Anyone from Pontiac, MI area or did the NFL GJC

[JugglingReferee]

Just curious if anyone that reads here is from the area of Pontiac, MI, or was on-field or off-field officiating the 2006 NFL Global Junior Championships at the Silverdome.

[Dommer1]

Congratulations to Canada!

http://www.usafootball.com/articles/...oryoverusa.php

[JugglingReferee]

The stadium announcer was wity: if the offense moved early, he would announce "False Start" when committed by the US, and "Illegal Procedure" when committed by Canada.

Made me chuckle.

[chimpgym]

Yep, saw the games. They were interesting. I had never heard of the Global Junior Championships before, but this was evidently their 10th year.

For those of you who don't know about them, they are an official NFL Super Bowl event, and involve high school age (19 or younger) teams from around the world. This year there were teams from Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and the US. They are played each year in the host city of the Super Bowl. This year they were played in the Pontiac Silverdome. I found info about them on http://www.nflhs.com and by talking to people at the Dome.



Some interesting tidbits/observations:
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The Silverdome had a brand new Field Turf field put into it by the NFL just for the Steelers to practice on this week for the Super Bowl. Word is that the field itself will be donated to the Pontiac schools after the Super Bowl.

Rumors continue that the SilverDome will be torn down, and the land sold and developed. This might have been the last football game played in it. That's a shame because it's still a nice facility. But evidently the land is too valuable, and the Dome just isn't used enough anymore.

They used NCAA rules with some modifications. Evidently most of the world other than Canada and the US (except TX and MA of course!) use the NCAA rules. The modifications were mostly for formations, who could blitz, etc. Supposedly, some were for safety and some to help keep it competive.

From what I could see, they didn't need to worry about it being competitive. The other countries did a fine job.

I was a bit surprised that the Germans didn't do a little better. They almost tied the US, but overall, they didn't have a very good record. Like I said, a bit of a surprise to me as I understand American Football is really big over there.

Canada had a fine team. They weren't scored on during the tournament and won it all. Much of their coaching staff came from the CFL champions.

Mexico and Japan were a lot of fun to watch. Both are really coming on strong in football. Japan was really quick and had a lot of heart. Mexico was not only quick, they were tough!

The US was a big disappointment. I think they were lucky to get into the Championship Game.

[JugglingReferee]

You were there???

NCAA rules? A quite knowledgable fan in the stands was quite sure they were using Fed rules. This difference might explain some things.

What is the NCAA penalty for illegal man downfield?

Is there a 1-point safety in NCAA?

Would you have tossed any coaches?

True about the tidbits. I heard the turf is going to justone high school. What could 5 HSs do with 1/5th each of the turf? I have a decent picture of Japan scoring the tiring touchdown late in the bronze medal game.

[chimpgym]

Ineligible Downfield = 5 yds from the previous spot.

The R incorrectly signaled a loss of down, but they fixed that. In fact, I think the defense then ended up declining the penalty.

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A 1 point safety is possible on a Try, but they didn't have one of those.

Instead, you're probably asking about the receiver muffing the kickoff in the endzone and the ball then going out of bounds? That's nothing but a touchback in NCAA. That's a point under Canadian rules, isn't it?

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I think in a game like that, you probably try your hardest to keep the coach in the game. Seems like it would be embarrasing to their team and country if they got tossed. But it certainly did appear that they deserved the flags they got.

What's your thoughts on the coaches?

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Pontiac has a city stadium. I don't know if all of the schools play there or not. But that's probably where the turf is going.

[Matt-MI]

The turf is being donated to the city of Pontiac and will be installed at Wisner Stadium. There are two high schools that play their games there. There are also pee wee teams that play there and a couple of Catholic League games. The NFL made about $2M in renovations for the AFC champions. They gutted and remodeled two locker rooms and several meeting rooms also.

This is one of the last events for the Silverdome. They city is currently trying to sell it to a developer. It most likely will become an industrial park.

[Dommer1]

So what did those coaches do?

This event is sanctioned by IFAF, and all IFAF games are played with NCAA rules from the previous year, so I'm sure it was NCAA rules (as someone already stated above...).

http://www.ifaf.info