The CRG Jungle

On Saturday night, Dianne and I went to the "Welcome to Our Jungle" bout of the Cincinnati Rollergirls at the Cincinnati Gardens. The heat and humidity added to their jungle theme. The event was an intra-league bout with the two CRG teams battling. Congratulations to the Dames of Destruction for defeating the Full Metal Corsets by a score of 85 to 72.

The Rollergirls weren't holding anything back in blocking for this Cincinnati only bout. An example is the photo at the right. It was snapped after Hannah Barbaric, blocked inside by Junk N Trunk, received a cut/stop block from Sadistic Sadie. Ouch! Click on the photo to see a larger version. Look at the position of Hannah's skates and you know she was going down hard. I got some other photos of Junk N Trunk, Blu, Sk8 Crime, and Panterrorize giving blocks. Early on someone gave Collier Mama a block and she fell over backwards right in front of us and whacked her head on the concrete. The helmet protected her, but she was slow getting up. It was good to see her skating again later in the bout.

The pack was skating pretty fast the whole night. The announcers commented on that a couple times. A testament to the vastly improved skating skills of the whole CRG group when compared to other teams they've skated against. The jammers had to skate hard to catch the pack -- reflected in the lower score. But the fast jammers yielded some grand slams for both teams. There was a lot of teamwork on both sides to help the jammers like Blu is doing here for Sadie (does Sadie really need a speed boost!?!). I also like the photo below of Rocky helping Miss Print stay on her feet and keep zooming. What concentration on their faces!



The Dames led from the start, but it was relatively close after the first period. The Corsets seemed to struggle in the second period and the gap widened to ~30 points. The Corsets didn't give up and narrowed the gap in the third period. There were a lot of skaters putting on the jammer star for both teams. Having Hannah on the Corsets gave them the flexibility to move folks around keep the team in the hunt. In the final jam of the event, Juwana Hurt put on the jammer star and showed her speed skating skills to get some points. The crowd enjoyed seeing that jam!

The half time entertainment for the event was provided by Cincinnati Zoo. They brought a few things like this sea eagle that was amazing to see up close. There were also folks in animal costumes like this manatee outfit. They must have been hot in there, but the kids loved it! When the sea cow came by, the kids behind us were yelling "hi manatee" and waving. A good choice for entertainment. The CRG group also presented a donation of $1500 to the Zoo! Considering they volunteer lots of time and could use the money to promote the league, it's very nice of them to give something back to the community.

Although the competition was tough, the skaters seemed like they were having fun -- as shown in the photo of Rocky Balrolla. After the bout the Rollergirls stayed to meet the crowd and sign autographs. I got to meet Blu and Dianne got a photo of us. Unfortunately, some camera issues messed up my photo with the Librarian -- hopefully I can catch her for a re-take at the next home match at Castle Skateland in Loveland on October 14th when the CRG hosts the Burning River Rollergirls. See all my photos from the event in my Flickr set. While waiting for the next home match, check the Roller Derby Diva's blog for league information and results from several away matches in the coming months. Best of luck to the traveling team!

Thanks to all the CRG skaters, refs, volunteers, and supporters for putting on some wonderful derby events at the Cincinnati Gardens this year!!

P.S. All derby fans please read the post below which explains the derby photo badges in my sidebar.