Cincinnati Rollergirls vs. Gem City Rollergirls

Last night Dianne and I drove up to Dayton to watch the Cincinnati Rollergirls (CRG) take on the Gem City Rollergirls (GCRG) in the “We Got the Beat (Down)” bout at the Nutter Center. The final score shown at the right says it all. Congratulations to the CRG team on the win! They had a lead of 15-20 points most of the match.

The GCRG group has some good skaters. Ruff’n the Passer, Polly Rocket, Hannah Barbaric, and Toma Hawk all stood out as strong skaters and jammers. The blocking was tough from their whole team. It was no picnic for the CRG skaters to get through the pack. Nevertheless, GCRG got behind after the first couple jams and stayed there the whole match. They kept fighting back the whole time, but just couldn’t put a group together that would let them score a lot of points against Cincinnati. Even when GCRG was able to score a lot in a jam, Cincinnati usually matched them.

The whole CRG team was in sync and it showed with solid jams from multiple rotation sets of players. Every skater seemed focused and was contributing. Everything came together for the group and it was really fun to watch. The CRG blocking was amazing! There was a lot of coordination in the CRG pack and many hard blocks that made it very tough for the GCRG skaters. There were a couple jams where the GCRG skater couldn’t make it through the pack. We were surrounded by GCRG fans and you could hear the frustration in the tone of their voice. There were a few times where the lead CRG blockers got more than 20 feet from the pack and had to let the jammer through. The GCRG fans behind exclaimed “there she made it through easy!” I don't think they understood the 20 foot rule and that the blockers had to let her through.

The hard block moment of the night goes to the hit that Juwana Hurt put on Seoul Sister. I don’t know how she does it, but Juwana Hurt gets in position in front of a skater and makes a sharp cut to slow down quickly and lay a hard shoulder block into the opponent. Juwana's hit on Seoul Sister made her fall over backwards and she landed hard. Seoul Sister had to leave the match after that one. I hope she wasn’t seriously hurt, but I’m sure she is sore this morning. The photo here shows Juwana (the blurred #74) doing the same move earlier in the match. Click on the photo to see a larger version. She was putting a lot of hits on opponents. The GCRG fans behind us said they wouldn’t want to be the jammers trying to pass Juwana. Although they didn't like her, they appreciated her blocking ability.

The CRG jammers were strong as well. The hard CRG blocking and the speedy skating of Roseanne Scarr yielded two grand slams for her (when one jammer laps the opposing jammer). Those jams gave a lot of points to Cincinnati. Dianne got a photo of me with Roseanne after the match. Skates with Fists, Gummi Lov, and Miss Print were jamming and scoring as well. There were two jams where Miss Print was jamming against Ruff’n the Passer. In both of those jams, Passer focused on blocking (in effect becoming another member of the pack) to slow down Miss Print and stop her from scoring. Even that strategy wasn’t entirely effective as the CRG group used blocks, screens, and whips to help jammers through. It was a great performance and the Cincinnati Rollergirls have to be very proud of their victory.

The Nutter Center is a very good location for a roller derby match. I was a bit surprised at the size of the crowd (smaller than I expected) and the lack of crowd intensity. At the start of the first jam, it was so quiet you could practically hear a pin drop! I’m probably biased, but the orchestration of the event wasn’t as elaborate as the matches hosted by Cincinnati. However, one interesting feature the Gem City group had was a wireless microphone on the head referee (Harry Brawls). It was like the NFL head ref mike that’s used to explain a call or a timeout. I found that very nice – the sound quality was good and it was interesting to get the info first hand.

I posted a few pictures from the bout on Flickr. Jeff was there and I’m sure he’ll have some great photos posted soon. The next CRG event is August 25th at the Cincinnati Gardens. One of the bouts at that event is a rematch with GCRG. Don’t miss it!

CRG -- Scars and Stripes

On Saturday evening, Dianne and I went to watch the Cincinnati Rollergirls' Scars and Stripes event at the Cincinnati Gardens. It was a match between the two CRG teams -- the Dames of Destruction and the Full Metal Corsets. Not sure of the exact final score, but the Dames won pretty decisively.

Just by chance, Miss Print's parents ended up sitting next to us along side the track. Her dad was busy taking photos as she predicted. However, Miss Print's mom wasn't covering her eyes. She did shout "that was mean" when Miss Print fell a couple times after some hard blocks. That comment was immediately followed up by "she's so little." I suppose taken together they fall into the eye covering category. Miss Print had some good jams and her parents were proud to see her scoring against the tough Dames team. It was great her folks could see a match in person (and get a break from work at the new house).

The Dames did very well right from the start. Sadistic Sadie was on fire as usual, making jamming look easy and scoring a lot. There's a reason she was asked to join Team Awesome at RollerCon. Roseanne Scarr was doing a lot of jamming for the Dames as well. Not perfect, but I like this picture of Roseanne taken during the warm-ups. The Dames' blockers, led by Panterrorize and Arche Enemy, were tough. Blu showed her skill as a pivot for the Dames.

I thought the Corsets were doing well at the various positions, but things just didn't click together for the whole team. Even though the Corsets fell behind early, they didn't give up and seemed to pick up the pace to stay about 40 points behind the Dames for the rest of the bout. Sadie was doing some taunting of the Corsets and apparent "trash talking" while skating. It's fun for the crowd and I'm sure motivational for the Corsets. Juwana Hurt and Sk8r-Kinney stood out as blockers for the Corsets. And it was good to see Collier Mama back in there skating, at least for a while until she was ejected. I missed what led up to that. EMolition was doing a lot of the jammer work for the Corsets and scoring quite a bit.

Hits and misses from the match? Both a hit and miss was the "half time" entertainment from Dante's Gypsy Circus. They were good, but it ran a bit too long. Other hits -- easy to see names and numbers on the new Corset shirts; the use of spotlights for intros and half time was a good addition; and as always the Rollergirls play to the crowd and that makes it fun. The extra effort -- things like staying for autographs and photos (me with Rocky Balrolla of the Corsets), Morgan Donor tossing out organs, and Sk8 Crime's super soaker are just a few examples. That effort (along with increased publicity) explains why last night's crowd was large! I believe Matt or Private announced there were approximately 1100 people! A minor Miss -- no one skating around with the last jam total score on a white board. Fortunately the announcers were good about reading the jam score -- and the real time scoring helps too.

I posted some photos from the match in a Flickr set you can see here. Plan ahead for their next match at the Gardens on August 25th -- a double header!

Update on 7/24: The jam score was a miss on my part! Thanks to Menace for politely pointing out in her comment that the jam score was on the giant scoreboard over the main floor (when she was really thinking what a goofball, all he had to do was look up!)

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!

Saints vs. Cinners This Saturday

I'm sure most folks reading this realize the Cincinnati Rollergirls (i.e. the Cinners) will be hosting the Garda Belts of the Minnesota Rollergirls from St. Paul (the Saints) this Saturday at the Cincinnati Gardens. The Roller Derby Diva has several posts about the match and the Cincinnati team. There is also info about the bout on the Cincinnati Rollergirls site.

I took a look around the web for some info on the Minnesota Rollergirls. Not being a MySpace user, I hadn't realized that Sadistic Sadie and Blu had practiced with the Minnesota Rollergirls last March. Read Sadie's blog entry about the trip. That should have given them a good look at the competition. From the little bits I've read, the Garda Belts may be a tough team!

There is a nice video about the Minnesota Rollergirls that you can watch here on the Cool Hunting site. The co-captains of the Garda Belts are in the video.

The Minnesota Rollergirl site is quite good. Here is the Garda Belt page. I wanted to look at the team. Apparently they have a leprechaun as a mascot. It fits well with their green uniforms. They have some great skater names and from the bios it looks like there are some tough skaters. The co-captain of the Garda Belts, Desi Cration, got a league award as the hardest hitter in 2007. I liked Demora Liza's description of the position she plays: "the one that just knocked you on your ass." The best names on the roster are Citizen Pain (her first word was Roseblood), Hanna Belle Lector, and Amyville Whore. Very creative!

Read an article (with some pictures) about the Minnesota Rollergirls here.

This'll be the first out of town team hosted by the Cincinnati Rollergirls in the Gardens. I'm sure there'll be some hard hitting jams. Be there to catch the action and cheer them on.

Red, Black and Blue -- Cincinnati Rollergirls

On Saturday evening, Dianne and I went to the Cincinnati Rollergirls' opening event for the 2007 season: Red, Black, and Blue. It was their first event held at the Cincinnati Gardens. Overall, this event was a quantum leap improvement over their bouts from last year! Their skills have improved a lot -- that made it fun to watch. In addition, they've made many changes that make the event more fun for fans.

The two CRG teams, the Dames of Destruction and the Full Metal Corsets, skated against each other. With Panterrorize and Sadistic Sadie skating for the Dames and several members of the Corsets not skating (notably Collier Mama), I thought it might be a lopsided match. I was wrong. It was a close match the whole way. High scoring too with lots of action. The skaters have really improved a lot!! I know...you've heard that from me before. But they must have worked hard during the off season!

I was struck by how well the pack was structured and how the pack teamwork improved compared to last year. The pivots really were keeping the pack together and the referees were good about not allowing blocks away from the pack. The tight pack made it harder for the jammers to get through, but it was a lot of fun to watch. The pack was doing much better at planning blocks on jammers as well as on opposing blockers to clear the way for a jammer. Foxy and Juwana Hurt for the Corsets and Panterrorize and Arche Enemy for the Dames stood out for me as good blockers. There were also a lot of whips to help the jammers keep up their speed. It was exciting to watch.

The jammers have improved as well. Sadistic Sadie is clearly a strong skater and great jammer, but there are more players now that are challenging her. The photo on the right shows jammers Sadie (in blue) and Sk8Crime (in camo) facing off in one jam. Miss Print had some great jams for the Corsets -- there were at least two where she scored and the Dames jammer had zero. Unlike last year where she might get hung up in the pack, Miss Print was persistent and able to battle through the pack even when blocked. I thought the best new jammer was Tabatha for the Corsets. She is a fast skater that is a great addition to the Corset team. The Corset captains EMolition and Sk8Crime also were good jammers that helped the team stay neck and neck with the Dames. Hopefully with a healthy squad they'll beat the Dames next time.

Finally, it was nice to have relatively few penalties and no brawls. Just good, clean action. It didn't appear anyone was hurt...well, I mean major injury. I'm sure there are a lot of sore skaters today from the hard blocks and falls. But most all of the blocking seemed legal and there weren't any malicious take downs.

On the venue and conduct of the event, the group put a lot of thought into improving the event for the fans. The Gardens is a good choice for their events. Parking is easy and the seats give a good view of the action. Before the start of the bout, the girls gave a demo that briefly explained the pack, the jammers, scoring, and basic blocking. That was a great idea for folks watching for the first time. Other improvements included a nicer event program, light strips making the track boundary easy to see, real time scoring during a jam, and after each jam they had a skater with a whiteboard circle the track to show the individual jam total. That was very nice!

The Rollergirls also go out of the way to involve the crowd. The half time tricycle race for the kids was great. The skaters stayed after the bout to meet fans and sign autographs. Dianne took the photo at the right of me with Miss Print. I noticed she still has a Cincinnati Riots sticker on her helmet (her former team). Also got a photo with Sk8 Crime. Click here to see the Flickr set of photos from the match. We didn't stay for the after party upstairs, but that's another example of the Rollergirls making it fun for all. They also did a lot of PR work before the match. I heard a couple skaters, including Sista Sac, on Friday with Gary Burbank on 700 WLW.

If you haven't been to see the Cincinnati Rollergirls, or went once last year, you have to catch them this season. You'll have a great time. Catch them on June 16th for their match against the Garda Belts from the Minnesota Rollergirls.

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.

Interview with Omega 3

As Dianne pointed out in a recent post, the fourth and last exhibition season bout for the Cincinnati Rollergirls on October 29th is approaching fast. Tickets are now available through the Cincinnati Rollergirls site. The start time is a bit later so all the Bengals fans can watch the game and make the match. I just noticed the Roller Derby Diva’s blog had a link to an interview that Randomville did with Omega 3, the Rollergirls’ coach. It’s a short interview, but it explains her choice of Omega 3 as a nom de patinage a roulettes (OK…it’s not as catchy as nom de plume for a writer).

Rollergirls' SRS 3 Photos

In case you missed the Cincinnati Rollergirl action at the Florence Fundome, you can read more about it on the Roller Derby Diva's blog and on Sk8 Crime's blog. Sk8 Crime also has photos of her battle scars. I can only imagine how sore her opponents are today!

As usual, Jason Bechtel has posted some great photos from the match in his Flickr pool. His photos give a good idea of how tough the blocking was. I'm guessing he'll post another set for the other match of the day. Check out all his sets here. He has some nice non-roller derby photos too! His photo below is a nice shot of Sadistic Sadie as a jammer and Collier Mama as a pivot for the Dames with Miss Print of the Riots to the right.

Super Roll Sunday II

On Sunday, Dianne and I went to see the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ SRS II (Super Roll Sunday) with Carla and her parents. We had a good time.

Overall, I thought the skaters showed noticeable improvement since the first event. Individually there was a lot of improvement and collectively there was more teamwork evident during the jams. The pace of the action has picked up and the skaters seemed more steady even with an increased amount of jostling and blocking. The pack skaters were making much more of an effort to help their jammers with whips and pushes as well as screening blocks. That made it a lot of fun to watch. There were some hard falls, but it didn’t seem there were as many casualties as at the first event. However, Junk n Trunk took a bad fall and had to be carried off the floor. It looked like the track boundary was a ridge taped to the floor that threw a couple people off balance. I didn’t notice that in Loveland; it seemed like a flat tape boundary there.

The first pairing between the Full Metal Corsets and the Riots was a blow out with the Corsets winning handily. Unfortunate since I was pulling for the Riots. I’m not sure why the Riots had such a hard time since a couple of their jammers (Miss Print and Gummilove ) skated with success in the second match of the day. By the way, you can read Miss Print's take on the match here. One reason the Corsets did well was their blocking. I think it was Collier Mama that was so good at blocking she stalled a couple of the Riot jammers. Incidentally, she has a nice post here and she should be proud. One of the craziest blocks of the match was a block on Bola del Fuego (I think) that pushed her outside when she was going fast on the turn. She went out of bounds, hit the bar on the emergency exit and popped the door open!

The second match between the Bloody Sundaes and the Dames of Destruction was very good. I was cheering for the Dames (by the way, their new logo at left is a huge improvement). They were all tied up at the half. However, in the second half a great effort by Sk8 Crime in one jam and Sadistic Sadie in another put the Dames way ahead. A final jam by Miss Print was icing on the cake for the Dames. The skating in this pairing was fast overall. Both Pantera and Sadistic Sadie did an especially good job zipping around the track and weaving through the pack without losing their momentum.

The event itself seemed better organized and I really appreciated the scoreboard changes. My one wish would be to have the refs show the whiteboard with the jam results to fans as well as the teams and the score table. The sound systems aren’t great and when the emcee talks too quickly, it’s hard to understand.

It was too bad the seats weren’t packed like the first event. The first Bengal game and a Reds home game with them looking for a wildcard spot probably didn’t help. You have a couple more chances to catch the Rollergirls this fall. Don't miss it! Check out their site for ticket info.

PS Sorry for the long post. That’s what you get when I have a 3 hour layover in Salt Lake City.

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.