Hello refs!

I was wondering if you could clarify a toestop question for me (or 4).

For a skater to legally block an opponent, they must have at least one skate on the floor.

1. Does this mean wheels or toestop? ie can a player block on both their toestops as long as they are hopping/walking forwards?

2. Is a player allowed to be on toestops to push through a wall?

3. Can a player be on both toestops if they are anchoring and therefore only in contact with members of their own team or does this depend on the answer to the above question as it is positional blocking? (players can help/touch teammates who are not in play as long as they are in the engagement zone?

4. If player A has turned to face their opponent B (so is now facing clockwise but traveling in a counter clockwise direction) can player B be on both toestops and are they then the initiator of the block?

Thanks!

Moo xx

Just to give you my experience at Captain/head ref meetings - recently I've had two interpretations of the stopped blocking rule:

- Head Ref at TTF clarified that anyone blocking (anchoring) going clockwise with two toe stops on the ground would be called for stopped blocking regardless of whether they thought they were still sliding or being pushed forward. One skate had to remain wheels down for a legal block.

- Head Ref at the GRG bout clarifyed that two toe stops on the ground would constitute a legal block if the skater was sliding clockwise on the toe stops.

I'll let the refs answer the details questions above which are fabby by the way, but just to let you know that it's always a good idea to get the captain/Alternate to clarify calls on things that we know have a grey area and are called differently from bout to bout. Each head ref will have a different take on it and things go in and out of fashion.

xx

OK thank you!

Here's what I reckon:

1) As Crazy points out, this gets called differently but should be clarified at Captain's meetings so you'll always have a chance to find out. Personally, I've always felt that as long as a skater is moving counter-clockwise it doesn't matter which bit of their skate is in contact with the floor at the time - partly because in my experience putting both stops down stops a skater moving *very* quickly anyway.

2) I'd class this as "stepping" which means it's fine, as long as you're stepping counter-clockwise of course.

3) Under 6.9.10 a stopped assist which does not improve the recipients relative position (which anchoring will generally not do) is no impact/no penalty.

Weirdly if you take so much as a step clockwise while assisting it becomes a major.

4) It depends really, in terms of clockwise/stopped blocking the facing of the skaters is irrelevant. So if B is on both toe-stops stepping towards A then that's all fine, the person who initiates contact (or in the case of a positional block, moves to impede the other skater) is the person who will be classed as the initiator of the block.

Hope this helps!

Buffy