Cool Runnings

Oy it's cold in the Northern Virginia area! To think that I was able to take a vacation where I could lie on the beach and laugh at the snow people were enduring here only to return and the day after I am back, I was called into action thanks to the O40 women's league I reffed a couple of matches for last year.

But this time, I was not prepared for it. My match started at 3pm. I arrived at 2:30 and saw that the ladies were putting up the nets on the goals. It was cold, around 34 F and it was ok until the wind started swirling up. The field was a turf field on top of a hill of sorts, and how the wind blew.

The match started 10 minutes late because all the players were basically in their cars with the motors running in the parking lot until enough people got out to start the match. It is funny to see how some women, like those closer to 60 years old were out and warming up while those closer to 40 were in their cars and thinking "What am I doing here?"

We did 2 40 minute halves and by the end of the match, I was frozen to the bone. I mean I was cold. It was almost 5pm, dark, and the temperature had dropped to about 29 F or so. It had been a decent match, where white scored 2 first half goals, and with 15 minutes to play, blue pulled one back and then attacked to get the equalizer but failed to so. Kudos to the ladies, it was a decent match, but they did not really need me as I called three fouls tops.

However, as I was about to leave, the second match did not have their ref yet. Even though this league pays well, I was in no desire to stay and do another match. I do have a policy though that unless I have to be somewhere else after a match, I hang around until the ref for the next match shows up. Of course, they always do but it is the right thing to do in case they do. Well, he didn't this time.

So I did the second match. We did 30 minutes because it was bitterly cold with the wind. Not sure what the wind chill was or how to calculate it but it was a good 15-20 miles and hour and gusts every so often made it worse. To tell you that in the first half, I did it with my coat on. Side note: I was wearing a t-shirt, an Under Armor compression shirt and my blue, red, black and yellow jerseys on for the first match.

When one of the ladies said that they were confused and almost passed me the ball thinking I was one of their teammates, I replied "Don't worry, I will take it off soon" and she replied "You have no idea how long I have waited to hear you say that!" It was certainly funny.

Anyway, in the second match, I did have a lot more work, there were two ladies, one on each side that were somewhat enforcers and no one really got by them. So I had to call some more fouls and there were a couple of complaints with the balls going out of touch, but it seemed they were gaming me instead of actually thinking I had missed the call.

And I called a penalty, the keeper diving for the ball, took out the attacker, so it was all in all a better game. The final there was 2-2 but good stuff indeed because their level of play was more than decent given the fact that it was the first games of the season for each team and that it was in such demaning weather. Hats off, ladies.