Re: Digest for othsl@googlegroups.com - 3 updates in 1 topic

[Kai Cai]

Sorry, but I can't agree with this - our home field has 9am as the starting time because the town I live in told me that 9am is the earliest starting time they would allow... During the spring season, we did not share the field with another team on Sunday morning. You can't just enact this kind of ban because different towns have their own rules, and OTHSL is not the only league using the fields! 

I also agree with Brad Hickey on the forfeit penalty. I like the idea of one forfeit per season without penalty - even though we did not use it in the spring, we did consider it. After all, not every team can field 11 or more players for every game. Life happens, and our league is recreational in nature. Everyone pays to play, and none of us gets paid! I don't think the harsher penalty would work. It'll simply have a chilling effect on participation. I hope the league can keep the current forfeit rule in place. 

Just my 2 cents, 

Kai   

On Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 5:14 PM <ot...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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Forfeits

James Carr <jamescarr...@gmail.com>: Jul 20 03:46AM -0700 Field availability is one way to help. One change the league could make is to ban 9 a.m start times (or allow 11 a.m. start times). This might help reduce forfeits that result from teams not being able to find alternate fields for weather related cancelations. 9 a.m. start times effectively reduce the number of available slots at fields by half because of the league rule that games have to be done by noon. This is a big problem for the Boston area teams especially who often share fields with other teams. We need to restrict teams to 8 am or 10 am start times so that four teams can share fields on Sunday mornings. When teams reserve fields for 9 am this isn't possible. The Rec departments should manage this better but unfortunately they don't always stay on top of it. If the league had a rule about it it would help a lot. On Saturday, July 19, 2025 at 6:42:31 PM UTC-4 webmaster wrote:

Brad Hickey <bradg...@gmail.com>: Jul 19 08:37PM -0400 Something could be considered for habitual offenders but if the rules allow a forfeit with proper notice (which is absolutely reasonable) then it doesn’t technically matter whether it happens in week 2 or week 10. The impact on the standings is the same.   The roster restrictions, school vacations and spring season bleeding into summer make many of the age groups challenging to field a proper lineup at times. This is a rec league after all.   Perhaps forfeits could be used in tiebreaker considerations but I think forcing a team to risk a safety issue by arriving with only 9-10 players vs. a severe penalty or eviction from the league would be unwise. Losing points in the standings is already a pretty severe penalty.

Joe Barrett <josephpet...@gmail.com>: Jul 22 03:25PM -0400 This past season we avoided a forfeit by playing a double header of 2 60   minute games on the away date with our opponent   Joe   On Jul 22, 2025, at 11:13 AM, Brad Hickey <bradg...@gmail.com> wrote:      Something could be considered for habitual offenders but if the rules allow a forfeit with proper notice (which is absolutely reasonable) then it doesn't technically matter whether it happens in week 2 or week 10. The impact on the standings is the same.   The roster restrictions, school vacations and spring season bleeding into summer make many of the age groups challenging to field a proper lineup at times. This is a rec league after all.   Perhaps forfeits could be used in tiebreaker considerations but I think forcing a team to risk a safety issue by arriving with only 9-10 players vs. a severe penalty or eviction from the league would be unwise. Losing points in the standings is already a pretty severe penalty.   On Sat, Jul 19, 2025 at 6:42 PM Jeremy Mordkoff <webm...@othsl.org> wrote:   We'd love to hear your thoughts/ideas on this. It is a constant topic of conversation.   Recently we changed the penalty for forfeits from 2 card points to 2 standings points, then we allowed teams to forfeit one game a season without penalty. Perhaps we should only allow that rule to apply on certain weeks of the season?   Any other ideas?   Jeremy Mordkoff   Webmaster, www.othsl.org   On Sat, Jul 19, 2025 at 6:02 PM Bostonhammer <bbwh...@gmail.com> wrote:   What measures the league is taking to reduce the number of forfeits. Our team has been affected by three forfeits this season, and there have been six total in our division. This has impacted the competitiveness our division. Are there any plans to address this issue moving forward?   Last fall, three of the four games in the final week of the season were forfeited, ultimately deciding which teams advanced to the playoffs and which were relegated.   --   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "othsl" group.   To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to othsl+un...@googlegroups.com.   To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/othsl/0e619210-94a1-4628-b686-8057efcf9659n%40googlegroups.com.   --   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "othsl" group.   To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to othsl+un...@googlegroups.com.   To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/othsl/CANkJ7k7-h%2BOBUA-8oEskgwaFus7DvWxMJc74C-o%3DV0-WZx-Ezg%40mail.gmail.com.   --   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "othsl" group.   To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to othsl+un...@googlegroups.com.   To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/othsl/CABvgpv9Qs%3D35TMJYXrRtp7PXKqNM9eR0v%2Bstu2pVcw2BRFepPg%40mail.gmail.com.

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[Jamie Metcalfe]

Forfeits need to be discouraged. We all sign up to play 10 games. We all know when those games need to be played in advance, no excuses. Losing the points is expected but is hardly a discouragement. IMO forfeit passes are a joke. Either play the game or take the penalty, and kudos to the teams who play their 10 games. 

Playing with 10 players is an injury risk?!?!! Come on...

--Jamie

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[AT]

Another perspective: imagine a league where the REFEREEs were so casual about their Sunday morning commitments...

[kirk...@gmail.com]

The refereee thing seems like a bit of a falst equivalency since it's 1 person and they are being paid to be there.  Do we have numbers on what % of games are forfeited and what % of teams forfeit?  I know it's a big issue for the teams involved if a division gets hit hard or one team folds mid-way through the season bit I'd be curious how big the problem actually is and we are coming up with solutions in search of a problem. Given that all clubs are essentially volunteer run without much instruction, it's actually pretty impressive how many games go off without a hitch every week.  A league like this will never be perfect in that regard just given the nature of amateur soccer that involves players with a variey of other commitments.

Kirk

[Jeremy Mordkoff]

This is sorted wrong (fall before spring) but I think you can still see the trends. Back around 2018, we switched from forfeits costing two card points to costing 2 standings points and that seemed to help. Then recently, we added the "forfeit no penalty" option and they went up again.

the overall trend is from about 2.5% to about 6% 

I'll let you all draw your own conclusions 

09f: 226 09f/Teams.dat teams, 1130 games, 32 forfeits
09s: 226 09s/Teams.dat teams, 1113 games, 25 forfeits
10f: 230 10f/Teams.dat teams, 1150 games, 24 forfeits
10s: 230 10s/Teams.dat teams, 1150 games, 51 forfeits
11f: 248 11f/Teams.dat teams, 1297 games, 70 forfeits
11s: 248 11s/Teams.dat teams, 1294 games, 59 forfeits
12f: 254 12f/Teams.dat teams, 1327 games, 33 forfeits
12s: 258 12s/Teams.dat teams, 1347 games, 45 forfeits
13f: 266 13f/Teams.dat teams, 1377 games, 41 forfeits
13s: 262 13s/Teams.dat teams, 1367 games, 61 forfeits
14f: 272 14f/Teams.dat teams, 1420 games, 71 forfeits
14s: 272 14s/Teams.dat teams, 1410 games, 68 forfeits
15f: 276 15f/Teams.dat teams, 1440 games, 74 forfeits
15s: 274 15s/Teams.dat teams, 1430 games, 44 forfeits
16f: 284 16f/Teams.dat teams, 1483 games, 83 forfeits
16s: 282 16s/Teams.dat teams, 1470 games, 98 forfeits
17f: 286 17f/Teams.dat teams, 1493 games, 50 forfeits
17s: 284 17s/Teams.dat teams, 1483 games, 109 forfeits

# rule change to 2 standings points

18f: 286 18f/Teams.dat teams, 1480 games, 64 forfeits
18s: 286 18s/Teams.dat teams, 1490 games, 52 forfeits
19f: 276 19f/Teams.dat teams, 1437 games, 54 forfeits
19s: 278 19s/Teams.dat teams, 1447 games, 42 forfeits
20f: 198 20f/Teams.dat teams, 990 games, 36 forfeits

20s: COVID 

21f: 270 21f/Teams.dat teams, 1404 games, 61 forfeits
21s: 236 21s/Teams.dat teams, 1171 games, 75 forfeits
22f: 270 22f/Teams.dat teams, 1407 games, 68 forfeits
22s: 274 22s/Teams.dat teams, 1427 games, 68 forfeits
23f: 266 23f/Teams.dat teams, 1387 games, 34 forfeits
23s: 268 23s/Teams.dat teams, 1417 games, 67 forfeits
24f: 278 24f/Teams.dat teams, 1453 games, 62 forfeits
24s: 282 24s/Teams.dat teams, 1470 games, 66 forfeits

# added forfeit w/o penalty 

25s: 286 25s/Teams.dat teams, 1493 games, 85 forfeits

Jeremy Mordkoff

Webmaster, www.othsl.org

 

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[Jamie Metcalfe]

Yeah, we are encouraging forfeits. I don't know about all of you, but I didn't sign up to not play games.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/othsl/CANkJ7k4%2B2vJSE0-N0tcrGRDm-qyns2_H%2BEFb%3D4Mq6gYVcjQxTw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Joe Barrett]

A few seasons ago I had an opposing manager admit that he forced me to forfeit because he didn’t want a long drive for a make up game. 

This past season we played a doubleheader of 2 x 60 minute games to make up for a cancelled game.  I thought that was a good solution. 

Joe

On Aug 1, 2025, at 2:56 PM, Jamie Metcalfe <jamg...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Scott Giarla]

Jeremy, this is super helpful.  I took a few min to toss it into excel for a visualization (see below top).  While the avg. forfeits / game was about the same for the years with Standings Points vs Card Points, if you measure over the same number of seasons (13), the difference becomes clearer (see below bottom).  Additionally, the card points seasons had the 3 highest number of forfeits and 8 seasons over the avg vs. 5 seasons over the avg.  
What this means to me is that we should remove the no penalty option and have the penalty be standings points.  Another idea would be to make the cost of a forfeit the inverse of a win (3 standings points).  

Date	Season	Teams	Games	FFTs	% FFTs	Penalty
2009	Fall	226	1130	32	3%	Card Points
2009	Spring	226	1113	25	2%	Card Points
2010	Fall	230	1150	24	2%	Card Points
2010	Spring	230	1150	51	4%	Card Points
2011	Fall	248	1297	70	5%	Card Points
2011	Spring	248	1294	59	5%	Card Points
2012	Fall	254	1327	33	2%	Card Points
2012	Spring	258	1347	45	3%	Card Points
2013	Fall	266	1377	41	3%	Card Points
2013	Spring	262	1367	61	4%	Card Points
2014	Fall	272	1420	71	5%	Card Points
2014	Spring	272	1410	68	5%	Card Points
2015	Fall	276	1440	74	5%	Card Points
2015	Spring	274	1430	44	3%	Card Points
2016	Fall	284	1483	83	6%	Card Points
2016	Spring	282	1470	98	7%	Card Points
2017	Fall	286	1493	50	3%	Card Points
2017	Spring	284	1483	109	7%	Card Points
					4%	AVG FFTs / Game - CP
2018	Fall	286	1480	64	4%	Standings Points
2018	Spring	286	1490	52	3%	Standings Points
2019	Fall	276	1437	54	4%	Standings Points
2019	Spring	278	1447	42	3%	Standings Points
2020	Fall	198	990	36	4%	Standings Points
2021	Fall	270	1404	61	4%	Standings Points
2021	Spring	236	1171	75	6%	Standings Points
2022	Fall	270	1407	68	5%	Standings Points
2022	Spring	274	1427	68	5%	Standings Points
2023	Fall	266	1387	34	2%	Standings Points
2023	Spring	268	1417	67	5%	Standings Points
2024	Fall	278	1453	62	4%	Standings Points
2024	Spring	282	1470	66	4%	Standings Points
					4%	AVG FFTs / Game - SP
2025	Spring	286	1493	85	6%	FFT no Pen

 

Date	Season	Teams	Games	FFTs	% FFTs	Penalty
2011	Spring	248	1294	59	4.56%	Card Points
2012	Fall	254	1327	33	2.49%	Card Points
2012	Spring	258	1347	45	3.34%	Card Points
2013	Fall	266	1377	41	2.98%	Card Points
2013	Spring	262	1367	61	4.46%	Card Points
2014	Fall	272	1420	71	5.00%	Card Points
2014	Spring	272	1410	68	4.82%	Card Points
2015	Fall	276	1440	74	5.14%	Card Points
2015	Spring	274	1430	44	3.08%	Card Points
2016	Fall	284	1483	83	5.60%	Card Points
2016	Spring	282	1470	98	6.67%	Card Points
2017	Fall	286	1493	50	3.35%	Card Points
2017	Spring	284	1483	109	7.35%	Card Points
			AVG FFTs / Game - CP			4.53%
2018	Fall	286	1480	64	4.32%	Standings Points
2018	Spring	286	1490	52	3.49%	Standings Points
2019	Fall	276	1437	54	3.76%	Standings Points
2019	Spring	278	1447	42	2.90%	Standings Points
2020	Fall	198	990	36	3.64%	Standings Points
2021	Fall	270	1404	61	4.34%	Standings Points
2021	Spring	236	1171	75	6.40%	Standings Points
2022	Fall	270	1407	68	4.83%	Standings Points
2022	Spring	274	1427	68	4.77%	Standings Points
2023	Fall	266	1387	34	2.45%	Standings Points
2023	Spring	268	1417	67	4.73%	Standings Points
2024	Fall	278	1453	62	4.27%	Standings Points
2024	Spring	282	1470	66	4.49%	Standings Points
			AVG FFTs / Game - SP			4.18%
2025	Spring	286	1493	85	5.69%	FFT no Pen

Best,

Scott Giarla

D4 o40s

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[Brad Hickey]

I think one of the challenges here is that people have a misconception that forfeits somehow caused their team to be relegated or not to be promoted. Which of course isn’t at all true. Teams get relegated or don’t get promoted because they don’t win enough games over the course of the season. Want to get promoted? Win more games. Don’t want to get relegated? Win more games.

I also think this is a lot of talk over a very small number of games. From an equity standpoint, the standings treating a team who has to forfeit a game the same as a team who has been abusing opponents and officials all season while racking up card points is a hollow comparison. I know which group I think is more of a stain on the league. Want real changes? Start by meaningfully punishing teams that receive cards. 

[AT]

Kirk, I guess you kinda proved my point regarding the use of the word "casual".  The deal is, at least for me as a long-time OTHSL referee, I commit to my season-long schedule as early as March for the spring, and August for the Fall.  The operative word is I *COMMIT*.  I show up, through sun, rain, snow, sickness, whatever, having never missed a game, ever. (I realize that is not the norm).  Anyway, when I commit to OTHSL (and most Sundays I do a doubleheader), I forego other referee opportunities namely youth club and/or town (which can be quite lucrative).  So when I get notifications of cancellations owing to forfeits, I'm not a happy camper.  And I get about 2-3 per season.  Most often within 48 hours of kickoff.  So that means I'm screwed, as it is generally impossible to find a suitable replacement game that moreover allows for travel time given my other Sunday assignments.  Thus, the fact that a referee "is being paid to be there" is irrelevant, and I would argue that we are "1 person" makes it all the more essential that we show up.  [On a related topic, I'll add that unless the league institutes a policy for compensating referees for cancelations within, say 48 hours of scheduled kickoff (not owing to weather, of course) if the recent rate of (especially "last minute") forfeitures/cancelations continues, then I, for one, just may consider switching exclusively to youth on Sunday (with all their ancillary benefits, especially since they now pay commensurately -- or better -- albeit not in cash).  And the "loser" will be the OTHSL teams, as I'm one darn good ref!!! :-)

[Bostonhammer]

It's not a misconception. The past two seasons, at least in my division, it has directly impacted who makes the playoffs and who is relegated.  This past fall, 3 of the 4 games were forfeits in the final week.. 

[Jamie Metcalfe]

Impacted in a good or bad way?!?! Last season there was no penalty for a forfeit, aside from not getting the points. 

At the end of the day it's about playing the games. Seems like we all want to see the games played, including the refs.

                                                                                                    
Jamie

Cell: 978-808-0509

[James Carr]

Agree - I withdraw the suggestion of banning 9 am start times.... especially as our start time is 9 am this season! :)

But allowing 11 am start times could still be a good idea?