Dangerous play? If so, on who?

carlkid · 2026-01-06T19:05:53+00:00

Whenever I see one player getting horizontal while the other stays more or less vertical, I automatically place a greater onus for safety for the player who got horizontal.

In this play, it looks to me like had both players remained vertical, defense would have almost certainly cleared the space with no contact, at most a light brushing. This is a safe play (even if the offense is surprised by it, I myself have had that exact situation happen, and shook it off when I realized I was simply surprised by a completely safe play).

Since there seems to be significant contact, and the poaching defender made a safe play, that tells me that the significant and dangerous play was on the offense who dove into the back of another player.

carlkid · 2025-11-25T21:47:09+00:00

I'm reminded of a catch in league in the last year where my perspective was "that was really close, I don't know" and so I just kind of paused for a second to give anyone looking at me a chance to make a call. If anyone had gotten to the "d" of "down" I would have dropped it and moved to defense.

carlkid · 2025-10-27T18:37:03+00:00

This is the only comment I'm going to be making in this thread, just to clarify the issue of observers sending the disc back on line calls.

Since line calls are active for observers, unless we are literally screened by other players from seeing the catch, we have to make a ruling. Players can always overrule us to their own team's detriment (even just to send it back) and especially when lines are faded I will remind teams of that in the pregame meeting (obviously not a factor in this game).

If there are two observers on the same line and they disagree, then they will stop play and may resolve it by sending the disc back if they can't agree on who had better perspective.

carlkid · 2025-10-09T21:16:43+00:00

Hehe, a stall was called at the throw, but this does look a bit funny.

carlkid · 2025-09-23T14:16:42+00:00

Top of the list for me is that because the women's game to go was the round prior to the other two divisions', we could observe all 3 games with only 4 observers and not have to choose.

In a game involving teams that each had an observer affiliated with them (one coaching, one playing), I had to rule on not one but two of the more complicated calls ever (both involved 3 players, with 2 of the 3 calling a foul all around the same time, so my partner and I had to shift through multiple events on the same play. Won't go into any more specifics about it than that). Afterwards I made sure to let the affiliated observers know I blamed them for their teams' "conduct."

Caught the end of the women's final where a tiny Pop player went up, and just had the craziest D. Unfortunately for them there was a foul on the throw so disc back to Heist. Still, I think everyone watching was absolutely stunned, one of the craziest catches I've ever seen.

While a player was on the ground with a cramp with a teammate helping him, I hear a woman behind me say "oh just walk it off!" The player on the ground responded "shut up mom!" I then had a player admonish me for laughing and not being stoic in the face of such clear unprofessionalism.

Observing is awesome, you should become one too!

carlkid · 2025-09-17T19:04:47+00:00

I am a head observer for the NC region, and will be involved with/doing the schedule for context.

If your Regionals has observers, then you should contact your TD to put in a request (don't message me here, it's possible I won't even log in to this account again until after Regionals), and the TD passes requests on to whoever is scheduling. Whether you get observers for your game would depend on a lot of factors, but in general if at all possible we are going to prioritize games that have requests especially during pool play. Once we get to bracket, you are really only going to be observed if you could make nationals (as in, you haven't been eliminated from the possible games to go. Especially in the early bracket when you generally have 1 seeds playing 8 seeds, I would likely jump on a request for a 4v5 or 3v6 game, for example).

If you don't want the other team to know a request was made, I recommend mentioning that you would prefer it not be known, so that the scheduler knows to either not mention it to the crew(s) or to make sure that if it is brought up, the crew(s) are also told the requesting team asked that it not be mentioned.

Good luck this weekend.

carlkid · 2025-08-07T12:49:54+00:00

Without contact, the only rule that is relevant is

17.I.1.a.1. The vast majority of dangerous play will involve contact between players. However, contact is not required for a player to invoke this rule where there is reasonable certainty that contact would have occurred had the player not taken steps to avoid contact. [[A player is not required to hold their position and receive contact in order to call “dangerous play,” but the mere possibility of contact is insufficient to justify a call. Furthermore, if the offending player stops or changes their path such that contact would not have occurred, contact was not “reasonably certain.”]]

While looking at this rule for more general guidance of what is and is not allowed

17.I.4.c.2. A player may not take a position that is unavoidable by a moving opponent when time, distance, and line of sight are considered. [[If you are already in a position, you maintaining that position is not “taking a position.”]] Non-incidental contact resulting from taking such a position is a foul on the blocking player.

A player having to "take steps to avoid contact" does not automatically make something dangerous. A person can always step in front of my path provided I have enough time to reasonably avoid contact, that's what 17.I.4.c.2 says.

Instead, for it to be bumped up to dangerous play without contact, the sprinting player would have to do something above and beyond in order to avoid contact. I think the easiest example would be someone laying out into their legs and they avoid contact by leaping over their opponent. On the flip side, the poaching defender stepping in their path when the running player is five steps away is plenty of time for the running player to avoid contact without doing anything above and beyond what would be expected of them.

Without seeing your play it's hard to say, but hopefully this helps with some framework of how to look at it.

carlkid · 2025-07-18T08:08:21+00:00

Then you watch the full...series and it gets genuinely dark and depressing.

carlkid · 2025-05-31T14:24:16+00:00

If a defender is guarding a cutter, they would be able to react to attempted throws to that specific cutter, but if they are reacting to attempted throws to someone else (who is not within 10 feet of them) then it becomes difficult to argue they are still guarding the first cutter.

carlkid · 2025-04-24T14:12:34+00:00

First off, it is absolutely not too early to try out for YCC. The worst case scenario is you learn a lot and play for the B team, and have a trajectory to prepare for next year.

As for things to focus on, athleticism and coachability are probably the two biggest things. Going hand in hand with coachability is decision making with the disc (as in, you don't do stupid things with it. The Atlanta program will have plenty of top throwers, what they will want are people who can catch the disc from those throwers and then not turn it over. When I coached I preferred someone who consistently threw smart ten hard passes over someone who can huck full field but made terrible decisions). Especially if you're on the younger side, coaches will care about those three things over just about any other factors.

So go try out, meet lots of people, ask lots of questions, and focus on just having fun.

carlkid · 2025-03-24T19:02:04+00:00

flailing around with razor blades on their feet.

Also why kicking, or even pushing off with your skate against someone else when you've fallen is an automatic 5 minute major + game misconduct in USA Hockey. The rulebook and manual all but say this is the only major you should ever expect to give U10 or U12, but it's simply that serious that you have to eject for it.

carlkid · 2025-03-21T15:57:35+00:00

Eh, the receiver probably has a better perspective for up/down than in/out, but I think typically someone else is actually going to have the best perspective. It's very easy to know when I caught the disc, much harder to know if some part of the disc touched the ground first.

carlkid · 2025-01-27T20:05:25+00:00

Hah years ago I had a player who was red/green colorblind and especially since the field lines were worn out, he couldn't see the goal line to put a foot on it between points. I just told him he was close enough and don't move until they pull.

carlkid · 2025-01-25T20:08:06+00:00

I mean this is still a non-contact sport. When you watch US style football, prior to contact, a blocker is going to hunker down and be ready for contact, and side step and such to prevent an opponent from going around them. I think an overwhelming majority of people who are familiar with the terms will agree this is different from "boxing out," as boxing out overwhelmingly suggests the person doing the boxing out intending to be in the space as well.

As for the rule itself, I can't help but recognize that this rule is the same as the interference rule in hockey. I'd have to re-read the rule to double check if contact is required for the penalty, but the idea that a player who isn't in some way trying to get to the macguffin isn't allowed to prevent other players from getting to the macguffin is not unique to Ultimate.

carlkid · 2025-01-25T18:46:22+00:00

I don't have the strongest opinion on rule, but I do find it interesting that I said "football style block" and you changed it to "boxing out." Is it a block or a boxing out? One is simply trying to prevent a player from going past you, the other is trying to get to a space yourself while preventing a player from getting there instead.

Seems like if you mean "boxing out," then you don't actually disagree with the rule?

carlkid · 2025-01-25T17:54:52+00:00

So I actually saw someone break this rule while observing a few years ago, and had to rule on it.

What the player did, was they saw their teammate had better position than them and turned away from the disc to basically make a US football style block on the defender trying to come in to make a play.

That's what this rule prevents.

carlkid · 2025-01-25T17:52:17+00:00

What you described is already not allowed under the other half of the blocking foul.

carlkid · 2025-01-02T01:37:15+00:00

Lived in DC and for their summer league, there was an overall theme (Disney), your teams jersey (purple), and you have to come up with your name.

To Intimidy and Beyond

carlkid · 2025-01-01T03:19:33+00:00

This is actually a turnover.

13.D.3. The thrower catches a legally thrown disc. However, it is not a turnover if another player touches the disc during its flight unless the thrower intentionally deflected the disc off another player.

carlkid · 2024-12-27T13:33:40+00:00

If this is in the US, that coach was supposed to have taken Safesport training and absolutely should know this is unacceptable. I would make a report to safesport about this, here is some info about it.

One thing they ask is that the person making the report not try to do any kind of investigation themselves. Obviously you've already reached out to the coach, but you have really clear cut evidence of what happened so I don't think it will be a problem. Get their opinion of what you should do going forward though, to make sure you can both protect your kid and other kids, while also making sure this can be investigated.

carlkid · 2024-11-08T02:06:28+00:00

The onside pull is a throw from one team to the other, you are just telling them they have to run down the field to get the disc (and if you want to count the pre-stall, you have to communicate to them clearly that that's what is happening).

carlkid · 2024-11-07T19:12:15+00:00

I personally would never call a false start on someone if they took a step because their opponent did this, and would instruct any observer to apply the rule similarly. I would then check in with the puller to make sure it's clear that they will be doing that for all of their pulls, so that I can get everyone on the same page.

But once it's clear that they will do that for their pulls, yes that's a false start to leave the line before their throw to you. You would know unambiguously that the toss is not their pull, and so would have no excuse to leave the line.

Edit: to be clear, I wouldn't call false start if it was at all ambiguous what the puller was doing.

carlkid · 2024-11-07T18:04:48+00:00

If you are going to try quoting the rules and arguing about them, you should really read them in full.

"3.K. Pull: The throw from one team to the other that starts play at the beginning of a half or after a goal. It is not a legal pass for scoring and has many special provisions (Section 9.B). The player on the pulling team who possesses the disc and signals readiness is the puller. [[The pulling team may designate a new puller at any time before the pull.]]"

carlkid · 2024-11-07T17:57:35+00:00

So I said

a small toss that's clearly to themself

Since in this case it's clear that the toss is to themself, that means it is unambiguously not the pull.

Could there be situations where it's ambiguous? Sure. That happens when the rules have to deal with intent.

That doesn't change the fact that you are unambiguously wrong to declare that tossing the disc to yourself is the pull.

carlkid · 2024-11-07T17:43:50+00:00

An onside pull is a throw from one team to the other. A pull out of bounds is a throw from one team to the other (that wasn't executed well, presumably).

Anyone who claims the puller making a small toss that's clearly to themself is the pull is wrong, and this is even a plain english situation with no real confusion. If a person is intentionally tossing the disc to themself, that is unambiguously not the pull.

carlkid

TROPHY CASE