2019 Preseason Captain’s Meeting Minutes

2019 Spring Captain meeting minutes.docx

1. Introductions – Kevin MacLeod, Chris Beatty and Bryce Zimny
2. Teams: Brett (Throw ops), Indiscribable (Tyler Speakman), Pain in the Grass(Randy(Hot D), Kenny(Fris BAES), Bryce(Breaking Bad), Marc(Highland Huckers), Nathalie Drake(Art of Awesome/Redisculus), Pat(The Usual Suspects), Manny(Ultimate Dummies), Tawnya(Where’s Jerry), Rueben(Flashpoint), Ethan Mackenzie(huge dumps), Rhian(Fast Count/Telefrancais), Michelle (My dudes), Kyle(sharkbait/Top Gun/Mighty Hucks), Bill(Landsharks)
3. Divisions – All divisions will be done on ladders which means the schedule will be put out 1 week at a time. There are 5 competitive teams signed up for 5 pm Sunday league and if one more team can be convinced to move up then the league will have a competitive division and a recreational division. The ELO rankings system will be implemented again. Suggestions for the formula are needed.
4. Late registrations - Last teams to enter may be asked to switch divisions or may not play this year unless we can find another team. Kevin will do everything he can to get everyone playing.
5. Wednesday league -experimenting with gender ratio rule still no foot blocks. One team is having trouble finding guys due to a conflict with HOUNDD practices. Individual team needs 5 more girls to run.
6. Important Dates
1. Summer season starts Long weekend Monday May 20^th  (5 pm teams @ 2 pm, 7 pm teams @ 4 pm). Captains must explain to their team that this is the only Monday we play on and that all other games will be on Sundays.
2. Playoff dates 5 pm teams - Saturday August 24, 7 pm teams - Sunday August 25.
3. Teams must opt into playoffs by August 1.

d.    Callahan Charity tournament - June 1st. All information on the site under TOURNAMENTS

5. Beach tournament is August 10^th registration will be up soon
6. Memberships are mandatory. The membership run from April to end of April the following year. Players must purchase these in order to be selected for any team rosters.
7. Recruiting women – It was agreed that there needs to be more of an effort to get more women into the game and also retain the women we have. Dangerous plays as well as male players who don’t throw to women were mentioned are reasons why women are turned off from the game. The league exec asked for volunteers to help bring more women into the game. If you are interested contact Kevin.
1. There will be a 4 week women’s league running on Thursday nights in Oshawa starting in mid May. Watch for emails and sign up soon. Incentives will be given for current DUC women players to recruit new women players.
8. Minimum age Requirement rule change

Current Rule:

Minimum Age for Adult Leagues

Since this is an adult league the recommended age is 18 and over, however, parents or legal guardians can electronically sign a waiver to allow their children to participate if the child is in high school and has played a competitive game.

This rule was too vague

Proposed rule:

Each specific league will post the rules ahead of time so that captains are aware of the minimum ages. For leagues that will allow players under 18, here are the rules that will be applied.

Minimum Age Requirements for leagues involving team entries 

Since this league is mainly comprised of adults the recommended minimum age is 18.

Exceptions for players younger than 18:

Players who are in high school are allowed to play so long as they have parental (or guardian) consent via a signed waiver.  In cases where a player is of high school age but not at an ability to compete safely the executive reserves the right to remove the player from the league.  (Players entering high school may register for fall league of same year, but are not eligible for that summer)

Players who are not in high school may be allowed to play if they have played on a Durham Ultimate Club junior competitive team, have a junior coaches recommendation and the executive agrees that the player is both physically and mentally capable of competing against adults.

Minimum Age Requirements for leagues/teams involving individual entries or Specialty Leagues 

Leagues, such as hat leagues and parity leagues, that involve the League admin setting up teams of individuals, will have separate rules for the minimum age which will be decided upon by the League admin to ensure maximum enjoyment by the registrants. Modified rules will also apply to teams of individuals who are signing up for different leagues. In some cases leagues may have very specific age limits, such as an over 18 league or an over 35 league, in which case players younger than those limits cannot play.

This proposed rule was agreed upon by captains. This rule will be used for Summer leagues this year.

10.  Improving Player safety

There was lots of discussion here about improving the safety of all players and also how aggressive play leads to women leaving the sport. It was generally agreed that since this is overall a recreational league where most players just play once a week for exercise and have no ambition to turn pro that there should be more of a focus on ensuring that all players go home in the same health as they arrived. Players receiving concussions or broken bones due to collisions is totally unacceptable. Therefore it was decided that we would do the following:

·         Try to make plays without initiating any contact.

·         Make it a game of skill as opposed to aggression. If you cannot make a play on the disc without making contact, then you probably should not make the play.

·         Saying “I got the disc first” is not an acceptable defence to colliding with someone. If you hit the disc and then go over someone’s back or crash into their body this is a foul.

·         A win at all costs attitude is unacceptable

·         Captains must talk with their players, especially those more aggressive players, and try and get them to buy in to the above philosophies.

11. Dangerous Play Rule – Within the rules there is a seldom used rule called Dangerous Play. This rule is actually different in the USA ultimate rules, where they allow some contact in certain situations, and the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) where they feel that no contact is acceptable. We need not get into all the details because it is very complicated and easily misunderstood or misapplied. What DUC would like to see is that players start to become educated on this rule in order to improve the safety of our league. Here is the basic rule

“Reckless disregard for the safety of fellow players or other dangerously aggressive behavior (such as significantly colliding into a stationary opponent), regardless of whether or when the disc arrives or when contact occurs is considered dangerous play and is treated as a foul”

The proper call in this case is "Dangerous Play." The caller should then briefly explain the grounds for the call. This call trumps any foul rules and should be used in situations where the play presented serious risk of injury. Any play that could result in a head injury should be considered “Dangerous play”. As an example, not all elbows to a head will result in a concussion but since the possibility of a serious injury is there, all contact to people’s head should be avoided.

Hopefully by talking about this rule and also focusing on the information written in the “Improving player safety” section of the minutes the league becomes a safer and more fun league that retains all its players.

For those of you that want to know more about the ins and outs of this rule I will post a document that goes over a bunch of examples on the forum for discussion

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12.  Executive Procedures  - the following was very briefly discussed

1. Captain’s meetings will be scheduled before and after summer and indoor leagues to discuss likes and dislikes
2. Rules – If rule loopholes appear then the executive will immediately poll captains to determine their opinions. The executive will then have to decide what to do based on the captains opinions and what is best for the league.  Which consequently may mean that the league exec instill rules on currently active leagues in order to address such issues.
12.  Gender Rule - Kyle proposed changing the gender rule from the USAU rule to the endzone A and B rule. The executive decided that since the idea of changing the gender ratio to the newest rule was already discussed by captains and rejected that any other changes to the gender rule would have to wait until next year. It was then discussed how and when the newest rule might be implemented. Kyle wanted a firm commitment that the league would run with the new rule for next summer but ultimately the following was decided
1. Wait until this summer season is over to see how the Wednesday league works out using the new rule
2. Kyle and or Kevin would talk with teams over the summer to see how many teams would be capable of fielding teams to support the new gender rule
3. More women are probably needed to support the rule without men being displaced.  
13. Rosters –
1. Instructions to captains explaining how to set up their teams this year was discussed. General procedure is to click on team settings, players, add player to roster, select 2019 as the season and then search for your players and follow the instructions. If you cannot find a player then they either haven’t purchased their membership or you are spelling their name wrong.  Do not attempt to do this yet because most people have not bought their membership yet.
2. Players must be on roster 24 hours prior to the game in order to be eligible to play.
3. Players cannot be added to the roster until they have purchased a membership. Membership must be payed online. If players have Paypal fears or troubles, captains can accept cash from players and then use their own credit card to sign up the player.  
4. It is up to players and captains to make sure they appear on the team’s public roster prior to playing in a game. Players and captains can be fined for breaking the rules. Players who do this put the whole league in jeopardy.
5. In order to play in playoffs players must have been on the team roster prior to July 31^st . Kevin will lock the rosters on August 1^st to prevent further changes. If teams need players after this time they must email Kevin to request that a certain player be added.
6. If there are new captains that need their teams set up then email Kevin to make switch and give new captain the powers, or stay behind after the meeting.
14. Teams defaulting regular season – Teams/Captains will be fined as stated in the league policies.

16.Playoffs – once again scheduled at the end of August to allow teams to play a couple extra league games.

·         5 pm teams - Saturday August 24, 7 pm teams - Sunday August 25.

·         Teams must opt in by August 1.

·         Top 4 teams in each division will qualify to compete in the competitive playoff tournament. All other teams are in a second recreational playoff.

·         Top 2 teams advance to the final game which will be held on August 27^th at the Oshawa civic. 5 pm division finals will be at 7 pm and 7 pm division finals will be at 9 pm. We will continue to try and get observers/linespeople for finals.

·         Teams defaulting a playoff game - New Rule2018: If a team defaults any of their playoff games they are ineligible to play any other playoff games and the team captain will be fined $100. The captain will be ineligible to play in DUC until they have paid this fine.

17.Rained out games – Teams should not assume that a game is going to be rained out just because it is raining or rain is forecast. All teams should show up to the field because sometimes the weather at the field is fine. Teams should also not assume that because the 5 pm game was rained out that the 7 pm will also be rained out. In the event of cancellations, the convenor will attempt to reschedule games either as double headers, scheduled throughout the week on any night or on the Monday of the long weekend in August. If teams cannot field a team for the makeup game, they will be issued a 5-0 loss instead of a default.

18. Field lining - Sunday Fields will be professionally lined again. Brick will be 20 yards, endzones will be 18.
19. Team Names: Try to keep them clean. More youth and parents are visiting the site these days.
20. Insurance – through Ontario Ultimate.  When players buy their memberships they will check off box having said they agree with waiver.
21. HolidSpirit Committee – In the case of a conflict of interest the spirit committee will be asked to decide on consequences for teams breaking rules such as playing illegal players during a playoff game. (Volunteers, Pat, Rhian, Kyle, Nathalie, Randy A)

The following items were not discussed but are still important for captains to know

22. Rules –
1. For all outdoor leagues the full USAU rules will govern play. Major change is that foot blocks are in and so is gender matching. If the receiving team plays 4 girls and 3 guys the pulling team must match.  * Captains can overrule rules based on mutual agreement.  
2. Wednesday league will still play with no footblocks (voted by captains)
3. All captains should read the rules. (download App for I-phone or android)
4. DUC awards 3 points for a win, 2 for a tie, 1 for a loss and 0 for a defaulted game.
5. Home team maintains team jerseys in case of colour conflict. Captains should add their colours to the website.
6. Teams not ready on time – 1pt every 5 mins starting 5 min after the hour (25 min game is defaulted team needs to take line and when ready and points are accrued when until other team is ready)
7. Games Length - Hard cap 1 hour and 40 minutes after the scheduled start time. So for a 5 pm game this would mean hard cap at  6:40.   A hard time cap is the ending of the game once a predetermined time of play has elapsed and after the current scoring attempt is completed.
8. Half Time - half time occurs when a team reaches a score of 8. On Windy days captains can agree to a different half time total
23.  Indoor- (this was not discussed, a meeting will be scheduled for the May time frame)

a.    March Break – games ran with minimal subs, should we continue march break games?

b.    Gender ratio –

c.    Running different formats for half the season. Example: run Single gender for the fall session and then coed for the spring session. On Tuesday’s run a hat league for some of the time and then move into team entries. Run a six on six 3/3 ratio league. Run Tuesdays as 8 on 8 with no zones allowed.

d.    Easter no games – did this work?

e.    Sub rule – some players playing every week without paying. Teams in the top 4 are only allowed subs to bring them up to 7 guys and 4 girls.

f.     Footblocks – should they be allowed?

24.Tie Breakers for playoffs and for regular season.

                                         i.    Head to Head record

                                        ii.    Head to Head plus minus

                                       iii.    Total points against including all games in regular season or playoff games

                                       iv.    Least defaulted games

                                        v.    Spirit points

                                       vi.    Coin flip

25. Prizes: All league division winners and playoff winners to receive gold discs. Winners of recreational playoffs may receive prizes of some sort.
26. Discs – 18 per team and captain is responsible for giving them out. Discs must be picked up on the first day. 1 pm pick up for 2 pm games and 3 pm pick up for 4 pm games.
27. League Party - Family Fun day proposed for August during the day. BBQ, DISC GOLF tournament, Cups tournament etc. Possibility of a night time party as well, but on a different day in September. Party planning Coordinators are still needed.
28. Score boards/Cones – Scoreboards will not be provided. Cones will be provided to new teams.  Also, there are good apps on smartphones that can easily keep track of scores. 8 cones are required and will be used for determining in and out, but extra’s can be present for vision issues)
29. Spirit Scoring – continuing to use the new spirit scoring system where 2 is the default, a 3 should be given to teams that were above average and a 4 for a team that was over the top.   Please continue to do a spirit game and choose players of the game. 
30. Elementary Youth League – Whitby and Bowmanville Division, registration still open.
31. High School League - Still room for more players
32. U18 Junior girls and boys touring Team – All information on the website for any U18 players that want to play.
33. Sub list - must be a DUC member to be on the list. Subs can only sub once a day. To get on the list or to find players on the list look under registration info on the main homepage. Captains should ask the player if they have a membership before allowing them to play. Captains will not be fined if players lie to them. Players subbing that do not have a membership will be fined and or banned from subbing.
34. Skills Clinics – need volunteers to run.