from the above website:
MINOR ATOM/ATOM (age 7-9) Convenor: Vlad Hrubik 747-5505
1. Defense will be man-to-man and half court. No double-teaming unless offense dribbles into it.
2.
No stealing on the dribble.
3. There are no foul shots. Normal fouls shall be in-bounded by fouled team. When bonus is reached, fouled team will receive 1 point and ball. If fouled on a shot team receives 2 points if missed, 3 points if good, defense takes ball.
4. Officials will call the following: double dribble; 5-second inbound violation; travelling;over and back (if gym size permits); 10-second violation;5-seconds closely guarded (only if no passing)
5. Team allowed one 30-second time-out per half (clock keeps running).
We have no stealing on the dribble, but we do have a 5 second closely guarded violation? (only if no passing...what does this mean??) As to the man-to-man requirement which I believe goes all the way up to the 13 year olds, and also includes no double teaming unless offense dribbles into it? Did the person who wrote these rules ever try to get on the court and enforce them? I would like to hear an explanation of how you keep one outstanding player from totally dominating a game if he must always be guarded one on one. Also, in spite of everyone's best efforts, I sometimes find it difficult to tell what kind of defense a team is playing. I would think it would be tough to call a technical on 7 year olds for illegal defense.