well, that was annoying

We played our weekly game this eve, and it was a bit of a blowout. The abnormal part about the blowout was that we were on the winning side. I kinda ran up and down the sidelines, but didn’t do a whole lot. We had decided to stick to short throws, because the long throws were killing the opposition, and it really wasn’t fun.

Of course, in typical “do as I say, not as I do”, I ended the game by throwing a 25yd bomb to coop. As soon as I let it go I remembered, and everyone on my team reminded me that I wasn’t supposed to do that. It did look pretty from where I was standing, though I still felt bad.

I’ve noticed a new tactic being employed, and I’ve mentioned it in the rules discussion forum on the OCUA site. It’s very annoying, but there is a loophole which makes it a grey area. The game which originally triggered the question was cool – I discussed it with the team members, and we figured it was a defensive pick (best analogy I can come up with) and probably was obstruction.

Last night was a little different. I was faster than the guy who was marking me all night long. Every time I started to cut, he’d raise his arms and try to step in front of me before I ran by him. The disc was never in the air, and was usually at least 10 yards away from either of us. When I asked him to stop, his response was “I’m allowed to make a play on the disc, so it’s my right”.

Dear Doofus – that’s obstruction, knock it the fuck off. A few things:

• You were watching me, not the disc.
• The only time your arms came up was when I started to make a cut to get open, not when the disc was being thrown to me or in the air.
• When you raised your arms, you reached out in front of me, not towards the disc.
• Not once did you have position on me; you only did this as I was running by, cutting off my lane and forcing me to avoid making contact.

We were way ahead, so I didn’t want to call anything, nor did I want to run into you just to call the foul/make a point. Instead of resorting to tactics that attempt to interfere/slow me down then saying you were making a play on the disc (a pretty good indicator you’d contest anything I’d call), how about playing positional D or actually waiting until the disc is thrown to try to make a play on it.

If the disc is still in the handlers’ possession, it’s really fucking hard to claim you’re making a play on a block. But, if you play lawyer, you probably have a loophole. I’ll just have to run faster, is all. 🙂