The goaltimate rules badly need to be updated
Get ready for some grade-A rules-lawyering
On a recent episode of the Deep Look podcast, Charlie and Keith discussed the upcoming (at the time they recorded) goaltimate nationals in Austin, Texas.
Charlie had this to say about the benefits of Ultiworld livestreaming some of the games:
I'm just excited to have a repository of high-level goaltimate footage shot with multiple cameras because I think goaltimate's kind of at the point where in order for the game to progress meaningfully there needs to start to be actual strategic review of how to play the game better. And I think it's very regionalized. Having played goaltimate at various places around the country, the rules are different everywhere, and obviously there's some commonalities but I think there's a chance for some true innovation in the game. I'm a big goaltimate fan, so I'm excited.
I'll work on writing up some goalty strategy analysis, but I actually want to focus on a different part of his comments today. This:
I think it's very regionalized. Having played goaltimate at various places around the country, the rules are different everywhere...
My theory for why everywhere has different rules for goaltimate: the official rules of goaltimate suck.
A few months back, I had a rules question after a goalti session, so I went online to check out the official rules.
The official goaltimate rule set (this PDF, linked on this page) clearly hasn't been studied/refined/revised to anywhere near the extent that the rules of ultimate have been. It's badly in need of some refreshing.
Below I've compiled a number of examples of where I think the ruleset is lacking. Honestly, I only stopped because I got bored.
Here are a few examples:
From section VIII, Player Positioning:
VIII.A.4. Players may turn slightly to protect themselves from imminent contact but are never allowed to bend over to submarine an opponent.
VIII.A.5. A player may “back up”, move away from an in-motion player to protect themselves from imminent contact.
Having a specific anti-submarining rule seems odd. I imagine two jerks getting into it at a goalty game and then one of them goes home and writes the official rules of goaltimate that night, remembering the way an opponent submarined him when he was trying to run them over. (Also, what would the penalty be for submarining? It's not clear.)
And what even is the point of VIII.A.5? When would it ever not be legal to move away from someone??
The goaltending rules seem extremely unwieldy. (That being said, I have never played in a goaltimate game where people actually counted goaltending). At the same time, it's possible for there to be three different things being counted aloud by players on the field:
Defense counting a stall count on the offense
Offense counting a goaltending call on the defense
Defense counting a goaltending call on the offense
IX.A.1 says that the "intent for all players after entering the KA/GA is to clear before 3 seconds has elapsed." However, for this rule to be enforced, the opposing team needs to start counting the moment a player enters the space. If you start counting immediately, there will be lots of extraneous counting that doesn't result in a call. But if you don't start counting immediately, the player gets to spend more time in the goal area.
On top of that, you have to say the word "goaltending" aloud each time—IX.C.3 requires that:
“Goaltending” must be said between each number until 3 is reached to distinguish the “goaltending count” from the “stall count.”
For people to be making goaltending calls, there is going to be a lot of chatter happening at the same time. I don't see how this rule is actually functional at any level of play.
One more quibble: there will often be multiple players on the same team in the goal area at the same time, but the rules don't really allow for calling goaltending on both of them, since:
IX.C.8. Where there are two goaltending counts, the numerically lower applies.
If you want an effective three-second rule, you pretty much need refs.
I'm not sure we need a rule to prevent offensive goaltending. If players want to stand around clogging up the most important space on the field, why not just let them? The basketball equivalent of what goalti calls "goaltending" is actually the "three-second violation" and NOT basketball’s "goaltending". I'm not really sure where I'm going with this.
I guess the point is: basketball has three-second violations for both offense and defense, but modern offenses don't clog the area near the basket anyway, because it's bad for spacing. At this point, the offensive three-seconds could probably be removed from the NBA and the strategies wouldn't change much. (I guess the main exception is that extremely tall players would benefit from having lots of time to get in a good position right next to the basket).
V.B.4 says:
4. When a disc is out of bounds, a member of the team gaining possession must immediately carry the disc to the nearest spot where the most recent event occurred:
a. The disc finished crossing the perimeter.
b. An inbounds player touched the disc.
c. A defender touched the disc.
d. The disc became out of bounds before crossing the sideline.
I assume they mean to say “nearest inbounds spot” and not just “nearest spot”.
I don't really understand (d)—how could the disc become out of bounds without crossing the sideline? (Yes it could cross the end line instead of sideline—but then (a) would apply and (d) still isn't needed.) Maybe I'm just not being inventive enough, but I'm having trouble figuring out what edge case this rule is trying to cover. (Or is it meant to cover cases where the disc rolls out, then rolls back in? If so, why is it using “sideline” instead of “perimeter”?)
Part (b) also seems imperfectly worded. Say the disc is out of bounds near the sideline, and a player wants to force the opposing team to play the disc from where it now lies, instead of from where it rolled out of bounds. V.B.4.b would seem to allow them to reach down and touch the disc, thereby changing the “most recent event” from (a) to (b).
Then V.B.6 says:
6. Restarting play from out of bounds
a. To restart play on a disc that is out of bounds, the thrower will establish their pivot foot inside the perimeter from the closest point where the disc was last in bounds.
These rules needlessly overlap each other—V.B.4 requires you to "carry the disc" to a certain spot, but then V.B.6 requires you to "establish a pivot foot" at a spot that could be a different location. For example, if V.B.4.c applies, the rules would technically require you to carry the disc to the spot where the defender touched it, and then go establish a pivot foot at the spot where the disc was last in bounds.
A couple more quibbles about the in- and out-of-bounds section.
First, V.B.1 says:
1. A player is out of bounds if they contact anything out of bounds, except:
a. Players in the air retain their status based on their last ground contact.
But...this is not actually an exception. If they're in the air, they haven't contacted anything out of bounds, so V.B.1 doesn't apply.
Second, Section V.A. has the header "Perimeter", but then one of the sub-rules is:
4. Officials are neutral; they are neither in nor out of bounds.
"Officials" have nothing to do with "Perimeter"—this shouldn't be in the "Perimeter" section.
The rules are self-contradictory on the situations where a disc can be thrown "backwards" through the goal. X.A.5.a says:
The goal is a “one way gate” in which a disc may only be thrown through the hoop in one direction toward the Goal Area. Any disc thrown through the backside of the goal toward the Key Area is a One Way Hoop Violation, and is a turn over.
(Side note: why call it a "one way hoop violation" when you just called it a "one way gate"? I don't know.)
However, I.B.3 says:
Any throw originating from the Goal Box cannot travel airborne or be pulled through the backside of the Goal or a turnover will result.
Is it any throw, or any throw originating from the goal box?
"Any throw" makes the most sense, but it does get rid of a hypothetical super fun edge case where you could use an IO/OI edge to release a throw from in front of the goal that ends up curling backwards through the goal to a receiver who catches it in the air and then lands back in the goal area for a score.
X.A.16 simply says:
16. A player may “Greatest” if they retain their inbounds status based on their last ground contact.
But Section X. is "Scoring". What does that rule have anything to do with scoring?
XI. ("Fouls"), part A ("Contact") has a few statements that don't make sense to me:
XI.A.6. Controlled contact is not a foul. Controlled contact is permitted as long as it does not affect a player’s balance, speed, jump, catch, pivot, throw, or play on the disc.
Isn't controlled contact always going to affect the opponent's "balance, speed, ...or play on the disc"? If someone is balanced and you start making contact with them, won't they always have an argument that you've affected their balance?
Then we've got XI.A.8, which says:
Intentional contact away from the disc is a foul.
But doesn't this just say that controlled contact is not legal if the thrower isn't involved? What nuance is this statement meant to add to the controlled contact rule? It's not clear to me. (In my local group, we generally play pretty-much-non-contact goaltie, and it works well enough.)
VI.C.1. says that:
A Receiver is any Offensive player attempting to catch a disc or not in possession of the disc. After the catch, the player’s first contact point inside the field perimeter determines whether the player is in-bounds.
If "the player’s first contact point inside the field perimeter" determines whether a player is in-bounds, how would a player ever be ruled out? Even out-of-bounds players will eventually have another contact point back in-bounds. As I read it, this rule is technically telling us not to consider out-of-bounds contact points, only in-bounds contact points.
The sentence could be rephrased: "After the catch, a player is in-bounds if the player’s first contact point is inside the field perimeter."
XI.D:
D. Cylinder of Verticality
1. Players have the right to jump or reach into the air space immediately above their torso to make a play on the disc.
2. Contact in this space that occurs before the disc is caught or blocked is a foul on the player
The rules don’t specify which player it is a foul on.
Section XII, Violations, has section A for Thrower Travels, and section B for Receiver Travels. The rules are the same, except that the Receiver section has a few listed "Exceptions". One of those exceptions is "an official may determine when the receiver becomes the thrower and enforce the travel foul accordingly." (Note also that travels are "violations" and not "foul"s).
I don't understand what's going on here. Why have two separate-but-nearly-identical sets of travel rules?
There are at least two places in the rules where the term "turn over" is used (with a space) instead of the one-word "turnover".
XIII.A.3 says:
If the disc is caught by the thrower before another player contacts the disc, the thrower retains possession and the stall count continues.
Does this mean that it's possible to drop the disc, jump into the endzone, and score on a pass to yourself? I don’t see anything that would make this illegal. (I believe this rule is meant to allow throwers to catch the disc if they inadvertently drop it, but that’s not how the rule is currently written.)
XIII.B.3:
3. [It is a turnover] If a straddled player receives a disc from the thrower that originated from the Goal Box, and establishes a pivot in the Key Area, pulling the disc through the “one way gate.”
Again, there's an unnecessary (in my opinion) requirement of where the pass originated from. This phrasing seems to say that if you're straddling the goal line, and catch a pass, you can pull the disc through the one way gate if the pass came from upfield, but not if the pass came from the goal box. I don't see any good reason for this.
(Also this raises the question—what if you establish your pivot in the Key Area, but you pass the disc from one hand to the other outside of the goal? This would seem to be legal as the disc isn't passing through the 'one way gate'.)
XIII.B.6 seems to suggest gloves are illegal in goaltimate:
6. Players may not use equipment (e.g., hats) in an effort to catch, block, or affect the disc in the air.
XIV.A.1:
Goaltending: Player’s stop, only those involved in the goaltending call may reposition.
Reference IX.B
The same typo—"player's"—appears in the next few sentences, i.e. XIV, —A.2, —A.3, —A.4, —A.5, —A.6. Oddly they manage to get it right in XIV.A.7.
XVI.B.1.v. says that when an Injury Timeout is called,
if a substitution occurs, the stall count is reset to 0.
This rule seems ripe for abuse (i.e. a receiver calling an injury to reset the stall count), why not just have the stall count be what it was when play stopped?
This last one might be a little math-nerd-y, but the ultimate community is full of math nerds: the shape of the goal is, technically, undefined.
Here’s what the rules say:
In the Goal Box is the Goal Area which forms an arc measuring 6 yards , .66 yards (2 ft) extended from each side of the Goal, by 6 yards (18 ft) deep at the apex (known as the reverse brick). The reverse brick of the Goal Area is 6 yards (18 ft) from the endline of the playing field.
(OK, before I even get to my real point — that first sentence is barely legible. The Goal Area is 7.32 yards wide.)
(OK, I actually have yet another quibble: an arc is a line—i.e., one dimensional. It’s wrong to say that the Goal Area (2 dimensional) itself is an arc (1 dimensional). The Goal Area is the 2D shape contained inside the described arc and the front line of the goal.)
With those parentheticals out of the way, what I was actually planning to complain about it that this doesn’t fully define a shape. The word “arc” just means “a curve”. In fact the Wikipedia page for arc just redirects you to the page for (mathematical) curve (an “arch” is no more well-defined, if you were wondering). There are lots of possible curves that could pass through those three points (the two points on either side of the poles and the point at the apex).
OK, well maybe that’s not such a big problem. There’s a diagram of the goal area in the rules, so all we need to do it build that diagram, right?
You’d think so…but that’s not how it works, apparently. Here’s a clip of the goaltie field from the rulebook:
Now here’s what the goaltie field looked like at 2019 Nationals (taken from this YouTube video):
That isn’t right—the key area isn’t supposed to be flat across the top!
There’s a 2023 Nationals highlight video on YouTube, too. Here’s what the goal area looked like in 2023:
It’s not the same! It’s not the same as 2019 (the key area isn’t flat across the top anymore), but it’s not the same as the rulebook either (the curve of the Key Area should connect smoothly with the curve of the Goal Area, instead of having a sharp direction change).
These dudes are literally just making it up as they go! Without even checking the rulebook!
Final thoughts
I think I've made my case that the official rules of goaltimate are of poor quality. I'd love to see them overhauled.
To me, there's an obvious "path of least resistance": align the goaltimate rules as closely as possible with the rules of ultimate.
The rules already depend on the rules of ultimate in many "hidden" ways. The rules include the word "pivot" 42 times, but (unless I missed it), the rules never define what a pivot is. You have to go to the rules of ultimate to learn that. The phrase "ground check" also appears 8 times, but is never defined. I'm sure I could find even more examples of this type of issue. There's also no "Spirit of the Game" section in the goaltimate rules. Does goaltimate have SOTG? I play goaltimate with the same people I play ultimate with, so I expect it to.
I'd like to see a ruleset that essentially says: "Goaltimate is a variant of ultimate frisbee. Assume the rules of ultimate frisbee apply, except: [a minimal list of changes needed to make the game goaltimate instead of ultimate]".
Since Charlie mentioned regional changes, here are some rules we generally use in my local group:
Stall count of 6, not the official 5
We often play with no out-of-bounds, though I understand having it in official play
We don't award two points for a throw from behind the clear line (though, we are often playing pickup and not keeping score anyway)
First time players get a "once-in-a-lifetime" exception if they throw the disc illegally through the goal the wrong way (disc goes back to them instead of being a turnover)
No one ever verbally counts goaltending, though they might make a comment about it if they see something egregious.
We don't mark off the 'Key Area', nor do we follow any of the rules that involve moving the disc to the apex of the Key Area (for defensive violations) or the apex of the goal area (for offensive violations). Play continues from where the disc is after a violation.
Although we know the goaltimate rules allow for controlled contact, we mostly don't see more contact happening than happens in ultimate games.
I think goaltie can be very fun, but also frustrates me sometimes. Here are a few rules I would change if I was made the emperor of goaltimate:
I'm sad that the thrower & marker can't be used for screens (VI.D.8. "No player shall use the thrower or the marker as a screen.") I think this removes a lot of fun possibilities for give-and-go, "pick and roll"/"dribble hand-off" type plays. In basketball (an obvious analogy for screens in goaltimate), a lot of the screening action involves the players with the ball. Why not commit fully to screens and allow the same in goaltimate?
Make the games longer. The rules suggest a 30-minute game (they say “35 minutes”, but that includes a 5-minute halftime). There were games at Goaltimate Nationals that ended with scores like 3-1, 4-3, 4-1, etc (score spreadsheet here). I want goaltie to be the basketball of ultimate, not the hockey of ultimate!
I’d like to see two 20-minute halves, at least. Two 15-minutes halves is shorter than pretty much any other sport I’m aware of, before even taking into account that most other sports stop the clock for stoppages of play.Goaltimate is the perfect disc sport for having a shot clock—since the field is smaller and both teams are attacking the same direction, you’d only need one clock, which could easily be seen by the team on offense at all times. Obviously shot clocks won't be used in recreational play, but a cultural expectation of not taking too long on offense should be good enough there (most rec basketball leagues don't have shot clocks, either).
My least favorite part of goalty is when one team passes the disc back-and-forth in front of the goal, waiting for the perfect opportunity. I'd love to see less of that and more encouragement of creative scoring throws, which to me is the beauty of goalty.
