You have to ignore the white lines in the floor and look at the track radials. They’re hard to see in the gif because they’re gray (look to the left of black 888’s hips), but in the video they’re pink. That will give you the angle for a direction call. With tthat as your reference you can more clearly see the red blocker is moving in derby direction for this hit. More importantly, look at the red blocker’s right foot. It much more clearly illustrates that she is moving in derby direction the entire time. (the camera angle and movement hides this) Not only was the block happening in derby direction, but the angle of attack of the block doesn’t even matter because no matter what the upper body is doing, if the feet are traveling in derby direction, no direction call is warranted. OPRs are strongly discouraged from making direction calls from these angles because of geometry and physics and other sciency stuff that causes angles to appear more severe from the outside. JRs and IPRs on the other hand can determine this much easier.Owch.
Ooof.
Why.
ok i was watching BAD vs. Gotham today and kept watching that hit on Nock Nock over and over again. That hit is so obviously illegal to me. Total clockwise block. Slaydie skates backward into Nock Nock as she is approaching. HOW DID THE REFS NOT CALL THIS?Even though it looks mega-backward here (and it might have still been live) I suspect track dynamics might have something to do with it. If she swoops along the apex of the turn with her feet angled 45 degrees forward when she made contact, it would technically cause her to roll forward at an angle… Eeeh. It’s difficult to say. This is why I don’t officiate.
(Personally, I seem to remember yelling up a storm at champs about clockwise blocking when I saw that.)
Officials Corner: Who should get the low block?
Okay, I’ve watched this several times on YouTube (32:40) and the angle is not ideal, but I can see enough and I cannot see any action that the white jammer took that would result in a low block. You can even see her feet the entire time. The pink pivot was in between the white jammer and the pink jammer when the pink jammer falls, followed by the pink pivot. The White jammer then falls over the pink jammer. The pink pivot even flirted with a forearm by pushing on the white jammer as she went down, but not enough for a call. That said, the jam ref is a very experienced official with a very different angle of view. AND that said, it could just be a mistake. We do make them. There have been calls I’ve made that I was 110% sure of in the moment and then went back and watched the video and thought, that is not at all what it looked like at the time.(During the game, white jammer 11:11 was awarded the sole penalty, a low block.)