LaxPower Back-Up Stick

hens62 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 4:19 pm Imagine - team that gets scored on has to clear every time. How exciting is riding, the ten man ride? Did no one watch UVA this year? Turnovers at mid field, big hits, GB scrums. All around athletes making plays in open field. Deeper benches with real, two way athletes playing.. why not?? Cause we dont want to hurt Gurenlians feelings on twitter?

Coach a team at the youth level without a FOGO and tell me you still want the face off.. dumbest thing in lacrosse

Yeah, you see a lot of full court press in basketball? Face offs are a unique, exciting, and important part of the sport. I find it amazing how people want to make changes to the game. You rarely see dramatic changes in other sports. The game is great, leave it alone. Find better face off guys, coach them up. I coached plenty of youth games with good and bad face off guys, figure it out, just because you don't have success with it doesn't make it the dumbest thing in lacrosse. Personally i think it is one of the best things in the sport, and your insult about face off guys not being real athletes is offensive, and I could care less what Gurenlian thinks, face offs were around long before him. The shot clock fixed it, you get the ball back if you can stop them, and the youth level will have clocks soon. Get better, figure it out, find a way, or does everyone deserve a free chance with the ball, and should everyone get a trophy?

xxxxxxx wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 4:53 pm... and the youth level will have clocks soon.

Hahahahahahaha!

hens62 wrote
If you remove the FO at youth.. dont really see it staying in college. Doesnt really make sense...

A sport thats #1 priority is national growth should be dictated by what the youth level needs. Everyone saying all is well as if we didnt JUST add the shot clock for a massive improvement

There's no hitting in youth hockey (have sat through enough of my gson's games to know that), you expect we'll see that happen at the D1 level? You can't compare youth lacrosse to college lacrosse, just getting the kids in position for the face off is a major ordeal at the youth level which is probably a big part of the reason they don't do it.
There's no comparison to bringing the shot clock to the game and elimating the face off, one was just a necessary tweak (could have just fixed the sticks but that's a whole other subject) the other changes the game (and it's been tried and it sucked...yes, I've been around long enough to have witnessed it). Frankly, I don't care about growing the game and the casual fan who doesn't much give a sh*t about the game anyway (and never really will). The game is fine, just leave it alone. Just think about the NC game....bet the thought that TD could bring Yale back was on your mind til the clock read zeros, eh? The face off is a very cool part of the game and I hope I never see the day it's eliminated.

DMac wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 5:08 pm ... just getting the kids in position for the face off is a major ordeal at the youth level which is probably a big part of the reason they don't do it.

Try again.

Now that's a brilliant post. Did you want to share your thoughts and/or experiences or just come on and be a smart rump?

DMac wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 5:22 pm Now that's a brilliant post. Did you want to share your thoughts and/or experiences or just come on and be a smart rump?

I'm sorry to be snarky, but I have a hard time believing that anyone familiar enough with lacrosse to post in here would actually believe that administrative convenience is "a big" part of eliminating faceoffs in youth play. Perhaps a vignette would illustrate the point: I once coached a U10 team that included a strong, fast kid. He also loved practicing faceoffs against the baseboards at his house. To say he was skilled at the pinch-and-pop would be an understatement. Due to his skill, we had several games where the other team did not possess the ball in their offensive end during the entire first quarter. Around that time, it was usually 6-0 and the "faceoff mercy rule" kicked in to award possession after a goal to the losing team. I can assure you, that rule had slightly more to do with allowing both team's attackers to touch the ball than it did with getting kids to align their sticks with the midfield stripe.

smoova wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 5:33 pm

DMac wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 5:22 pm Now that's a brilliant post. Did you want to share your thoughts and/or experiences or just come on and be a smart rump?

I'm sorry to be snarky, but I have a hard time believing that anyone familiar enough with lacrosse to post in here would actually believe that administrative convenience is "a big" part of eliminating faceoffs in youth play. Perhaps a vignette would illustrate the point: I once coached a U10 team that included a strong, fast kid. He also loved practicing faceoffs against the baseboards at his house. To say he was skilled at the pinch-and-pop would be an understatement. Due to his skill, we had several games where the other team did not possess the ball in their offensive end during the entire first quarter. Around that time, it was usually 6-0 and the "faceoff mercy rule" kicked in to award possession after a goal to the losing team. I can assure you, that rule had slightly more to do with allowing both team's attackers to touch the ball than it did with getting kids to align their sticks with the midfield stripe.

Yeah, now that's a bit more of an explanation, eh? Maybe I should have left "big" out? It's been quite a number of years since I've been around youth lacrosse (and by "youth" are we talking 6 or 12 year old kids?), wouldn't be surprised if my kids are older than many posters here. So you had the TD of 10 year olds, we should eliminate the face off because of that? I've watched plenty of youth games where there was no dominant face off kid too, and the whole face off deal was a little nuts and time consuming before anyone had possession...my thinking wasn't so far off base. The point is this though, to compare youth lacrosse to D1 lax just doesn't cut it. To say we need to eliminate the face off because there's a dominant 10 year old FOGO (not really a "GO" in your example), or we need to eliminate it in order to the "grow the game" is pure BS, IMO.

DMac wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:00 pm

smoova wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 5:33 pm

DMac wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 5:22 pm Now that's a brilliant post. Did you want to share your thoughts and/or experiences or just come on and be a smart rump?

I'm sorry to be snarky, but I have a hard time believing that anyone familiar enough with lacrosse to post in here would actually believe that administrative convenience is "a big" part of eliminating faceoffs in youth play. Perhaps a vignette would illustrate the point: I once coached a U10 team that included a strong, fast kid. He also loved practicing faceoffs against the baseboards at his house. To say he was skilled at the pinch-and-pop would be an understatement. Due to his skill, we had several games where the other team did not possess the ball in their offensive end during the entire first quarter. Around that time, it was usually 6-0 and the "faceoff mercy rule" kicked in to award possession after a goal to the losing team. I can assure you, that rule had slightly more to do with allowing both team's attackers to touch the ball than it did with getting kids to align their sticks with the midfield stripe.

Yeah, now that's a bit more of an explanation, eh? Maybe I should have left "big" out? It's been quite a number of years since I've been around youth lacrosse (and by "youth" are we talking 6 or 12 year old kids?), wouldn't be surprised if my kids are older than many posters here. So you had the TD of 10 year olds, we should eliminate the face off because of that? I've watched plenty of youth games where there was no dominant face off kid too, and the whole face off deal was a little nuts and time consuming before anyone had possession...my thinking wasn't so far off base. The point is this though, to compare youth lacrosse to D1 lax just doesn't cut it. To say we need to eliminate the face off because there's a dominant 10 year old FOGO (not really a "GO" in your example), or we need to eliminate it in order to the "grow the game" is pure BS, IMO.

Let me be more plain: administrative convenience has absolutely nothing to do with limiting the faceoff in youth lacrosse. Now, I do agree that we should NOT eliminate the faceoff, but I do favor eliminating the FOGO, which I have watched be strictly employed as young as 9 year-olds, and returning to a model where an actual middie takes the faceoff and plays the game for more than a few seconds.

wgdsr wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 12:13 am where is the "hate" and the "backlash", exactly?
have a host of coaches come out condemning the faceoff all of a sudden?

This is a good question. So far I think it is limited to a select few on this forum!

I haven't heard any complaints from high school or college coaches. Which is good because I think the face-off should continue the way it is. From my perspective the "haters" of the current face-off are discriminating against individual and team talent. Not to mention, TD and the face-off position has probably brought more positive attention to College Lacrosse the last couple years than anything else recently... how exactly is that bad?

xxxxxxx wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 4:53 pm Yeah, you see a lot of full court press in basketball? Face offs are a unique, exciting, and important part of the sport. I find it amazing how people want to make changes to the game. You rarely see dramatic changes in other sports. The game is great, leave it alone. Find better face off guys, coach them up. I coached plenty of youth games with good and bad face off guys, figure it out, just because you don't have success with it doesn't make it the dumbest thing in lacrosse. Personally i think it is one of the best things in the sport, and your insult about face off guys not being real athletes is offensive, and I could care less what Gurenlian thinks, face offs were around long before him. The shot clock fixed it, you get the ball back if you can stop them, and the youth level will have clocks soon. Get better, figure it out, find a way, or does everyone deserve a free chance with the ball, and should everyone get a trophy?

LOL at youth clocks. And if you wanna go basketball.. jump ball was eliminated in favor of possession arrow in 1981. Wasnt fair when one team had a taller player.. shouldve just told them to go find a taller guy?

The better team at LACROSSE should win the game.. not the team who got the right transfer. Go tell Marr/Corrigan/Milliman to find a better guy and "figure it out"

hens62 wrote
The better team at LACROSSE should win the game.. not the team who got the right transfer.

Isn't that what happened in this year's NC game?
I think if you were to do a little research on the face off you'd find that face off wins are not as big an indicator of which team is going to win a game as you think it is. There are tons of examples in the lax world of one team dominating the face off game but walked away with the L. Have gone over this many times, a good example is the NC 2012 Greyhounds...4-24 at the X but win the title. Face off meant nothing to the Hounds, they were the better team beyond the X. In this year's Army-Cuse game, Cuse went 17-21 in the face off game, the final score was 10-8 Cuse. By your way of thinking the score should have been 17-4 (just for the record, early on in the game Cuse was 3-0 in the face off battle and Army was up 3-0).
You're over exaggerating how big a part of the game the face off is.....just leave it alone, it's fine the way it is.

The title of the thread is "Tweak the rules" so some water-cooler thoughts...

The shot-clock has been awesome, even the haters have (seemingly) come around... The game is very good right now, some very small tweaks (perhaps) but nothing major.

My fine-tuning, white-board list:

1) shot clock resets to 60
2) use Season 1 scenarios to de-bug dive rule so the D isn't incentivized to launch the Att into their own G (nor the G to come out and intentionally create a collision, Duke/Furman)
3) look at minor FO adjustments (like PLL) to promote wing-play over FO vs FO (as the moto-grip & pliable stick heads have eliminated 75% of the wing-play importance)
4) create a Technical :30 version for the inadvertent trip (similar to the push). When it's CLEARLY accidental and a TO (eg guys feet got tangled, trip over a stick fighting for a GB), & it doesn't merit 1 min (so often no-call is made). The ref's only current options are no-call, 1 min (or fudge the rules w/ phantom loose ball push/hold to "make the punishment fit the crime" aka negate the TO)

NElaxtalent wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:55 pm The title of the thread is "Tweak the rules" so some water-cooler thoughts...
The shot-clock has been awesome, even the haters have (seemingly) come around... The game is very good right now, some very small tweaks (perhaps) but nothing major.
My fine-tuning, white-board list:

1) shot clock resets to 60
2) use Season 1 scenarios to de-bug dive rule so the D isn't incentivized to launch the Att into their own G (nor the G to come out and intentionally create a collision, Duke/Furman)
3) look at minor FO adjustments (like PLL) to promote wing-play over FO vs FO (as the moto-grip & pliable stick heads have eliminated 75% of the wing-play importance)
4) create a Technical :30 version for the inadvertent trip (similar to the push). When it's CLEARLY accidental and a TO (eg guys feet got tangled, trip over a stick fighting for a GB), & it doesn't merit 1 min (so often no-call is made). The ref's only current options are no-call, 1 min (or fudge the rules w/ phantom loose ball push/hold to "make the punishment fit the crime" aka negate the TO)

1) i'm in on the shot clock now. believe it has taken some teams to stalling out the multiple opportunites they could have and putting themselves in a box (playing offensive possessions for the last 20 seconds), but that's their own problem. it also means i have to listen certain announcers talk about it incessantly, but at least it's shifted from calling for a shot clock rule incessantly. a nit --- even on some teevee broadcasted games, there's no shot clock visible on the screen. seems they could catch up on that by next year, i would hope. the reset should happen and i believe it will soon enough. there are, in fact, shot clocks that allow for 2 settings. i would guess they are 2 different buttons. one of the rules committee guys said it wasn't done with the thinking that'd be just too complicated for shot clock operators (and they didn't know if the "technology" of 2 buttons was available -- it was). i'm guessing we can move off that narrative. basketball hasn't run into any huge controversies with it just yet.
2) i'm not sure they'll straighten this one out any more effectively than they've done in any iteration. it's a tough call to begin with, made more so this past year, and -- i don't trust they'll get it done effectively. i live the dive and don't like the potential ramifications nor inconsistency. but i side on the former (sorry, non-dive guys).
3) bring the wings in 5 yards. if the issue is we want more 3 man scrums, and a dominant fogo can get it out too frequently to himself unabated, this is the easy fix and you're back to where we were before lacrosse was about to be eviscerated as a fair playground. if your wings can get there to challenge, anticipate, coaches can strategize --- you have your chance to even the playing field. fogos will probably need effective backups to prevent the greater wear and tear.
4) have always thought this, too. save for an intentional trip (rare), this should've always been the call.

addendum - as long as we're changing rules every year, eliminate timeouts in overtime. didn't they just have a timeout before the 5 minutes started?

DMac wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 11:01 am

hens62 wrote
The better team at LACROSSE should win the game.. not the team who got the right transfer.

Isn't that what happened in this year's NC game?
I think if you were to do a little research on the face off you'd find that face off wins are not as big an indicator of which team is going to win a game as you think it is. There are tons of examples in the lax world of one team dominating the face off game but walked away with the L. Have gone over this many times, a good example is the NC 2012 Greyhounds...4-24 at the X but win the title. Face off meant nothing to the Hounds, they were the better team beyond the X. In this year's Army-Cuse game, Cuse went 17-21 in the face off game, the final score was 10-8 Cuse. By your way of thinking the score should have been 17-4 (just for the record, early on in the game Cuse was 3-0 in the face off battle and Army was up 3-0).
You're over exaggerating how big a part of the game the face off is.....just leave it alone, it's fine the way it is.

If the idea is to make it more “fan friendly” like introducing a shot clock, the face off rules should be changed. Casual fans I have met are puzzled when one team always comes up with the ball. It’s boring...... I don’t mind the face offs. It’s the equipment. Just disallow withholding the ball with the back of the stick. Raking it out with back of stick should be fine but do away with trap and hold.

Clarification: there are the blatant trips (often a missed check/slash) that should be 1 min personal fouls. I just find there are the tricky-tacky loose ball or incidental "illegal contacts" that cause a guy to go down (&/or create a TO) that the refs are put in a quandary... Let the advantage gained or TO stand (unfair to fouled player) or call 1 min PF (often too harsh) and which isn't even waived off by a goal. Not any middle ground like a Technical foul.

Players not scooping a ball and waiting for a defender to get close so they can dive for a push call has become infuriatingly common. Also a lot of flops when some after the whistle stuff happens. My solution is simple: like in hockey if a guy dives or flops it's a penalty too. 1 minute full time unsportsmanlike will take care of diving in a couple of weeks.

DMac wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 11:01 am Isn't that what happened in this year's NC game?
I think if you were to do a little research on the face off you'd find that face off wins are not as big an indicator of which team is going to win a game as you think it is. There are tons of examples in the lax world of one team dominating the face off game but walked away with the L. Have gone over this many times, a good example is the NC 2012 Greyhounds...4-24 at the X but win the title. Face off meant nothing to the Hounds, they were the better team beyond the X. In this year's Army-Cuse game, Cuse went 17-21 in the face off game, the final score was 10-8 Cuse. By your way of thinking the score should have been 17-4 (just for the record, early on in the game Cuse was 3-0 in the face off battle and Army was up 3-0).
You're over exaggerating how big a part of the game the face off is.....just leave it alone, it's fine the way it is.

Your cherry picking 2 specific examples... you cant tell me that winning face offs does not increase your odds of winning the game. Just silly

If the face off never existed and someone proposed the idea youd think they were a crazy person

NElaxtalent wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:41 pm Clarification: there are the blatant trips (often a missed check/slash) that should be 1 min personal fouls. I just find there are the tricky-tacky loose ball or incidental "illegal contacts" that cause a guy to go down (&/or create a TO) that the refs are put in a quandary... Let the advantage gained or TO stand (unfair to fouled player) or call 1 min PF (often too harsh) and which isn't even waived off by a goal. Not any middle ground like a Technical foul.

if it's a slash, then call a slash. 30 seconds for everything else (trip), basically.

hens62 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:10 pm you cant tell me that winning face offs does not increase your odds of winning the game. Just silly

If the face off never existed and someone proposed the idea youd think they were a crazy person

+2

TheBigIguana wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:58 pm Players not scooping a ball and waiting for a defender to get close so they can dive for a push call has become infuriatingly common. Also a lot of flops when some after the whistle stuff happens. My solution is simple: like in hockey if a guy dives or flops it's a penalty too. 1 minute full time unsportsmanlike will take care of diving in a couple of weeks.

i don't know what the college rule is now, but they inserted this language in for unsportsmanlike conduct into nfhs rules several years ago. i've seen a lot of flops, and alerted officials ahead of time to a team that looks like they're maybe easy to blow over. never seen it called once. though the heads up seems to help sometimes in letting those plays "play on".