And there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better
This is going to be a huge long derby-tastic post, FYI.
Brawl of America was so amazing. So much excellent derby in one weekend... makes me want to skate faster faster faster!! My league's all-star team didn't do so well... we placed 9th out of 10 leagues. But we only have 1 standout jammer... our defense is pretty good, but without jammers able to get through the pack we can't score any points. The other league (North Star Roller Girls) in Minneapolis did really well though... they beat us and the Arch Rival Roller Girls (yes, another ARRG haha) from St. Louis, MO. I got loads of free league and wheel brand stickers and Whip-It promotional badges/pins, but I also spent way too much money. Well I bought the things I wanted to buy... new bearings (a few of my old ones had bent shields), new skinny wheels (they're PURPLE!! and exactly the same as the G-rods 2.0, for those in the know), orange toe guards, shorts with skeleton hands on the butt haha, some Derby Skinz (I shouldn't have gotten them because I have a flat butt... but they are tiger print!!), and copious amounts of beer and nachos. I met the president of Riedell, tried on some fancy-shmancy skates, and held a new Riedell 1065 with Powerdyne Revenge plates (not out until November!) and felt really geeky about how exciting that was to me.
Some random things from the weekend: The top team in our region, Windy City (Chicago, IL), was amazing... they would just blitz the opposing team (especially when their jammer was coming), and do the same thing for the other team's jammer. Sometimes they had a liquid wall in the pack, with one or two blockers always going out to engage the opposing team's jammer and then recycling themselves back to the inside line for another go. It was beautiful to watch. I think I have a derby crush on Malice with Chains. My new favorite team is the Dairyland Dolls though (Madison, WI) for their great attitude and really cute uniforms Also they beat Detroit, who was ranked above them at the beginning of the tournament!! Madison all had white helmets with blue cow spots hehe. Also I grew up near Madison, so I feel a bit of hometown pride or whatnot. Sadistic Sadie of the Black Sheep (Cincinatti, OH) and Jawbreaker of the NSRG Supernovas (Minneapolis, MN... there was some drama earlier this summer when she switched from our league to the other one) were doing some trash talking on the track, and Jawbreaker was even sent to the box for talking (back) to a ref (only team captains or bench coaches can talk to the refs during a bout). Jawbreaker had a bad attitude all weekend... yes she's amazing, but that is totally uncalled for. Also she FUKCING PUSHED an ARRG jammer. With her hands. This girl was tiny, so of course she went down. And the refs didn't see it! There was no huge outcry from the crowd (too many NSRG fans I think), but right after it happened I looked around and heard other people/rollergirls in the crowd saying "what the FUCK did that just happen???" From what I've heard and seen, Jawbreaker is always pushing the envelope and seeing what she can get away with, but that is just terrible sportswomanship. And her team was winning anyway! WTF did it matter if that jammer got through? She was at the back of the pack when it happened anyway. ARRG only had 8 points until like 10 minutes before the end of the game... It just really pisses me off, and I'm beginning to understand why my league was so happy to see her go. Anyway.
It was so awesome to just watch how some of these girls moved... the jammers especially. I keep thinking what it would be like of the Twin Cities only had one roller derby league... with all that talent in one pool, we could be really great. What I think we also lacked (but some other teams had) was really excellent track awareness and reaction time. The pack was like a school of fish. They all reacted the same way at the same time, trapping an opposing player behind them to draw a 20 ft penalty on the other team, successfully speeding up or slowing down the pack in seconds, etc. I've decided that the fast pack/blitz strategy works really well. MNRG (my league) looked like they just weren't used to playing at that speed. We still did pretty well, and we have some really excellent blockers, but I don't think they all work together very well.
It was really a big deal for the NSRG Supernovas (Minneapolis, MN) when they beat my league, the MNRG All-stars, (St. Paul, MN) on Saturday. Sucks for us, but they worked hard (and had Jawbreaker). But before this bout, they decided to have a Queen of the Rink preshow with the rookies from both leagues. They had more rookies volunteer than we did (which kind of sucks), and 2 of their "rookies" were actually 2 or more-year veterans who were re-joining the league, but had to go through the drafting process. It sucked, but if I complain about them, then where do you draw the line? I did derby for 5 months before everyone else, so I had a head start too. I should stop complaining though, because there were 3 rounds and I won the last one. There was a panel of judges who gave a free set of wheels to the winner, who won for "style and determination" or whatever. For the first two rounds, one of the veterans went straight for me... she pushed me out of bounds once, and I overshot and went out of bounds trying to hit her the next round. The third one someone else must have gotten her, because it ended up being me and this chick from NSRG who kept trying to back block me. She stayed behind me too, which was annoying. So I did several hits right after each other and she finally went down... yaay!! Apparently someone has it all on video hehe. It was so awesome to have people shouting "STOMPYYY" from the crowd too. Yaay!!!!! The next day they had a men's Queen of the Rink hehe, with guys from men's teams who happened to be here (working a booth for their roller lady, selling the Heartless wheels they invented, or just watching). This was an amazing thing to behold, it was like a violent circus or something. Some of the guys were wearing Derby Skinz hehe, and Justice Feelgood Marshall of DNN was wearing a pink plaid miniskirt. There was a lot of jumping and spinning from Quadzilla and Johnny PocketRocket, and one Unfortunate Incident. My derby-friend Mae's husband got hit really hard when he wasn't looking and broke his collar bone in the first round :( which sucks in and of itself, but it ALSO sucks because he's really good and it would've been cool to see how he did. Oh wells.
It just awesome to see all those derby people in one place.
I went to a few afterparties, but not last night. I wish I would have, but I had to be on the bus this morning at 6:53 to be sure I got to work at 8 am. So instead I got a ride home, put my bearings in my new wheels, tried on my new shorts, and looked at all my stickers. Good times.
Big sigh.
Brawl of America was so amazing. So much excellent derby in one weekend... makes me want to skate faster faster faster!! My league's all-star team didn't do so well... we placed 9th out of 10 leagues. But we only have 1 standout jammer... our defense is pretty good, but without jammers able to get through the pack we can't score any points. The other league (North Star Roller Girls) in Minneapolis did really well though... they beat us and the Arch Rival Roller Girls (yes, another ARRG haha) from St. Louis, MO. I got loads of free league and wheel brand stickers and Whip-It promotional badges/pins, but I also spent way too much money. Well I bought the things I wanted to buy... new bearings (a few of my old ones had bent shields), new skinny wheels (they're PURPLE!! and exactly the same as the G-rods 2.0, for those in the know), orange toe guards, shorts with skeleton hands on the butt haha, some Derby Skinz (I shouldn't have gotten them because I have a flat butt... but they are tiger print!!), and copious amounts of beer and nachos. I met the president of Riedell, tried on some fancy-shmancy skates, and held a new Riedell 1065 with Powerdyne Revenge plates (not out until November!) and felt really geeky about how exciting that was to me.
Some random things from the weekend: The top team in our region, Windy City (Chicago, IL), was amazing... they would just blitz the opposing team (especially when their jammer was coming), and do the same thing for the other team's jammer. Sometimes they had a liquid wall in the pack, with one or two blockers always going out to engage the opposing team's jammer and then recycling themselves back to the inside line for another go. It was beautiful to watch. I think I have a derby crush on Malice with Chains. My new favorite team is the Dairyland Dolls though (Madison, WI) for their great attitude and really cute uniforms Also they beat Detroit, who was ranked above them at the beginning of the tournament!! Madison all had white helmets with blue cow spots hehe. Also I grew up near Madison, so I feel a bit of hometown pride or whatnot. Sadistic Sadie of the Black Sheep (Cincinatti, OH) and Jawbreaker of the NSRG Supernovas (Minneapolis, MN... there was some drama earlier this summer when she switched from our league to the other one) were doing some trash talking on the track, and Jawbreaker was even sent to the box for talking (back) to a ref (only team captains or bench coaches can talk to the refs during a bout). Jawbreaker had a bad attitude all weekend... yes she's amazing, but that is totally uncalled for. Also she FUKCING PUSHED an ARRG jammer. With her hands. This girl was tiny, so of course she went down. And the refs didn't see it! There was no huge outcry from the crowd (too many NSRG fans I think), but right after it happened I looked around and heard other people/rollergirls in the crowd saying "what the FUCK did that just happen???" From what I've heard and seen, Jawbreaker is always pushing the envelope and seeing what she can get away with, but that is just terrible sportswomanship. And her team was winning anyway! WTF did it matter if that jammer got through? She was at the back of the pack when it happened anyway. ARRG only had 8 points until like 10 minutes before the end of the game... It just really pisses me off, and I'm beginning to understand why my league was so happy to see her go. Anyway.
It was so awesome to just watch how some of these girls moved... the jammers especially. I keep thinking what it would be like of the Twin Cities only had one roller derby league... with all that talent in one pool, we could be really great. What I think we also lacked (but some other teams had) was really excellent track awareness and reaction time. The pack was like a school of fish. They all reacted the same way at the same time, trapping an opposing player behind them to draw a 20 ft penalty on the other team, successfully speeding up or slowing down the pack in seconds, etc. I've decided that the fast pack/blitz strategy works really well. MNRG (my league) looked like they just weren't used to playing at that speed. We still did pretty well, and we have some really excellent blockers, but I don't think they all work together very well.
It was really a big deal for the NSRG Supernovas (Minneapolis, MN) when they beat my league, the MNRG All-stars, (St. Paul, MN) on Saturday. Sucks for us, but they worked hard (and had Jawbreaker). But before this bout, they decided to have a Queen of the Rink preshow with the rookies from both leagues. They had more rookies volunteer than we did (which kind of sucks), and 2 of their "rookies" were actually 2 or more-year veterans who were re-joining the league, but had to go through the drafting process. It sucked, but if I complain about them, then where do you draw the line? I did derby for 5 months before everyone else, so I had a head start too. I should stop complaining though, because there were 3 rounds and I won the last one. There was a panel of judges who gave a free set of wheels to the winner, who won for "style and determination" or whatever. For the first two rounds, one of the veterans went straight for me... she pushed me out of bounds once, and I overshot and went out of bounds trying to hit her the next round. The third one someone else must have gotten her, because it ended up being me and this chick from NSRG who kept trying to back block me. She stayed behind me too, which was annoying. So I did several hits right after each other and she finally went down... yaay!! Apparently someone has it all on video hehe. It was so awesome to have people shouting "STOMPYYY" from the crowd too. Yaay!!!!! The next day they had a men's Queen of the Rink hehe, with guys from men's teams who happened to be here (working a booth for their roller lady, selling the Heartless wheels they invented, or just watching). This was an amazing thing to behold, it was like a violent circus or something. Some of the guys were wearing Derby Skinz hehe, and Justice Feelgood Marshall of DNN was wearing a pink plaid miniskirt. There was a lot of jumping and spinning from Quadzilla and Johnny PocketRocket, and one Unfortunate Incident. My derby-friend Mae's husband got hit really hard when he wasn't looking and broke his collar bone in the first round :( which sucks in and of itself, but it ALSO sucks because he's really good and it would've been cool to see how he did. Oh wells.
It just awesome to see all those derby people in one place.
I went to a few afterparties, but not last night. I wish I would have, but I had to be on the bus this morning at 6:53 to be sure I got to work at 8 am. So instead I got a ride home, put my bearings in my new wheels, tried on my new shorts, and looked at all my stickers. Good times.
Big sigh.