Yesterday was truly a day of contrasts. Early in the day I was kindly offered tickets for the dress rehearsal of the COC's upcoming show. I figured I had time to get through my afternoon refereeing gig, get home, get cleaned up and fed and out for a show at 7.30. It turned out to be a close run thing ( Read more... )

My senior game this afternoon went quite well. Unfortunately 20 minutes into my junior game something popped in my right calf. I've got ice on it for the second time at the moment and I guess I'll see how it feels tomorrow before making a decision about my Thursday game.

This entry was originally posted at http://chickenfeet.dreamwidth.org/ ( Read more... )

The rugby season is well started. Last week I refereed two pre-season high school tournament; one at St. Mike's and one at Weston CI. Quite a contrast; fee paying Catholic school with immaculate artificial turf field vs. public high school in relatively low income neighbourhood with dusty unmarked field. It all went quite well considering ( Read more... )

The rugby season in Ontario is all but over with the finals of various cup competitions on Saturday and university and college playoffs over the next few weeks. Thus, last night we had the TDRRS season wrap up meeting in Markham. I had figured out how to get there by public transit but found myself marooned at Unionville GO station by a York ( Read more... )

Rather unexpectedly I got a call last night to ref a couple of UoT intramural games today. First up was St. Michael's vs. Trinity. It was a decent game despite being played on the mudflat that is the Back Campus. I think I had a good game. It was a fair result, nobody was complaining and I think my positioning was better than it often is. It ( Read more... )

Yesterday I was out in Whitby to referee some high school sevens. It was a tournament for Grade 9 and 10s so mostly very inexperienced. It really was like herding cats rather than refereeing a lot of the time. It was also a really long day. Whitby is about an hour by train. I left just after 6am and got back sometime after 5pm having reffed ( Read more... )

It's a cold wet day in Toronto. I was up at the University of Toronto this afternoon reffing an intra-mural game. There were supposed to be three, short (2 x 25 min) games at 1130, 1230 and 1330. I was scheduled to do the the second half of the second game and the third game. I biked up to UoT and showed up at around 1220 to find that ( Read more... )

Back at Fletchers today for the third day of the ORU high school sevens tournameont. Today was senior (grades 11 and 12) boys. I did six games and had fun. Again it was a good mix of public, Catholic and private schools from as far away as Bracebridge and Midland. There wasn't any drama but I did do a lot of running. 16/17/18 year old boys can ( Read more... )

Rugby Ontario has organised three days of high school sevens this week at Fletchers. Yesterday was girls; senior and junior. There were teams from as far afield as Owens Sound and Chatham and a good mix of public, catholic and private schools. (Since sports are normally organised by school boards in Ontario the norm is sporting apartheid). The ( Read more... )

To the best of my recollection I have not watched a university or college rugby game since I moved to Canada. Actually I don't think I've seen one since I left Durham. So today was a new experience. I reffed an OCAA Women's game between Humber College and Mohawk College. Humber is almost in Brampton but it's surprisingly easy to get to on the ( Read more... )