What are your thoughts?

[Bad Zebra]

My thinking is that part of 21's reaction is due to the fact that he got mugged...and no whistle. If everybody heard a whistle right away, one would ASSume that play stops, 21 feels somewhat vindicated, and proceeds to shoot or spot-in.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Bad Zebra

My thinking is that part of 21's reaction is due to the fact that he got mugged...and no whistle. If everybody heard a whistle right away, one would ASSume that play stops, 21 feels somewhat vindicated, and proceeds to shoot or spot-in.

Having no whistle on the play does not mean a player reacts differently than he did on this play. I have had games where you call nothing but fouls and the game escalates in temperature. We can speculate all we want to, but that does not mean that is why the fight too place. Remember, we have rivals here. For all you know one guy could be having fun with the other guy's girlfriend (which I have known that to happen) and that comes out on the playing surface. Maybe there was something said earlier and it got under one of the kid's skin. Maybe he said something as he was grabbing him. We have no idea. I just want to caution people in thinking there is something so magical about our whistle that nothing else takes place because we put air into it.

Peace

[Adam]

I have to agree with Rut here. I'm not saying the official shouldn't have called the intentional, or that there's no way it would have helped. The first fight I ever officiated occurred despite a whistle on the bear hug. I've seen two kids retaliate this year, and both times the initial foul was called. I T'd up a MS girl for shoving an opponent (a good solid body shove, center mass)after I whistled the foul. I warned a JV boy for shoving the arms of his opponent after I whistled the foul. Blowing the whistle isn't going to stop them all, even though it's likely to stop some of them.