Silent Night
We want our sport to thrive and as an Zone Executive we have decided to hold a "Silent Night" on June 19. What this means is that all fans attending a game on June 19th are asked to not make any verbal comments during game play. We do want to see you cheer on your players by clapping only and for fans to use their imaginations and display signs to cheer on your team.
June 2, 2018
To Zone 8 Members,
Zone 8 Executive members have been discussing for the last couple of years the issues surrounding behavior of fans in our game. Just like all minor sports we are seeing an increase of inappropriate behavior in the stands and have discussed extensively what impact this behavior has on referees, players and volunteer coaches.
We in Zone 8 are very aware that most fans in the stands do conduct positive behavior but with the increase of instances that have come to the Zones attention, we in Zone 8 felt we needed to show that inappropriate behavior in the stands has a very negative impact on our game. Lacrosse is declining in player registration, referee numbers have decreased substantially which is affecting the development of the referee program, Associations are struggling to recruit coaches and have seen some teams fold due to no coaching staff.
We want our sport to thrive and as an Executive we have decided to hold a "Silent Night" on June 19. What this means is that all fans attending a game on June 19th are asked to not make any verbal comments during game play. We do want to see you cheer on your players by clapping only and for fans to use their imaginations and display signs to cheer on your team.
Club executives have supported this initiative and will be in the stands to monitor. We as a Zone will be collecting at the end of the game comments from the players, coaches and referees to evaluate how they felt about the change in a refreshed atmosphere and will then collect these comments and share with all Zone 8 members.
We want out sport to grow, we want referees to develop and we want our players to enjoy the game they love.
Thank you for your cooperation,
Steve Kelly
Zone 8 Director