2 posts from September 2006

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It has taken the last week since I've been back after attending the 2006 Bumberbout Flat Track Rollerderby Tournament in Seattle to get to a point where I can even begin to formulate words about the experience. Exhilarating, nerve wracking, anxiety ridden, exciting, terrifying, depressing, uplifting, motivating...

It was an honor to even be invited to an event that was offered to the top leagues in a nation of more than 130 (!) across the country. We trained hard, and played harder. While we didn't place as well as we had hoped, we came out of the experience with some new lessons and goals to work toward. I was very proud of the playing and determination put forth by the entire team. Next time, we're kicking (more) ass.

On to the tournament

First of all, the most talked about part of the entire tournament ... the leg whip. Two players in Seattle - D-Bomb and Femme Fatale - who happen to be sisters as well as amazingly talented skaters debuted this move - rumored to be called the "Bomb Fatale" or "Fatal Bomb."

Cara, a Charm City Rollergirl, writes about this move

   Probably a hundred different girls in the next month or so are going to break their legs trying to get this down, but maybe a few won't. They'll keep practicing, and they'll teach a couple people each. Some of them will also break their legs, but again, some of them won't. Maybe this isn't like watching the invention of the slam dunk or seeing the first triple axle [...] Looking at a clip of D-Bomb leg-whipping Femme Fatale, I see a hundred new paths of what we can do, and only one of them leads to breaking our legs.

I went in to this bout ridiculously nervous. TOO nervous. While most of the girls on my team were in Tucson in Febuary, this was my first tournament. Bettie Rage from the Texas Rollergirls gave me a good pep talk a couple hours before our pool began: nervousness does absolutely nothing to win the game, and can only hurt you. You've worked hard to be where you are, and you're not going to get better now. It helped for a bit, but unfortunately I couldn't shake the nerves going in to our first game against Minnesota.

The first game was our first wake up call. These girls hit hard, they skated fast, and they were dirty in the way that only tough girls meaning to win can be.  I found myself on the ground or throwing illegal moves a lot more than I helped - I was completely mentally messed with. We lost one of our star jammers during this game, a hit that took her too hard on an already bad knee. Minnesota brought it. We lost, 29 to 53.

The Seattle game was much more fun of course for me, but Seattle has some of the hardest hitters in the entire nation and this was an even bigger loss (13 to 68). Some RCRG players told me afterward "your girls hit hard" but it wasn't enough. Another star jammer - Sassy Slayher - took a hard hit and sent her down on her knee. I thought she was done for the day, but she got back up and played the rest of the games. 

And what was it like playing against the old team? For me, it was like this kiss, but a lot harder.

The last game against Carolina was a much more even match with a close score [24 - 30] - but in the end we couldn't pull off a win. Carolina beat BAD in Febuary by 60 points, so the girls came out of this game feeling good about the progress made. We're looking forward to playing a full length game with them sometime in 2007.

 

Our loss against those three teams meant not qualifying for the finals or the grudge match. That was a let down, but on the other hand I got to sit back and relax and scream my head off for the Seattle vs Texas championship game. I have never seen a more intense game in my life, and I wouldn't expect to see another like this until they play again. The Texas rollergirls have been ranked #1 for years, and this year they've been fighting hard to maintain the title. This is the closest I've seen a game with their travel team. Final score - 74-69 Texas. It really could have gone either way.

I saw the Seattle travel team play in Tucson in Febuaray for the Dust Devil tournament - and even though I knew how great all the players were from being on the team, I felt something was missing. I know I was surprised by their loss to AZRD and their 5th place ranking there. This time the effort and practice put together as a team since then showed.They hit harder than ever, but also worked together much more as a team. The lineups were perfectly matched in terms of speed and strength - and for the most part it seemed player pairings were put in appropriately.

The second half of this game had an almost constant presence in the penalty box from both sides. And jammers in the penalty box (for moves like this takedown on the left) for Seattle very well may have cost them the game. Watching Femme Fatale and Sparkle Plenty  - 2 of my favorite skaters to watch - fight in the front of the pack may have been the highlight of the game for me.

2006 Bumberbout Final Standings - 1st place Texas, 2nd Rat City, 3rd Mad Rollin' Dolls, 4th Minnesota and the Bay Area Derby girls finished 7th out of 8.

For more photographs of the event, do yourself a favor and search for "Bumberbout" on Flickr to hit some of the top photographers. The BAD Girls personally brought our awesome photographer Boss Hog to catch all of the fun of the weekend.

I want to thank everyone at One Reel productions and the Rat City Rollergirls for hosting such a terffic event. It is just one more notch in the history of this revival of roller derby, and I hope it is the first of an annual event! One Reel indicated there were over 20,000 fans visiting the tournament during the day. That's amazing!

What I've personally taken away from the weekend

1. Our hardest hitting blockers hit with a fraction of the force of these other top leagues - we need to be hitting harder in practice
2. Teamwork and good, smart, offensive plays are just as necessary as hard hits and is why I believe Texas continues to be ranked #1 in the country
3. I really really really have to master the leg whip
4. The B.A.D. Girls should invest in some non-cotton uniforms
   

Since the tournament, other derby events

On the roller derby revival, a NYT article says

Girls in skimpy outfits crashing into each other has an appeal,” said Emily Rems, the managing editor of  Bust, a women’s pop culture magazine in New York. “There is a kind of Amazonian aspect to it, and the new roller girls enjoy that and embrace it. They’ve taken control of their image."

The BAD Girls are featured in the current issue of Curve Magazine - with yours truly in some nice action shots.
 

Finally, the BAD girls are doing it again with our last intra-league game of the season, the Final Smackdown, on September 30th. This will be the Oakland Outlaws (my team) vs the San Francisco Shevil Dead. Tickets are on sale now by visiting the site, or if you're lucky enough to see me in person you can buy them from me.