UK Hockey League

It's been proposed to start a UK Unicycle Hockey league for some time
now. Below are a propsed set of rules drawn up from discussion at the
SWUM hockey tournament yesterday, and previous discussions at other
events. It is proposed to run the league until BUC in April 2007 using
the rules below and then to review the rules at BUC and start the
league "properly" after BUC.

If you have any comments please reply to this thread, I realise there
may be disagreement about some of the rules, lets start from here and
work out the problems as we go along.

Paul



UK UNICYCLE HOCKEY LEAGUE - PROPOSED RULES[/b]

[b]GENERAL

The League year runs from BUC to BUC.

The League is separate from the BUC tournament. The BUC tournament
winners get the UUU Hockey sheild. The league champions get the UUU Cup
(when this has been bought).

Every Club should attempt to host one league tournament per year.

Clubs may not host more than one league tournament per year.


RULES

Games will be played using IUF Hockey rules
(http://www.unicycling.org/iuf/rulebook/) except where established UK
practice is different.

Games will be played with a tennis ball


POINTS

The format of each tournament will be a series of groups leading to a
final. Tournament organisers must endeavour to make the draw for the
groups as fair as possible so as not to give any team an advantage.

At the end of the tournament teams will be ranked from winner through
to last runner up. Points will be allocated from the bottom of the
ranking starting with 1 point for the lowest placed team, 2 for second
lowest etc.

For a tournament with 4 teams the points would be as follows

1st Place - Team A - 4 points
2nd Place - Team B - 3 points
3rd Place - Team C - 2 points
4th Place - Team D - 1 points

This scoring system rewards all teams with 1 point for turning up plus
1 point for each team beaten.

Points will be totalled up over the year and the winner of the league
will be the club team with the greatest number of points.

Initially points from all tournaments will count towards the total for
each club team for the year, however if this leads to big gaps between
teams this may be changed to the best X results for each club team
where X is less than the number of tournaments played in that year.


CLUB TEAMS

A club team can contain any number of players, but only 5 of those
players may be on the pitch at a time

A club may enter as many teams as they like, however these teams must
be separate entities, no player may play for more than club team in any
season.

Each player may only play for one club any season, if a player moves
club during the year they must either play for their old club until the
next BUC or they may play in scratch teams until the next BUC.


SCRATCH TEAMS

To encourage participation by smaller clubs and individuals each
tournament will allow entries by scratch teams formed from players from
more than one club.

A scratch team may only play together for one tournament. If more than
3 players from a scratch team play together at more than one tournament
then they will be treated as a club team and will be subject to club
team rules.

Scratch players will compete for the scratch player of the year award.
This will run in parallel with the Club team competition.

At each tournament players from each scratch team will be awarded the
number of points their team recieve in the ranking, so in the example
above if Team C were a scratch team each member would get 2 points.

At the end of the year the player with the greatest number of points
will be awarded scratch player of the year.


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Hey Paul.

Sounds good.


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so shall we start a league table for this season just to get the feel
for it or not, if so shall we start from swum one, give us something to
go by


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Results from SWUM will be on the UUU website just as soon as we've got
it set up properly . We'll record the results from now to BUC
as a test, then start for real after BUC.

Paul


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paul royle wrote:
Games will be played with a tennis ball

I think it is worth specifying a dead tennis ball.



Each player may only play for one club any season, if a player moves
club during the year they must either play for their old club until the
next BUC or they may play in scratch teams until the next BUC.

This is the one proposal that really bothers me. The reason for playing
hockey (for me at least) is that it's fun. It's much more fun, and
more satisfying, to play for a regular team. You're proposing to take
that away from anyone who happens to move. OK, they might still be
able to play for their old club, but are they as likely to make the
team for a club that they no longer regularly train with? They should
be able to play for the club that they regularly train with IMO.

I also feel that if a team is only able to field 4 players for a
distant tournament then they should be able to borrow a player,
particularly if it's a player who used to play for them.



To encourage participation by smaller clubs and individuals each
tournament will allow entries by scratch teams formed from players from
more than one club.

Can we assume that regular teams will be awarded the same number of
points for being ranked above a scratch team as they would have been
awarded if it had been a regular team? Assuming we can assume it, I
think it should be made explicit.

I think the appropriate place for this discussion is the uk_unicyclists
mailing list, BTW, to include those players who don't read rsu.


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Looks like its shaping up well Paul. I'll see if we can host something
here in Southampton before BUC. Not convinced the timescale will work
out, but I can try.

Loose.


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Quote:
EACH PLAYER MAY ONLY PLAY FOR ONE CLUB ANY SEASON, IF A PLAYER MOVES
CLUB DURING THE YEAR THEY MUST EITHER PLAY FOR THEIR OLD CLUB UNTIL THE
NEXT BUC OR THEY MAY PLAY IN SCRATCH TEAMS UNTIL THE NEXT BUC.
This is the one proposal that really bothers me. The reason for playing
hockey (for me at least) is that it's fun. It's much more fun, and more
satisfying, to play for a regular team. You're proposing to take that
away from anyone who happens to move. OK, they might still be able to
play for their old club, but are they as likely to make the team for a
club that they no longer regularly train with? They should be able to
play for the club that they regularly train with IMO.

I also feel that if a team is only able to field 4 players for a
distant tournament then they should be able to borrow a player,
particularly if it's a player who used to play for them.




My view on the first part, as it is only three months till BUC this
rule will be OK for now - where it should be discussed further. One
solution would be to allow transfers in the first 6 months of a season
- although it should have supporting evidence e.g. moved nearer to
another team would be a fair reason to change team. What should be
avoided is someone who trains with two distant teams e.g. Lunis and
EMU's (Spencer!) from playing for both teams during the season. His
choice will be dictated by which team he plays for first.

The second situation is likely to occur, especially for any smaller or
new team travelling long distances. Either they could be forced to play
as a 4 player team or the rules written that a scratch player can play
1 match for any official team without losing scratch status?

Keith


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Having thought about it, I'd like to mention some things that may affect
decisions:

I am at university at the moment, thus I practice as a university team
and compete as a university team. However during the summer and other
holidays I will be closer to Oxford or the Emu's, and the other team
members will be spread around the country. Thus I might train with a
different team during part of the year, and therefore be judged to be
an asset to two teams simultaneously. Can one person be a full time
member of one team, and a possible sub for another team in the same
tournament? Obviously I think that being in 2 teams can't possibly
work, but if e.g the Emu's needed a sub and I had practiced with them
and was available, I'd like to think that was maybe a possibility.

Also, if there were a tournament where the Emu's were playing and
Southampton weren't, I'd like to think I wouldn't be excluded from the
Emu's team just because I've played with Southampton in another
tournament, and I would then have to play as a scratch player. If this
is the case, would my 'team' Southampton's points count towards my
'player' scratch points? Or would I be playing in 2 leagues:
Southampton in the 'Team' league and myself in any Tournament where
Southampton cannot attend?

Just some ideas, maybe.

Loose.


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paul royle wrote:

A club may enter as many teams as they like, however these teams must
be separate entities, no player may play for more than club team in any
season.




I think that we may have a problem with this - EMU are likely to bring
two teams to some tournaments when people can get to them, however this
rule seems to mean that once someone has played for EMU2 they are no
longer able to play for EMU1 - we will always be fielding EMU1 as the
strongest possible team we can, but if one of the first choice EMU1
players is unavailable / injured then we would need to promote someone
else from the club to the first team, likewise if a player improves
over the year they should be able to get into the EMU1 team. It seems
a bit unfair if people can't play for teams within the club and it
could lead to the scenario where we would come to a tournament with 5
EMU's but would be unable to field a team due to the ellegibility rules
which can't be right. A change to the rules to get round this would
definitely be welcome

Roland


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I'd like to think we can be pretty flexible with the rules to start with
and see how it goes. It's unlikely to make any difference to the top
few teams.


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