A Double Win for the Cincinnati Rollergirls!

On Saturday night we went to the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ Summer of Shove event at the Cincinnati Gardens. The event was a double header with CRG hosting teams from the Harrisburg Area Roller Derby group. CRG’s Silent Lambs took on the H.A.R.D. Fallout Femmes and CRG’s Black Sheep battled the H.A.R.D. Nuclear Knockouts. Both of the CRG teams won their bouts – the first time that happened at home this year. Congratulations to all the Cincinnati Rollergirls!

It was an extra special night as we had a large group friends from work and their families who joined us for the match. Stephanie labeled the group the Bleating Beau Beeps and made shirts for many of the folks in the group. The photo above shows her with family in the suicide seats. It seemed everyone had a great time thanks to all the friendly volunteers, staff, and skaters. Our folks in the suicide seats were cheering hard for all the Sheep and Lambs and just a couple seats down, Sadistic Sadie had some added cheers (see the photo).

In the first bout between the Silent Lambs and the Fallout Femmes, Cincinnati controlled the match from the start. As in past bouts, Dr. McDerby did an excellent job as a jammer. I wasn’t keeping any stats, but I’d guess she led scoring for the Lambs. The photo at the right shows her sprinting to catch up and pass the pack again.

Miss Print also had a great night scoring and I think had a couple grand slams. She kept up her momentum in the pack and had some good help from the CRG blockers to open up some holes. I really like the photo below that shows Miss Print passing the pack. Other jammers included Cherry Choke, Shirley Temptya, and Rocky Balrolla. All the CRG blockers were doing well at coordinating their efforts to stop the Femmes and aid the CRG jammers. All the Lambs have to be excited about their win! The Lambs won handily with a score of 143 to 56.



In the second bout between the Black Sheep and the Nuclear Knockouts, the pack was skating fairly fast and both teams were pretty physical. The blockers were really working hard on both teams. There were quite a few skaters that took some hard falls and I’m sure there are a lot of sore shoulders today. All the blockers and pivots were contributing to stopping the Knockout jammers – and were pretty effective at doing that. The Knockouts were no pushovers though and they hung in there until the end. I thought one of the best Knockout skaters was Rainbow’s Revenge – both on offense and defense. She didn’t back down from anyone.

Cincinnati held the lead the entire match. Sadistic Sadie was on fire as usual and probably led the scoring. The photo at right shows her keeping an eye on Knockout skater Mother Trucker (I think) while Polisa watches. CandyKICKass also had a good evening with her speed being a lot for the Knockouts to handle. One of my favorite photos of the night is the one below showing Sk8r Kinney giving a hard block so candyKICKass can get around the outside of the pack to score while Fireman Bill keeps a watch on the pack. Hannah Barbaric, Ruff’n the Passer, and Jungle Lacy also jammed for CRG. The Black Sheep won the match with a score of 115 to 69. There was a bench clearing brawl near the end of the match – a surprise and something we haven’t seen for quite a while. One of the Knockouts ended up being ejected from the match.



After the match Dianne got a photo of me with Shirley Temptya, one of the Silent Lamb skaters. Earlier in the evening I got to meet her parents and in-laws that were there to cheer her on. We also talked briefly with Miss Print and her parents, who were visiting from out of town. They picked a great night to see their daughter in action. Jeff Sevier, one of the photographers, came up and introduced himself. Jeff took a nice shot of Dianne and me talking with Morgan Donor after the last home bout. He and Jason take some great derby photos that they post in their Flickr photo streams. Finally, although I have a funny look on my face, Dianne got a photo of me with June with a Cleaver (center) and Killian Destroy (right) who are two of the blockers on the Black Sheep team. Thanks to all the skaters for taking time to chat.

I have a few more photos in my photo pool in Flickr. There is one more scheduled home bout on Saturday, July 19th when the CRG Black Sheep take on one of the top ranked teams in the country, the Carolina All-Stars (now ranked #5 on Flat Track Stats). It’ll be an exciting match and a tough bout for the Black Sheep. Be there to cheer them on at the Gardens. The night before the bout, at the Know Theatre, I just read there will be a showing of “Hell on Wheels,” a roller derby documentary. I'm sure there will be lots of CRG skaters there for the film even though they live the experience.