked and then went home to sleep.

I'm starting to think that that last part was probably not a smart idea, because ever since the fall my head has been hurting quite a bit and I don't distinctly remember falling last night (just the lying on my back). Which would lead me to believe that I have a concussion, albeit probably a very minor one (still you shouldn't sleep after a concussion). If that was indeed a concussion like I think it was that would bring my total concussion total up to 5 (that being said only one two were severe in my opinion and two, including the one last night, are suspect).

In order they are:

- Pool incident (severe)
- Falling off of a 6 foot wall and slamming my head against the side walk and left me puking all night
- Being hit so hard into the boards in hockey that I blacked out for a few seconds (severe)
- Passing out while going pee in my upstairs bathroom, which resulted in me waking up with a pulsating skull from my head striking the toilet. The fainting occurred because I was immobile for about 2 hours or so watching Man on Fire (great movie) and then suddenly standing up and running up the stairs to go the bathroom.
- Finally last nights fall.

I'm a regular Eric Lindros aren't I?

That being said if I end up being a vegetable thanks to all my concussions New England weather can be partially to blame and can expect a phone call from my lawyer.

It's Cold Out

You may or may not have noticed but it's cold outside today, 14 F at this very moment to be exact (well as exact as weather.com can be, if its not exact blame them, or blame me if you like) and I expect it to be colder around 12:30 AM. You might be asking why it is I care how cold it will be at a time past midnight, and that would be a good question because I don't enjoy being out in single digits past midnight, not really something I enjoy doing. Something I enjoy doing at that hour is being asleep in my nice warm bed, that and eating mac and cheese, but I could really do that at any time, ay or night. Yet I am going to be doing as much tonight (or tomorrow morning for you calendar sticklers out there, you know who you are) because of a certain promotion I accepted that I am starting to think isn't really worth it if it entails having to walk the opposite direction from my apartment after work in frigid temperatures. But I will persevere tonight, because one will do anything to watch a bunch of Northeastern students play broomball.

That last sentence was a bold faced lie, I actually could go the rest of my life without watching a single broomball game and in the end that probably would still be too much broomball in my life.




PS Merlin Mann agrees with my sock theory. And Merlin if you are reading this thank you for bringing the theory to the GTD community.

Being the Boss Man

I have a confession to make; I like being the boss, I really do.

I know this blog is supposed to be about how I serve the man and do not have a sliver of autonomy anywhere in my working life, well that was true, then I got promoted.

Though I got promoted in the fall last night it all came to a head. Part of my promotion is that I am the “New Hires Coordinator” which means any problem that the 15-20 new kids we hired have, it is my responsibility to deal with it. Translation: Kevin has this weird mentor, boss type image in the eyes of these impressionable young men and women.

As interesting as that new position is it is not nearly as fun as being told by my boss that I am “too hands on” as a hockey/broomball supervisor. Translation: Kevin is doing a lot of delegating from the bench this semester. This of course went flawlessly last night. Everyone I told to do something, did it and with smiles on their faces. Though that may have been because of the four new people they all got to show up and make fun of, but we’ll see how it goes this evening.

This whole “Boss” thing is still quite new to me, and something I will keep you updated on as it progresses.

When Girls Cry

I must admit I have made girls cry before, but usually it's because they were close to me. At least in all the cases I know of, I knew their name and we had been acquaintances for more than an hour. That was not the case on Tuesday.

I may or may not have mentioned this before but in addition to working for the BRA and at Borders I work as an Intramural Referee for Northeastern (I will post more about this some day) and have done so for over a year now. Tuesday was the finals for both Hockey and Broomball (a sport which deserves its own post in the future) which is always a fairly nerve racking shift because adrenaline is high and people really want that Championship T-Shirt (the lengths they go to for a shirt).

On this day I am tasked as supervisor (yeah I'm not much of an Underling at this job, oops) to collect all the IDs. Well as it happens a girl meekly comes up to me as I am collecting Husky IDs and checking off their names on the rosters and she says;

Girl: "Is there anyway I can play without my ID, I lost it today and didn't have a chance to get a new one"

Me: "I'm sorry but it is University policy that all players must turn in a NU ID in order to play"

To this she starts to tear up and I'm just standing there shouting on the inside "Oh god please please please please don't cry!"

But she does.

A lot.....

And I don't know what to say, she cannot play, it is University policy, there is nothing I can do short of something getting me fired. And I understand why she can't, there is too much liability at stake for us to let her play. I feel like shit, but rules are rules. The worst part about it was that I knew she had been thinking about it from the moment she couldn't find her ID. She had been dreading the moment when she would walk up to the man with IDs (in this case it was me) and ask if she could still play. Now her mind was probably about 95% sure that she couldn't play but there was probably 5% that thought that maybe she would get someone to fudge the rules and let it slide, which is why she still came to the game and asked if she could play. It is because of that 5% that she didn't cry until the moment when I converted that 5% of hope into 5% of despair (Just call me the destroyer of hope, the Anti-Obama). I made her cry. Without me there would have been no crying that day. That is how I interpretted that situation.

Northeastern, where you spend $40,000 to make girls cry!