hurtreynolds

Huh? What's that all about?

Read more, at the shiny new blog: http://www.havederbywilltravel.com

You have been warned. Please, clear the area. This is for both your safety, and my own.

I'm not dead yet.

that is all.

On top of all the other Rollercon responsibilities I've accepted, which I never did get around to writing up here but which I assure you are plentiful... I've just been asked to step in and officiate the first weekend's Derby Nuptuals. I have an outline, which I will make my own during the flight. But what to wear?

I knew that ULC ordainment would come in handy one day.

(Belatedly crossposted from the Roller Derby Is Sport yahoo group)

This weekend, Seattle's Rat City Rollergirls hosts their first home interleague bout, featuring Portland's Rose City Rollers in a much-anticipated exhibition bout. Rose City was founded only a few months after Rat City, and has adopted the girls to the north as their "big sister" league (mirroring the relationship between these two beautiful northwest cities).

The better part of a year elapsed between Rat City's inaugural bout and the Rose City Rollers' bouting debut, but this has only inspired the Portland league to train more intensely and close the gap. A first meeting of the leagues' traveling units at the 2006 Dust Devil went decisively in Rat City's favor, leaving the younger league even more determined to close the gap.


This weekend's exhibition will feature each local team on the Rat City Rollergirls playing one 20-minute period against a Rose City Rollergirls team. The matchups (home teams listed second):

Breakneck Betties vs. Throttle Rockets
High Rollers vs. Grave Danger
Guns n Rollers vs. Sockit Wenches
Heartless Heathers vs. Derby Liberation Front

Pairings were set largely by current standings. The Heartless Heathers are undefeated in local play, as are Rat City's defending 2005 champions DLF, so that matchup will be closely watched. By mutual agreement, game-day roster caps have been lifted for this event, so tomorrow's bouting will showcase every able skater from both leagues!


Many skaters view this event as a "graduation day" of sorts for both leagues. Since early on, many an after party in both cities has featured a conversation along the lines of, "wouldn't it be great if, one day, we'll be able to play against each other?" As the only two bouting leagues within weekend driving distance, Rat City Rollergirls and Rose City Rollers have bonded tightly, so tomorrow's event is sure to be exciting, celebratory, and not just a little bit sentimental for many people involved.

One only wonders what topic will take its place in this after party!

Incredible images from last night's Bout 4 of Season 2:

http://www.type2bphoto.com/photo.aspx?group=RCRG06-4

We're blessed with some really talented photographers at our bouts!

What a bout! While the record still stands -- no team from anywhere else has ever beaten *any* team from Austin since the dawn of modern roller derby -- there are 19 olive-clad skaters with much to celebrate tonight. Despite dropping behind 15 - 0 early, the Derby Liberation Front showed the persistence and tenacity that has distinguished them to date, and never stopped taking the game to Honky Tonk Heartbreakers. They were all smiles at the end of the bout, and were extremely well-received by the hometown crowd and competition.

Everyone on the team was focused and contributing, so it's tough to single any particular skaters out as stars for the night. The first period ended at 40 - 19, with DLF keeping the game in range by denying any further breakout jams while clawing and scratching for every point they could get. The second half was even more exciting, with DLF dominating lead jammer status and closing the gap as close as 50 - 38 with about 8 minutes to go. DLF's jammer rotation of Kim Reaper, Hideous Braxley, Punchin' Judy, and Meg My Day shared the load, each taking lead more than once and all contributing to the tightening game.

Two players, though, deserve to be singled out for recognition, and both are fresh meat who joined DLF only this season. Meg My Day had an outstanding evening, scoring DLF's first 4 points, taking lead jammer during that jam and consistently throughout the game, and just generally impressing the hell out of everyone in the room. Ann R Kissed stepped up to the plate as well, with some key hits throughout the bout and even a strong turn at jammer toward the end of period 2. Both have already demonstrated that they're players to watch, and both really shone tonight.

Final score: Honky Tonk Heartbreakers 63, Derby Liberation Front 47.

Two injuries in the game: Punchin' Judy was icing her leg after a tough tumble, but was on her feet at bout's end. One of the Heartbreakers was hurt somewhat more seriously. I'll follow up with more detail once I get it.

I've got some drinks to go buy for some very deserving skaters so I'm signing off for now, but will follow up with more specific observations later.

Well, it's been nonstop since we touched down about 24 hours ago, so lots of tale to tell:

( Saturday day: )


( Saturday night: )

( Sunday afternoon: )

On that note, it's time to go. The girls feel good. Both teams are equally beat up, so the bout will truly be a test of the teams as a whole and not just a couple key players. DLF has demonstrated time and again that they have the heart and resolve necessary to do great things... and make no mistake, winning this bout, would be a truly Great Thing. Note it well: in the modern roller derby era, no team from anywhere else has ever beaten any team from Austin. Will tonight be the night that remarkable record falls?

Stay tuned to find out!

*****************************************************************************

* A little background for the uninitiated: Modern roller derby was born right here in Austin in 2001. The city now plays home to two separate roller derby leagues, one (Lonestar Rollergirls, recently featured on an A&E reality series) playing on a traditional banked track allowing for higher speeds and faster action, while the other (Texas Rollergirls plays flat-track like RCRG does, foregoing the physics of the banked track in favor of reduced fixed costs. The two leagues share common roots and an always-complicated relationship, which I will not specifically comment on further.

On a more general note, it's worth pointing out that many, many budding roller derby leagues have experienced some form of traumatic organizational-restructuring at some time during their formation or early operations. While it's easy (and understandable) to bemoan this fact, I personally think that this is a *good* thing. Each person involved must commit enormous time, sweat, and dollars to the sport, and the odds that several dozen people will all be that passionate about an identical vision are narrow in the extreme. While it's clearly distressing to go through a shakeup, I think leagues are smarter to confront their differences and test for realisitic compromises, sooner rather than later. Not everyone's ideas may be viable, but the viable ideas should survive the trial by fire (and history is already showing that they do). If you're starting a league and getting dissillusioned by building frictions, don't dispair... you are following in the footsteps of greatness, and you can make it through as others have before you!

Checking in from DFW, on layover heading to Austin with the Derby Liberation Front. As RCRG's 2005 champs, they've been invited to play the Texas Rollergirls champions Honky Tonk Heartbreakers as one half of a double-header tomorrow night. Both teams have key players out due to injuries, so the bout will really depend on the depth of each lineup.

I can't believe I forgot my hat.

By popular demand, I'll do my best to post regularly while I'm here. Watch for a little more detail late tonight!

Thanks to suxdonut for pointing out the video to "How Rude She Was" by the Towers of London, with... could that be... the Gotham Girls?

good times :)

Tonight I'll be putting the Lonestar Rollergirls vs. L.A. Derby Dolls bout webcast up on my tv, so feel free to come over and watch with me. I'm thinking pizza and shitty beer will go perfectly. Email hurtreynolds (at) gee.cx for directions.

Dunno exactly what time the stream starts, but the event details say "doors at 7pm Central" (5pm Pacific) so I'd imagine bouting will be getting under way right about the time I get home, which will be 6pm on the dot!

After a fantastic performance by the all-star team at the Dust Devil, the Rat City Rollergirls are primed to kick off the 2006 season with a BANG at tomorrow's Charity Exhibition Brawl. It's gonna be a wild ride for a lot of reasons:

• First bout under the new rules, which have been adjusted to largely conform to the WFTDA standard;


• Communicating penalties from refs to scorekeepers live via hand signals, and pulling foulouts off the floor midjam;


• Working in a venue we've never used before, with all the associated confusion about what goes where and how things work;


• Playing to a larger audience than ever before, possibly *much* larger;


• Setup and teardown all on the same day as the bout;


• A whole lot of rollergirls still recovering from either participating in or cheering at the Dust Devil.

Hang on, I need to call my broker and pick up some Red Bull shares.

From what I've heard third-hand, we've already sold tickets in excess of our maximum capacity for last years' bouts. The record attendance so far for a flat-track roller derby bout is 3200 in the crazy half-arena used by the Minnesota Rollergirls. We're almost certainly gonna beat that and we may well blow it clean out of the water. Yikes. It's starting to act like, you know, a real sport.

I have a lot to do yet. I need to finish up the revised score and penalty tracking sheets, make adequate copies, get covers, get pop-lights for ref clarification requests, check into radios, get some fabulous western-wear, and about 18 other things I can't remember right now because I left my list at home. This has been fun as hell, but I'm sure looking forward to the coming week when I don't have any obligations other than work! I'm running out of steam here.

Brand new bed being delivered on Sunday, though, that's gonna feel awfully good by then!

I've added more photos, including the first entries in the "rollergirls and me" series. It should be easy enough to crop me out of those :)

The team flew home today, exhausted but happy. I can't imagine a better way to kick off the Rat City Rollergirls' second season than the excitement and success of the 2006 Dust Devil Tournament. If you haven't seen it, check out the Seattle Times feature, which was updated regularly throughout the event by Times reporter Jack Broom and photographer Ken Lambert.

( Fun facts from the Dust Devil )

The more I think about it, the more proud I am of our team! As was commonly assumed before the tournament began, the Texas Rollergirls are indeed the team to beat. Also as expected, Arizona and Tucson are top-tier teams able to defeat anyone else currently playing. What no one would've predicted before this weekend was this: The Rat City All-Stars are the only team able to give any of these three teams a real scare. Without any previous interleague experience, our girls are already first-tier national competitors.

Of course, this is only the beginning! The hard work continues this week, as the league prepares for Saturday's season-opening Exhibition Charity Brawl at Everett Events Center. Tickets are selling fast, so don't let EEC's 10,000-seat capacity fool you into assuming they'll be available at the door! Regular-season bouts begin three weeks later at Magnuson Park, but keep in mind that Hangar 30's 2000 seats always sell out in advance, so you'll have to act quickly when tickets go on sale.

Finally, check Tuesday's Seattle Times for an event wrap-up and pictorial, and watch the Times and www.ratcityrollergirls.com for an exciting special announcement!

Flight leaves in 6 hours, off to sleep for me.

(crossposted from my forum post at www.ratcityrollergirls.com)

I could fill paragraphs with adjectives and still not adequately capture Saturday's Round 2 bout against Arizona Roller Derby. Suffice to say, this may have been the closest, most exciting, hardest-fought bout in the history of modern roller derby. Despite a heartbreakingly narrow loss, your Rat City Rollergirls have left no doubt in the minds of rollergirls everywhere: they are ready, right now, to stand toe to toe with the best in the nation.

I will follow up with a full recap on Sunday. For now, just know that the Rat City All-Stars left Bladeworld tonight with their heads held high, ready to celebrate a showing stronger than anyone would've predicted. RCRG is *the* story of Dust Devil 2006.

Please, if you haven't already, get your tickets now for the March 4 "Charity Brawl" exhibition bout at Everett Events Center. Tickets are available at http://www.everetteventscenter.com. The Rat City girls will still be riding this weekend's high, so you're sure to see something special!

I've posted a handful of photos here: http://flickr.com/photos/29862398@N00/

I'll be adding more in the next few days.

(crossposted from my forum post at www.ratcityrollergirls.com)

As you can tell from the updates that trickled in through this bout, the matchup against the team from Vegas was very exciting and very fun to watch. We've been going through large quantities of cough drops just trying to keep our voices functional!

Round 1 saw your Rat City Rollergirls defeat not only the Sin City team, but also the scoreboard itself. Bladeworld's scoreboard only goes to 199, so a glance at the final score could be misleading:



Drew Blood has been the standout asskicker so far in Tucson, and this proved even more true today. Already a strong skater last season, she's positively on fire this weekend, skating with impressive speed and slipping swiftly through the lanes our blockers keep providing. She's on *fire* and it's amazing to watch.

Sisters D-Bomb and Femme Fatale have also left their mark (mostly in the form of bruises). In regular season play, they face each other as members of DLF and Grave Danger, but playing together on the All-Stars, they're a sight to behold! When blocking together, they set a wall at the front of the pack that Sin City simply couldn't find a way around, leading to several jams where RCRG scored 10 - 15 unanswered points.

Funnest sister moment: jammer D-Bomb and pivot Femme Fatale taking advantage of the new WFTDA rule allowing a jammer to hand off the helmet cover to the pivot. With their impressive speed, this handoff proved very powerful, as each girl was able to go full out for half the jam while spending the other half at the relatively leisurely pack speed.

Let's talk about speed for a second. The Rat City All-Stars are far and away the *fastest* team here. Only Texas can compare. Pia Mess, Miss Fortune, Drew Blood, Dirty Little Secret, Femme Fatale, and D-Bomb are all skating faster than anyone else I've seen here, and it's definitely a major strength of the team. This shows in the scores, as RCRG turns almost every jam into multiple scoring passes. Furthermore, it shows in the defense, as blockers have the speed to catch up and keep throwing blocks even if initially passed. Knocking down an RCRG jammer really only buys you about a ten-second reprieve, because they're UP and back to the pack just that quickly.

One remarkable sight from last night's minibout against Tucson: Seeing a Tucson jammer get lead status, get halfway around before our jammer cleared the pack, then actually calling off the jam before reaching the pack because jammer Femme Fatale caught up to her and passed her. Tucson may have won, but they were seriously worried and played very tight game control to prevent any explosive scoring jams due to our speed. We want to see this team again, and for the full 60 minutes!

I haven't mentioned every name, but let there be no doubt, every single girl on the team is kicking it in and making it happen. This is a *team* and a very, very good one. It's time to think about a big fat party to show them how much we love them.


NEXT UP: 4th-seeded Arizona Roller Derby. AZRD has the advantage of a first-round bye, meaning they will be more rested at the 6pm bout time than our girls. However, unless they learned something from the close game yesterday against Minnesota and the astonishing tied score with the Bay Area girls, I think they'll face the disadvantage of hubris... they're used to being the old grizzled vets. If I were a betting man, I'd say it's 5 - 4 and pick 'em. This is gonna be a bout for the ages.

Other result from the day: Bay Area Derby Girls put up a strong fight, but fell to the Carolina Rollergirls by a score of around 105 - 75. The west coast has certainly represented. Carolina faces 1st seed Texas Rollergirls at 4pm today, and the winner of that game will be facing the winner of our evening game tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned!

(crossposted from my forum post at www.ratcityrollergirls.com)

FANTASTIC performance tonight Edit/Delete this post Reply with quote

Folks, let me tell you: While the action has been fabulous throughout the day, there have been only two big surprises here in Tucson:

1) The relatively inexperienced Bay Area Derby Girls played extremely strong and smart derby, holding strongly favored Arizona Roller Derby to a tie and advancing to single-elimination play;

2) Your RAT CITY ROLLERGIRLS blew the DOORS off their pool, racking up a higher average point spread than any other teams save Texas and Tucson. Even their loss to Tucson was an extremely strong performance, allowing only an 11-point margin for a team that beat its other opponents by 40 or more. Everyone here expected RCRG to be competitive, but no one would've predicted this degree of domination.

Looking forward:

Saturday is going to be a very exciting day. RCRG is an extreme favorite to defeat Sin City, which made it out of their pool by the skin of their teeth with a record of 1 and 3 (only edging out two other 1 - 3 teams due to better average point spread). That's a damned shame, because the Neander Dolls are a charming group and I hate to see them eliminated, but, ya crush who ya gotta.

In the likely event of a victory against SCRG, 4th-seeded Arizona Roller Derby from Phoenix would be next. Having watched all of today's action, I have to say I feel really good about this matchup. Arizona is a strong, experienced team, but the did not dominate their opposition quite the way Texas and Tucson did. They demonstrated real vulnerability in their matches against Madison and the upstart B.A.D.Girls. They are not invincible, but they will surely benefit from their first-round bye.

RCRG has one other advantage no other road team has approached: a large and vocal cheering section! There are several dozen fans in the Rat Pack, and we generated every bit as much noise as the hometown fans could muster for their team. No one else comes close. The "6th chick" has truly been in play! We're all stocking up on lozenges to try to hang onto our voices for more.

On a side note, the Tucson skater who was carried out and taken to the hospital was Tombstone Teri, a longtime skater here who is talented and popular. No word yet on her condition, but it's true that she stuck her arm straight up to give a thumbs-up as she was carried out. Derby girls are TOUGH.

I'll try to post updates as promptly as I can tomorrow. Stay tuned, and stay excited! We sure are here!