Cincinnati Rollergirls Items

Jeff Sevier, one of the photographers for the Cincinnati Rollergirls, posted many photos taken at the away bout in Dayton a couple weeks ago. See his entire set on Flickr. The lighting in the Nutter Center was relatively good and Jeff has some excellent shots! I thought Jeff's photo of Rocky Balrolla (shown at right) was very good. If you want to check out a "Where's Waldo" shot, look at this photo.

Don't forget the home bout this coming Saturday at the Cincinnati Gardens. It's a rematch with the Gem City girls and also a bout with the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls from Bloomington. The Bloomington team has a skater named Motley Cruel (a rival for Panterrorize?) and a skater named X Libris (is this The Librarian's sister? Seriously, check out her photo in the bio section). Could make for some interesting match ups. X Libris' number is "ML3534" which seems to refer to books that are general histories of rock and roll music. A noisy rocker? She's gonna get shushed by The Librarian.

Should be fun!

CRG Schedule Change & Skater Bios

Had a call yesterday from the Cincinnati Gardens saying the Cincinnati Rollergirls made a schedule change and canceled their planned August 4th bout. It was nice of the folks at the Gardens to call. I was curious about the change and went to the Rollergirl website to see if there was any info.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover the Dames' and Corsets' team information was updated (who knows how long that's been up) and that skater info and photos are posted. It's a very good addition to the site. Not all the entries are complete as yet, but it's interesting reading. I especially liked the quote and tagline elements. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Sk8Crime: "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye...then it's fun and games in the dark!"
• Miss Print: "Live life two minutes at a time."
• Roseanne Scarr: "The fastest way to an opponent's heart is through her chest."
• The Librarian: "112 lbs. of shut the hell up" and "Don't make me shush your ass."
  

Check out the CRG website for more info on these and other skaters.

I didn't see anything there about the schedule change. However, Miss Print had a post about it today. It makes perfect sense given all their activity piling up in August.

Don't forget the next Cincinnati Rollergirl bout is coming up fast -- July 21st!

Exciting Day Downtown

Dianne had to go to work for a bit today. Since she was operating on a couple hours of sleep, I took her downtown. I can surf there as well, just not as comfortably. But it turned out to be an exciting day in downtown Cincinnati - as exciting as Cincinnati can be.

We had lunch at Skyline Chili with a few of her colleagues. Afterwards, we walked to the Carew Tower to visit Churchill’s Tea Room. Along the way we saw quite a few things. We walked by the Duke Energy holiday model train exhibit. If you can’t make it, their site has photos and a short video. We also walked past John Matarese (the WCPO-TV reporter who does the “Don’t Waste Your Money” segments) who was conducting an on the street interview. I’m not a huge fan, but nevertheless a brush with a 2 time Emmy award winner (according to his bio). Finally, I was looking ahead and the back of a jacket with the Full Metal Corsets logo of the Cincinnati Rollergirls caught my eye. I’m pretty sure it was The Librarian, but it was a bit hard to tell as she wasn’t wearing skates and making her trademark shooshing pose.

What a day, huh!?!

Pictures From SRS IV

Jason Bechtel has posted pictures from the fourth Cincinnati Rollergirl exhibition match on Flickr. There is a set for the Dames and Corset match and a set for the Riots and Sundae match. The photo at left is a nice shot of The Librarian sprinting hard at the start of a jam to beat Psycho Soy Nut through the first turn. Another photo in Jason's photo sets is the best "Where's Waldo" picture.

Also, Miss Print has asked for feedback on the Cincinnati Rollergirl exhibition season. As a blogger, I know how nice it is to get a comment on a post. If you attended a match, click on the link to go over and leave a comment.

Super Roll Sunday IV -- Cincinnati Rollergirls

It was a packed house last night at Castle Skateland for the last set of matches of the Cincinnati Rollergirls exhibition season. Both matches were very exciting, seesaw battles.

In the first bout, the undefeated Dames took on the Corsets. Going in I thought it would be a good match….but it turned out to be a very exciting match! They were just a couple points apart one way or the other the whole match. The Corsets seemed to kick it up a notch to try and knock off the Dames. Although always strong defensively led by Collier Mama, there was a lot of blocking teamwork going on. They were not only trying to take out the Dames’ jammers, but also trying to box in the Dames’ blockers so the Corset jammers could get through the pack quicker. The Dames were doing the same thing however, so it made for a rough skate in the pack. Sk8 Crime had some great jams (which made her mom very proud), but Blu Bayou, Bex Pistol, and the Librarian (and others?) were all contributing jammers. The Librarian deserves a most improved skater award as it seemed she picked up her speed a lot since SRS III. She was really sprinting hard off the line and even from the outside position she beat some of the Dames jammers through the first and second turns. In the end, with Sadistic Sadie as jammer for the last two jams, the Dames edged out the Corsets by a couple points.

In the second bout, the Riots skated against the Sundaes. I’ve been pulling for the Riots all season, but they’ve had a tough time. I was hoping they could pull off a win and in another close match they edged out the Sundaes. Congratulations to the Riots for their first win! This was a high scoring match and also a close match most of the way. The first jam after the half, the Riot jammer was put in the penalty box (I missed the reason why). This put them behind. A couple jams later with some of the Sundae skaters in the penalty box, Gummilove had a 17 point jam that got the lead back for the Riots. With some tough jamming and hard takedowns in the later jams, the Riots held on to their lead to beat the Sundaes.

It was nice to see a full crowd in the stands. The crowd was into it which added to the fun. There was a lot of cheering during the jams (especially for the Dames) as well as collective gasping at some of the hard hits and falls. Some spectators dressed in costume (especially kids) and the Rollergirls were passing out candy and other items which was nice. Maybe it‘s an illusion because the Skateland venue is smaller than the other rinks, but it seems like you’re closer to the action there – I’m guessing their floor is more narrow than the other rinks. That’s nice. I also liked the new pair of announcers last night. Finally, Sk8 Crime and L’dia did a very nice a cappella version of the national anthem.

I didn’t talk to Miss Print, but I hope she continues providing Rollergirl updates on her blog during the off season and I hope the league continues. Thanks to all the Rollergirls for bringing some hard hitting roller derby action to the Cincinnati area!

Super Roll Sunday - 1

It was Super Roll Sunday today – the first match for the Cincinnati Rollergirls. I’m sure you’ll be able to find out more on their website soon and see some better photos of the action there. Going in, I was pulling for The Riots (because of Lauren’s Roller Derby Diva blog and the Ithaca connection) and the Full Metal Corsets (just because I liked the team name and some of the member names). But alas, both of my teams lost by huge margins. Now that I've got a first look at some of the characters, I might have to rethink my favorites.

The first match was between the Bloody Sundays and The Riots. This was a blowout with the Sundays winning easily. The Sundays were good, but it seemed like the Riots beat themselves by running into each other and having their jammers lose momentum. My take was that Gummilove was their strongest jammer and Bola del Fuego seemed to do well. Miss Print had one good jam but also another where she got held up in the pack and didn’t score. Dianne commented that there wasn’t enough whipping or helping along of the jammers. It was hard to get a good picture, but here is an artistic view of one of the Sundays/Riots jams.

Watching the warm-ups, especially for the second match between the Full Metal Corsets and the Dames of Destruction, it was readily apparent which team had the best skaters. In that match, Sadistic Sadie of the Dames was far and away the best jammer. She really maneuvered through the pack well and she used her teammates to help her advance and score (sometimes by pushing them to the ground in order to stay in bounds and keep moving ahead). The Corsets took a beating with three players going down hard on separate occasions that stopped the match. That was no fun to see. Two of the girls (The Librarian and I believe Collier Mamma) seemed to be hurt bad and they sat out the rest of the match. The Corsets had some tough cookies on the team that were fitting into the bad girl mold, but not the best skaters. Among the bad girls was Sk8 Crime whose attitude or persona I didn’t care for. After some tough jostling with Sadie in the next to last jam, I was happy to see Sadie pull Sk8 Crime down from behind using her belt and then go at it. It was worth the penalty to put Sk8 Crime in her place.

All in all, I thought it was a good event. It seemed like the Rollergirls were having fun and many were playing to the crowd. The flat track style is different and takes more planning to work through the pack and stay in bounds. Most everyone was giving it their all and the blocking was tough. It also takes a lot of work from a lot of volunteers to put on something like this. I hope they can make a go of it! However, you could tell the league is young and they need to work out some kinks like scoring (having team names rather than home/visitors), timekeeping, concessions to handle the crowd, announcing, etc. Nevertheless, I’d go again and encourage anyone with a roller derby interest to check it out. Who knows, maybe I can talk Dianne into SRS II coming up in a few weeks.

Super Roll Sunday

It's coming up fast...Super Roll Sunday...the premier bout of the Cincinnati Roller Girls. You can get tickets now online or at a few locations around town. Dianne and I will see you there this weekend. You can read more about the group at the Roller Girls website or get one insider's view on the Roller Derby Diva's blog on the Cincinnati.com site.

I don't know anything about the people involved, but I have to say I thought the player number for "The Librarian" on the team "The Full Metal Corsets" was kind of funny. Her number is 739.27 T213E which is the call number for a book written by Elizabeth Taylor called Elizabeth Taylor: my love affair with jewelry. I guess The Librarian is a Liz Taylor fan. I wonder if she has a magical horse with wings that will help her move through the pack as a jammer. We'll see on Sunday.