Jul 22, 2012

Weekend Derby

MrsZ/Delicate Flower had her debut skating in Crown City purple last night - finally. I very carefully didn't volunteer to work the bout, since I wanted to watch her skate.

I'd love to say it was a great bout and tons of fun to watch and a nailbiter last jam... but I'd be lying through my teeth. The team they were playing (Charlie's Derby Dolls) is a new league, with inexperienced skaters and not much time together. (DF mentioned to me that this was their second bout. Ever.)

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(DelicateFlower zips through the pack on her first jam of the night.)

Crown City Rollerz came out swinging for the fences - and it showed. DF jammed in the second or third jam and notched up 25 or 30 points without breaking a sweat. By the end of the first half it was 200-ish ... to zero. Fans were bored. CDD was trying, but they were just hopelessly outclassed. Imagine trying to run your Honda Civic against a NASCAR ride.

I overheard some conversation at the end of the intermission indicating that CDD was intending to forfeit, but decided (or had a talk with a ref and decided) to gut it out. Good for them - major kudos for sticking out an unpleasant situation and making the best of it.

The second half was essentially a repeat of the first: points getting racked up against a shut-down group of Derby Dolls. By this point it was actually pretty offensive - and the CCR coach kept skating her high-scoring jammers instead of moving people around to positions they may not usually play. She did let BabyJ wear the star for the first time ever, which was good - but I would have preferred to see ALL the skaters jamming over the evening.

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(BabyJ rocking the jammer panty.)


DF jammed once more towards the end of the second period, and picked up another 25 or 30 points - and then made one of the classiest moves I've ever seen and let the opposing jammer get through/by for a point. The crowd cheered louder and longer for that one point than for any other jam that night.

I did end up with a few good shots from the night; I particularly like this sequence of Evil Lucian breaking through a pair of blockers.

Final score: 383-1. Don't get me wrong: I'm not criticizing CCR for winning. Both teams played clean derby and played hard. Refs were mostly on top of the game. I just think the losing team showed a lot more grace and style than the winners.

3 comments:

agirlandhergun said...

Well, very cool!

Old NFO said...

Interesting, That was a 'sport' that I thought had died LONG ago!!! :-)

ZerCool said...

Boy, NFO, don't let the derby girls up here see those '' marks!

It did die out after a swing of popularity in the 1970s; it started coming back in the mid 2000s and is supposedly the fastest-growing women's sport in the country now.