Category: RollerDerby

Huge news good readers. I am a finalist in the Roller Derby Announcer Competition.

I offer my extreme thanks to all of you who were kind enough to vote for me.

Stay tuned for more updates as I get more information.

On Sunday April 10th, the Stepford Sabotage hosted the DC All Stars in a WFTDA Approved bout, closed to the public. It turns out that publicly closed bouts like these result in a very raw, pure form of Derby. While the flash and fanfare of the music, announcers, screaming crowds, and halftime show is missed, it’s exciting when the only sounds coming from the track are the harsh scuff of roller skates on the track and the urgent calls and commands shouted between the players and from the coaching staff.

This bout was a nail biter. The first half had both teams playing with professional timing. When the packs were full, the teams had excellent pack awareness. In these situations the defense excelled – points were kept tight and the action was hard to beat. The trouble for both teams occurred as players started being sent to the penalty box. The awkwardly slow skating of an offensively biased power jam resulted in a surge of additional penalties… like some sort of roller derby penalty melt-down. With fewer players on both teams, pack awareness faltered and points flowed forth like beer from a can of PBR.

Such was the case in the early moments of the Stepford Sabotage’s bout against the DC All Stars. For the first jam, Black Cherry took the line against Sookie Slaughterhouse. Sookie was called out on a penalty and the Sabotage took advantage. Black Cherry tallied an impressive 19 points for her team in this first jam. Rinko Starr and C. Mya Rage held the advantage for the Sab in the following two jams, taking lead jammer status and executing perfectly timed jam ends.

But this would be no easy ride for the hometown heroines.

Their first three lead jammer status achievements for the Sabotage were countered by five consecutive leads for DC. Still, Stepford’s defense kept the DC points down until deep in the first half when the burden of penalties once again reared its ugly head. Moments before the tide started to turn, Rinko scored 13 points in a powerjam opposite Marion Barrycuda. Suddenly, another powerjam occured… actually, two. Rage took to the jam line against Yankee Scandal. Both jammers ended up being sent to the box. Scandal took advantage of the chaos, pulling in 12 points. The Connecticut pack was slow to respond after Rage’s return to play, and the team was unable to counter with points of their own. Not two jams later as jammer Murphy’s Outlaw found her way to the penalty box more points poured in for DC, this time via the fast skating of DC Jammer Free Radical.

At the half-way point in the bout, DC had come back and led the game by two points 56 to 54.

The second half was not as tightly exciting as the first. While the teams seemed to be skating with equivalent individual capability, DC was better at capitalizing on opportunities as a team. At times, the Connecticut pack seemed disorganized. Still there were moments of synchronous perfection, as was the case in the third jam of the second half when Doomcake, Bonnie Voyage, Revengela, and Fawkes hit DC jammer Yankee Scandal in rapid succession both giving Scandal a beating and giving C. Mya Rage an opening for 6 points. These 6 points, alongside 10 pulled in by Black Cherry, and 9 by Murphy’s outlaw were the only points scored by Stepford in the second half.

Meanwhile, DC dominated. When they started getting points, the team kept getting points. Six of DC’s nine point earning jams of the second half earned the team 9 or more points, meaning they lapped the pack twice. DC’s momentum carried them through to the end of the game.

Final score? DC All Stars win 132 to 79.

Let’s do Statistics!

Lead Scorers:

DC All Stars:
Free Radical: 48 points (7 leads/10 jams)
Yankee Scandal: 43 points (6 leads/9 jams)
Marion Barrycuda: 16 points (5 leads/10 jams)

Stepford:
Black Cherry: 37 points (6 leads/9 jams)
Rinko: 13 points (2 leads/4 jams)
Bonnie and Rage: 10 points [1 leads/1 jam (perfect record!) and 3 leads/9 jams respectively]

Penalties Queens:

DC All Star Soledad and Sookie Slaughterhouse: 5 trips to the penalty box
DC All Star dr. SKabs: 4 trips to the penalty box
Stepford’s Black Cherry: 4 trips to the penalty box
Stepford’s Bonnie and Revengela: 3 trips to the penalty box

Special thanks to the Roller Girls for giving me the opportunity to recap their closed bout. If you’re interested in checking out a roller derby bout, there’s one coming up this Saturday, April 16th at the Connecticut Sports Center in Woodbridge. For more information, head over to the CT Roller Girl Website located here.

Friends, I have been chosen as one of the 12 semifinalists for the Connecticut Roller Derby Announcer Contest. I need your votes to help push me into the finalist position! Think of the potential, good readers! I think I’d be totally awesome as an announcer. I promise to bring my A game to every bout.

Check out all the contestants here:

http://www.ct.com/entertainment/contests/rollergirls/

Tell your friends! E-mail your mom! All efforts will help the cause!

Thanks!

Saturday night’s Derby double header put the Stepford Sabotage up against the Green Mountain Derby Dames (if you’d like to read more about the opening bout between The Yankee Brutals and Assault City, click here.).

Like the Yankee Brutals, the Stepford Sabotage went through a bit of a roster change in the offseason, including most notably, the promotion of some of last year’s Yankee Brutals. Congrats to all the new recruits to Sabotage!

Saturday’s bout against the Green Mountain Derby Dames (GMDD) was HARDCORE. As much demolition derby, as roller derby. The bout started off with a bang as Sabotage’s C. Mya Rage jammed against GMDD Star Slayer. Slayer started strongly, but Black Cherry ended the jam abruptly with her vindictive shoulder. Sadly, my camera was too slow to perfectly catch the moment of merciless savagery, though I did catch the aftermath.

Slayer was forced to end the jam, and thus began a bout of many many hits. In the next jam, GMDD Unita Hearse took a crack at Murphy’s Outlaw, but didn’t stop her from earning 10 points for the Sabotage. Shortly thereafter, Girl Fawkes knocked Sonic Euthanizer back, helping CT’s jammer Ramona Rotten add 5 points to the Stepford scoreboard.

Connecticut’s blockers were in their groove during this bout. Luciana Pulverotti had a beautiful block in the seventh to aid Pepper Grind-Her. Shortly thereafter (the 14th), Pepper came through with a clutch whip to help propel jamming Black Cherry to the front of the pack. Any better executed and Black Cherry may have been launched into orbit.

Curiously, the first half saw lead jamming status split fairly evenly between the teams, each with 8 successful leads. Despite this, Connecticut was following through with their lead status, averaging 5 points whenever lead jammer status was achieved – compared to only 1.38 for the visiting Vermonters. This could stand as testimony to the strong pack work of the Stepford Sabotage who prevented points with devastating blows, or the successful ability of the Connecticut jammers to weave through the pack even without a lead to force the GMDDs to end their jams early.

As a result of CT’s consistent scoring, the local team stood ahead 82 to 18 at halftime.

One fun aside to Derby comes from the awesome people that make up the teams and the crowd. All the players are working hard for the win, but they are willing to do so with a positive attitude and a great sense of humor. Take for example the Green Mountain water bottles – Hilarious.

Connecticut continued her dominance over the visiting team into the second half. Even considering the mighty blocks of GMDD Annie Cockledoux, who delivered a mean blow against Ramona Rotton in the third, the Connecticut girls could not be slowed. Ramona had back to back jams with 14 and 5 points, followed by 8 more from Rage, and 4 from Pepper. The Green Mountain ladies got some life back as the bout slowed to its conclusion (Star Slayer and TerminateHer scoring 19 points between them in the last five jams), but it wasn’t enough to overcome the consistency of the ladies in black.

The night concluded with a final score of 154 to 59 in favor of the Stepford Sabotage.

Statistics!!!

Lead Scorers:

Black Cherry 51 points (6 lead in 10 jams)
Ramona Rotton 37 points (2 lead in 7 jams)

TerminateHer 21 points (6 lead in 12 jams)
Pernicious D. Licious (2 lead in 6 jams)

Penalty Queens:
Annie Cockledoux: 6 Majors! Dang!
Ramona Rotton and Murphy’s Outlaw: 5 majors

MVPs!
Girl Fawkes! and Terminather!

Awesome job to all the players, officials, and helpers. It was a hugely successful night as evidenced by the sell-out crowd and the mass consumption of PBR. For more information on Connecticut Roller Derby, check out the CTRG website here. The next bout will be on April 16th. Mark your calendars and get there early, hopefully there will be another sell-out crowd.