merby
Tonight was the Throwdown in the Sound II derby marathon. There was a tootsy roller bout (6-10 year old girls), a derby brats bout (11-18 year old girls), a female northwest all-stars bout, and three male derby bouts. Yes, you heard me. Male derby. Also apparently called merby.
Merby is what you would expect: faster, harder, and more explosive than the women. They skated much differently than the girls using lots of aggressive cuts. It finally dawned on me that this looked just like hockey and that was the difference. And do they hit each other! The female pack tends to stick together and they push more than hit whereas when the jammers would hit the male pack, if often dispersed into flying shoulders and hip shots. Brutal! I think they only do this once a year which is too bad.
RCR coaches Quadzilla (a.k.a Barack O'Trauma) and Corporal Punishment took part in the merby fun. Quadzilla is a total beast and the best skater I've seen yet. He dodged hit after hit and when someone tried to body block him he would 360 around the guy. His best move of the night was using his leg to slingshot his jammer. I later heard from the guy next to me that Quadzilla travels around the country doing skate tricks.
Unfortunately things ended very badly. In the last jam of the merby title bout, one player went down hard, got kneed in the back of the head by someone trying to dodge him, and the knee caused him to hit his head on the ground. At least that's how I saw it. Most of what was left of the crowd, me included, waited the twenty minutes or so it took to get him on the stretcher and out of the building. I overhead one person saying the skater couldn't feel his neck and couldn't move his arms. Let's hope he's okay :(
(A derby brat was also carted off earlier but she was sitting up and seemed fine so they were probably just being safe)
Merby is what you would expect: faster, harder, and more explosive than the women. They skated much differently than the girls using lots of aggressive cuts. It finally dawned on me that this looked just like hockey and that was the difference. And do they hit each other! The female pack tends to stick together and they push more than hit whereas when the jammers would hit the male pack, if often dispersed into flying shoulders and hip shots. Brutal! I think they only do this once a year which is too bad.
RCR coaches Quadzilla (a.k.a Barack O'Trauma) and Corporal Punishment took part in the merby fun. Quadzilla is a total beast and the best skater I've seen yet. He dodged hit after hit and when someone tried to body block him he would 360 around the guy. His best move of the night was using his leg to slingshot his jammer. I later heard from the guy next to me that Quadzilla travels around the country doing skate tricks.
Unfortunately things ended very badly. In the last jam of the merby title bout, one player went down hard, got kneed in the back of the head by someone trying to dodge him, and the knee caused him to hit his head on the ground. At least that's how I saw it. Most of what was left of the crowd, me included, waited the twenty minutes or so it took to get him on the stretcher and out of the building. I overhead one person saying the skater couldn't feel his neck and couldn't move his arms. Let's hope he's okay :(
(A derby brat was also carted off earlier but she was sitting up and seemed fine so they were probably just being safe)