DENVER, CO -- The Windy City Rollers' All Star Team made the trek to Denver, CO to take on the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls on September 6th. Both teams had celebrated a number of victories this season – Windy City most recently over Tucson and Minnesota and Rocky Mountain over Boston and Angel City. Windy City has held a comfortable spot at #7 in the rankings for quite a while, and Rocky Mountain, currently at #12, was ready to take them on as steady climbers through the WFTDA's numbers.
The first half began with Rocky Mountain's Frida Beater on the jammer line against Kola Loka, and after Frida gained lead and called the jam off with a four point lead, things began in favor of the lower-ranked team from the Mile High City. She Who Cannot Be Named added another two points to the scoreboard while Chicago remained scoreless, but the third jam of the night saw things quickly turn around. Luscious Smacksome lined up for Rocky Mountain against Ying of Fire, only to end up in the penalty box for cutting the track. Between Ying and Kola Loka in the next jam, Windy City gathered 14 points to Rocky Mountain's 6.
Windy City continued to rack up the points steadily while keeping Rocky Mountain scoreless for six more jams until Luscious took advantage of Windy City's jammer in the penalty box, scoring two more points. With intense defense and a pack that stayed considerably fast, Windy City's blockers Malice With Chains, Megan Former and Eva Dead prevented Rocky Mountain's jammers from breaking the pack for much of the period. Halftime put Windy City at 45, Rocky Mountain 17.
While Rocky Mountain was considerably behind going into period two, it's no secret that the second half usually brings this team back stronger than ever (notable examples include their match against Rose City and, most recently, against Boston at ECE). Both teams came back steadily scoring a few points per jam in the beginning, until the seventh jam of the period where Frida took full advantage of Athena DeCrime's visit to the penalty box. In a jam that seemed to take forever, Frida scored 18 points, bringing Rocky Mountain to 47 against Windy City's 64 with ample time left on the clock and a quickly closing gap.
It was soon realized, however, that the jam really had gone on forever -- to be exact, a full minute and thirty seconds too long. Eight of Frida's points were removed, putting the actual score at Windy City 64, Rocky Mountain 39.
With more control over the pack speed and an even stronger defensive showing from Rocky Mountain thanks to blockers Madam MaimYa, Ida Hustler and Catholic Cruel Girl, the point gap continued to shrink. Frida began a promising jam with Windy City's jammer in the box, narrowing the score to 75-58 before her jammer cap managed to fall off of her helmet, leaving her unable to score. The jam came to an end, presumably due to the confusion and interference of the cap being grabbed by a blocker.
But that 17 point margin was as close as Rocky Mountain would get in the second half, as the Windy City defense clamped down for the rest of the bout, not allowing another point for the home team while WCR went on a 23-0 run to end the bout at Windy City 97, Rocky Mountain 58.
Windy City's last challenge before Eastern Regionals will be a doozy, as they go up against last year's WFTDA champs, #1 Kansas City, on Saturday, September 20 -- that game will be the final one played at Windy City's Cicero Stadium before they move to their new digs. Rocky Mountain's all-star team now looks forward to the opening day of the Western Regionals tournament on Friday, October 5, where they are the #6 seed, taking on #11 seed Houston.
Photos: Andrew Dittmeier
I have never heard
Of a jam clock being forgotten about for that long. Did the refs forget to blow the whistle or something?
Duchess of Torque
#200 lb/ft
Charm City
No clue...
But the recapper had it right-- it totally felt like that jam was going on forever!
And when I texted Hurt the score and that update, he told me he'd seen 3+ minute jams before... so I guess it's happened, but probably not that often.
Frida Beater amazed me with her endurance and tenacity with that jam. I swear I was getting short of breath just LOOKING at her go! I think she must be part robot or something!
xo,
Loco Chanel/ WCR
weiirrrrdddd
If someone wasn't watching the clock, how did they know that the 8 points were scored after the 2 minute mark? Was someone else keeping time too? Do they have a scoreboard that counts up or down? I've been given the duty of watching the stopwatch for drills at practice and have definitely forgotten about it before. I've just never seen that in a bout.
Anyway, that Frida Beater is incredible. I swear, it seems like she only strokes like 4 times to make a full lap and because she has such a steady pace doesn't seem like she's going as fast as she is until she whips around a corner and out of the pack.
Anna
Boston Massacre: The pantsless wonders of Massachusetts
Is there a precedent for
Is there a precedent for taking a skater's points away due to an officiating fuck-up? It sounds like some crazy crap went down during that bout (anything involving helmet panties coming off is always chaos), but the points-taking seems like a really odd call, based on what Anna Wrecksya mentioned above.
Tough call
Tough call to make. I imagine somebody got their ass chewed big time for that slip up. Probably got a few dirty looks at the after party too. Yeah, it's no fun being that guy. Maybe a second set of eyes on the clock, like an auxiliary timer off-skates whose sole duty is to pick up the ball when someone drops it. I dunno. That's really crazy, especially in a high-stakes, sanctioned, inter-league bout. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Bat Wing
Ref - CoMo Derby Dames, Columbia, MO.
Jammer - Midwest Men's Roller Derby (Midwest Monsters), regional club
http://www.myspace.com/refbatwing
Specifically allowed for in the rules
"7.5.4 Once a Jammer earns a point that point can never be taken away. (Note: this does not apply to points awarded in error.)"
Usually, that clause comes into play when a jam ref incorrectly gives a lap point or really brain-farts and awards points on the opening lap, and the points hit the scoreboard before the mistake is noticed. But I think a 3:30 minute jam also qualifies as error :)
JFM
That's definitely an error!
That's definitely an error! But to me, something like this falls more into the category of a jammer successfully calling it when she's not lead: if the ref whistles for the jam to end, then it's over. The skater is penalized, but the jam doesn't restart with the same skaters and the applicable time left on the jam clock.
The jam is over, even though a referee judgment error allowed that.
If we want WFTDA rules to be philosophically coherent, it doesn't make sense for the error of ending a jam pre-emptively to stand, while trying to "undo" the error of refs allowing a jam to run FAR past it's normal conclusions.
It could be argued...
That the points weren't awarded in error. They were earned. It was a time keeping error not a score keeping error. That ref stoppage really killed RMRG's rally. As far as dirty looks at the after party, at that point it's water under the bridge or maybe beer out of the bottle.
You could argue anything then...
Points are only "earned" based on the rules, which say that a jam must last a maximum of 2 minutes. With all due respect, the RMRG could not beat Chicago that day even with the 8 points that were correctly taken away from them. Every person who knows about derby (including the recapper) would agree that the Windy City was a better team on many levels that day.
Some comments here are making it seem like the bout was close but in reality it was a very comfortable lead for Chicago almost the entire time, except at the very beginning.
Sure
I didn't mean to take anything away from WCR, they were the better team. My point was that RMRG was rallying in the second period and the ref stoppages really took the wind out of their sails. The game was pretty close when that happened, something like 12 points which I wouldn't consider a very comfortable lead. But even with the rally I don't think the outcome would have been any different other than a closer point spread. WCR kicked ass plain and simple.
No such thing as a comfortable lead
Some comments here are making it seem like the bout was close but in reality it was a very comfortable lead for Chicago almost the entire time, except at the very beginning.
They did not have a comfortable lead. Motivating, sure, but not comfortable. The mention of Darlin Nikki's 23pt jam proves it doesn't require a long time to score a lot of points. I played an interleague game once where my team overcame a 40 point defecit in about 6 jams with less than 20 mins left in the game and won. Derby is played one jam at a time.
Anna
Boston Massacre: The pantsless wonders of Massachusetts
How close it was
from my incomplete notes: 55-69 with 9:43 to go. (Guess that would have been 63-69 without the 8 point adjustment.) So RMRG outplayed WCR for about twenty minutes after the intermission, a 38-24 run.
overlong jams
Only seen it once, and it's been a while. But hey, we're human, mistakes happen.
3:30??
3:30 Jam?? The skaters on the bench could all have gone for a phone call, or a smoke.
Bat Wing
Ref - CoMo Derby Dames, Columbia, MO.
Jammer - Midwest Men's Roller Derby (Midwest Monsters), regional club
http://www.myspace.com/refbatwing
Haha
I got to skate three times and go to the box twice in that jam... talk about efficient! :)
ROTFL!
I got to skate three times and go to the box twice in that jam... talk about efficient! :)
Wow. That's awesome! You know, ish happens, and it's not the end of the world. What do you do? Good thing it wasn't a crazy close game though, like when KC beat TXRG on a 1 point spread a couple of months ago. One bad call can change it all.
Bat Wing
Ref - CoMo Derby Dames, Columbia, MO.
Jammer - Midwest Men's Roller Derby (Midwest Monsters), regional club
http://www.myspace.com/refbatwing
Kola Loka...
How many points did Kola Loka make? She is so amazing...
I have watched her play a few times and every time I see her I get very excited. I wish I could skate like her. Frida was also great.
Bubu
Bladium Pandimonium!
Shucks, ICT was rootin' for RMRG! We respect them and look up to them! It sucks that they didn't catch the clock. I bet Bladium was up in arms! Good luck to everyone at regionals!
Skyler Durden
Mishcief. Mayhem. Skates.
2 cents from a player...
There is nothing more frustrating to a derby girl, player, athlete...than to be put in a situation that is completely out of your control on the derby track...a situation that no one can practice for, a mishap in human error, environmental error, what have you. It is even more frustrating to watch your adrenaline slip away during long reffing discussions and arguments, while the team you were trying to attack is regrouping, catching air, and focusing on kicking your butt (well let's say smacking your butt) :)
Frida skated an unbelievable jam and rightfully earned the points. At one point, I watched from the bench as she snaked through a FOUR person wall. However, I do believe Windy City's jammer was in the box for a portion of this lengthy jam, if not all of it! All in all, the cards fell in no one's favor (in my opinion). As much as RMRG hated to give up the points, we would also not accept being on the receiving end while our jammer sat in the box.
The better we can all get at reffing, controlling environmental and VOLUNTEERING errors, the better derby will become for the crowd and for the players. There is no sense in dwelling on it..accept it, learn from it, and move on to regionals!!!
It was great game.
Nice
Wow the photos on the home page from this past weekend's bouts are awesome....also, keep up the brilliant reporting, DNN, ya'll are fabulous!
She Who Cannot Be Named #88
Rocky Mountain Rollergirls