On Sunday evening, Dianne and I went to Castle Skateland in Loveland to watch the final home bout of the season for the Cincinnati Rollergirls. Cincinnati hosted the Burning River Roller Girls from the Cleveland area. Cincinnati lost the match -- their only loss so far this year. I'm not sure of the final score (I'm sure Miss Print will have it on her blog), but they lost by about 30+ or so. However, the final score doesn't reflect the whole story of the evening. Cincinnati skated hard and stayed in the hunt most of the evening.
The Burning River Roller Girls have a strong 'all star' team. They have several fast jammers including Professor Booty and Eva Lucien. Although their jammers were fast and strong, the Cincinnati jammers seemed to be a pretty even match for them when in the open. Sk8 Crime, EMolition, Candy KICKass, Miss Print, and Sadistic Sadie were jamming for Cincinnati. I thought the main difference
between the teams was with blocking. The BRRG team has several strong pivots/blockers that included Ivanna Destroya, Morbid Cherub, and Rouge Cheddar. Ivanna and Rouge are pretty tall (close to 6 feet) which gave them a bit of an advantage with stride and bracing for blocks. In addition, the BRRG pack seemed very well organized in general. That size and organization made some jams difficult for the Cincinnati jammers. A couple examples are the photos at the right. On the top, Candy KICKass got a hard shoulder block while stuck behind Rouge and Morbid. The second photo shows EMolition getting squeezed between the shoulders of Kill Basa and CoCo Sparx (the BRRG skaters in orange).
It was tough in the pack with both teams dishing out their share of hard blocks. Sk8 Crime went down hard early on and Mean Arlene fell and hit her head/helmet hard on the floor. The CRG blockers were hitting hard too. The photo here shows the after effects of a hit that Sadistic Sadie gave to Morbid Cherub (the skater in orange on the floor) in order to clear a path for Miss Print (wearing the jammer star).
After the first period, Cincinnati was behind by about 20 or so. They adjusted during the break between periods and battled back in the second period to get within 8 or so. The third period started OK until one jam where the Cincinnati jammer was sent to the penalty box and BRRG scored ~14 to Cincinnati's 0. We missed what happened to result in that penalty. That hurt. The next jam Sadie returned the favor with a 10-0 jam in favor of Cincinnati, but that was followed by an 11-0 jam in favor of BRRG. The BRRG team scored quite a bit in the last few minutes to widen the gap. But for the match as a whole, it was a great effort by all the CRG skaters. Check out all my photos from the event in my Flickr set here.
It was a good event logistically too. The experienced Cincinnati Rollergirls and volunteers know how to put on a good derby event. I have to say I prefer the Gardens, but I understand the need to use another venue. I was a bit surprised with the smaller crowd. I thought the place would be packed given the way the Cincinnati Rollergirls have been filling the Gardens. The Bengals finished early -- maybe the Sunday "school night" cut back on the crowd?
After the event I was able to chat with a couple skaters including The Librarian. She was kind enough to pose for another photo with me. You gotta love the shush pose.
Even though the home season is over, the Cincinnati Rollergirls' traveling team has matches coming up in St. Paul and Denver. Maybe my Minnesota readers will catch the St. Paul event next weekend. Good luck to the group on those trips! Check out Miss Print's blog for info about those events and other off season news.
Thanks to all the Cincinnati Rollergirls for a great home season this year!
