CRG's Welcome To Our Jungle

On Saturday night, Dianne and I were joined by Carla, Bob, Sue, and Stephanie at the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ event called Welcome To Our Jungle. The doubleheader event pitted the CRG Silent Lambs against the North Star Rollergirls from Minneapolis and the CRG Black Sheep against the Steel City Derby Demons from Pittsburgh. It’ll make Brenda’s day to hear the North Star team beat the Silent Lambs with a score of 109 to 31 (the Minnesota gals must have heard you cheering). In the WFTDA rating bout, the Black Sheep beat Steel City with a score of 130 to 98.

The North Star Rollergirls have a solid team all around. Their blocking was fairly well organized and very tough. The North Stars also had some good jammers. The toughness of the North Stars looked like it made skating in the pack a lot of work! But the Lambs weren’t shy and I thought all the blockers were working hard the entire match. There were a lot of folks trying their hand at jamming. It seemed like the Lambs were swapping folks to find a magic set to get some big points. Dr. McDerby, Miss Print, Jewel B. Hurt, Cherry Choke, Shirley Temptya, and Rocky Balrolla all wore the star at least once. It’s good experience, but I can’t help but think that made it hard for blockers to coordinate and anticipate how to help a particular jammer. I would guess having a couple folks absent (like Jungle Lacy and The Librarian) and a couple moved to the Black Sheep (like Sk8 Crime and candyKICKass) must have affected the team dynamic too. Nevertheless, the whole team worked their tails off until the end. Although it was a tough loss, they all should be proud of their effort. The photo below shows Dr. McDerby and Rocky Balrolla (right in black) look to stop the North Star jammer (in green with star) while just behind her a North Star blocker puts a hit on CRG jammer Cherry Choke.



In the other match, the CRG Black Sheep had a bit of a rocky start against the Derby Demons. I expected the Black Sheep to take an early lead and never look back. It was close for a while, but CRG did finally pull away – especially in the second half. Early on it seemed there were quite a few CRG folks in the penalty box which seemed to hurt some. As usual, the CRG blockers were tough and they seemed better coordinated last night. Most all of the usual suspects were giving some hard hits (I was surprised not to see pivot Kinney) to keep Steel City bottled up. That was a tough job against Steel City jammers like ‘snot Rocket Science (in the photo at right about to be hit by Panterrorize) who is a solid, determined skater! The usual CRG jammers Sadistic Sadie, Roseanne Scarr, and Hannah Barbaric were joined by candyKICKass. It seemed like an additional jammer in the rotation let them get enough rest and still rotate in the pack regularly to help with blocking. Sadie was giving some hard hits like the Bekkie sandwich she made with Mae C. Stars on the inside (see the photo below). The Steel City team had some good blockers too which required CRG teamwork to make holes for the jammers. I thought Steel City’s lead blocker was Athena. She was dishing out some hard hits and just slowing down the CRG jammers in general. Congrats to the Black Sheep on a solid win.



There was a pause in the Black Sheep / Derby demon bout when June with a Cleaver took a hard fall and did a face plant on the concrete. It looked like she split open her chin. She did skate one jam after that with a bandaged chin, but she was bleeding. I certainly hope she feels better soon.

Aside from being kinda hot in the Gardens, I thought it was a good event as usual. I didn’t hear a crowd count, but it didn’t seem like there were as many as the first home bout. What’s up with that? There was a lot to cheer about and the place came alive several times. At half time the Cincinnati Zoo brought out an eagle and some zoo characters for the kids and it was nice to hear some live music at the event.

We had the chance to meet and chat with several of the CRG folks for the first time. First, thanks to Cam for the hospitality and taking time to say hi in between running around for his event duties. It was nice to meet and say hi to Pale Rider before the bout. I hate to disturb him while he's preparing for a match so it was nice of him to stop and say hello. After the matches, Dianne got a photo of me with Silent Lamb skaters Trauma Tease (at left) and Skates with Fists (at right). It was my first time meeting both of them. They were both blocking hard in the Lamb’s bout. I also met Fists’ husband, Brian – always good to meet a fellow derby blogger. Finally, Dianne got a photo of me when we met Morgon Donor (below).

You can see more photos with captions from the event in my Flickr sets for the Silent Lamb match and the Black Sheep match. I decided to kick up the film speed and go flashless, so there is a little grain. A different look, but nice.

The next home bout is on June 28th when the Cincinnati Rollergirls have another doubleheader with two teams from Harrisburg, PA at the Gardens. Be there to cheer on both CRG teams!