West Championship: 1W Oly Rebuffs 2W Rocky Mountain, 143-106
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Photo: Jules Doyle.
PORTLAND, OR -- 2W Rocky Mountain put up a strong challenge to the region's top seed, but 1W Oly remained undefeated for 2011 by rebuffing them in the championship game of the 2011 WFTDA West Region Playoffs, 143-106. Rocky Mountain held the lead for only the first 4 jams before Oly took the lead for good.
Both teams put out their aces in the opener, but Rocky Mountain's DeRanged got a quick lead and 2-0 to give Rocky Mountain the first lead. The second jams was marked by a huge hit on Oly jammer Stella Italiana from Bob Loblaw that gave RMRG's Urrk'n Jerk'n as Booty Blockya time to claim lead and a 4-0; DeRanged and Atomatrix were back on the line again in jam 3; Atomatrix overcame a false start to claim Oly's first lead, but had to call at 0-0 as DeRanged had put some distance between them. The next also went 0-0, this time with Tannibal Lector getting out second with lead and calling 0-0 against Urrk'n. After 5 minutes, it was a very low scoring game at 6-0 Rocky.
Oly got their first points on a powerjam after Rocky Mountain's Frida Beater was boxed on a cut; the pack came to a complete stop between turns 1 and 2 as Rocky just waited for Atomatrix to approach, but Atom ran up a 17-0 before finally getting decked by Amanda Jamitinya; Atom called to ice Frida in the box, but it didn't work out; Stella Italiana hit the floor very hard with apparent whiplash in her opening pass, and the jam was called on injury at 0-0 although she was able to get up and skate off under her own power after about a minute.
Rocky Mountain got into very serious penalty trouble next, filling the box and leaving only Assaultin' Pepa and Ecko on the floor against the full Oly contingent; Scara to Death put up a 10-0 and Atom added 4-0 on the other side of the powerjam. With 10 minutes gone in the bout, Oly had a solid lead at 31-6.
RMRG finally got their first powerjam opportunity on the 11th jam of the game when DeRanged had a very light pack to go up against; unfortunately for Rocky, she picked up a back block after grabbing 18 points. Tannibal Lector bolted out of the box to put up 9 for Oly, bringing the game to 46-25 with about 15 minutes left in the first half. Back to back 8-0 jams for Oly moved it to 62-25, and Rocky Mountain called their first timeout with 12:45 to play in the first.
DeRanged and PsychoBabble teamed up effectively on Atomatrix following the timeout, but Rocky jammer Triple Shot Misto was only able to claim 2 points before having to call. Rocky Mountain continued to nick away with small-margin jams -- 2-0 Psycho, 4-0 Urrk'n and 3-0 Psych -- and with about 7 minutes left it was 63-36 Oly.
Unfortunately for Rocky, the mini-rally was short-circuited when Urrk'n got sent to the box during her scoring pass; the jam went 5-2 Oly, and Atomatrix added more margin on the other side of the powerjam with 5-0. With 3:20 to go in the first half, it was 72-38 Oly, and they'd hold a 82-42 advantage at the break.
RMRG's Urrk'n Jerk'n got her team off to a good start in the second half by claiming lead, but Sassy, Hockey Honey and Scara to Death did a good job of containing her to only 4-0; two jams later, Urrk'n once again narrowed the margin with a 8-0 over Hockey Honey. Five minutes into the half, it was 90-54 Oly.
On the next jam, DeRanged and Atomatrix both completed their opening passes without attaining lead, creating a full-length jam in which neither team had much luck containing their opposing jammers; it went 12-10 for Atom. RMRG got a break on the next jam when Stella Italiana had lead for Oly but picked up a 4th minor during her first scoring pass; yet again, it was Urrk'n Jerk'n getting her team a much needed jam win with a 18-2. RMRG blocker Psycho Babble had Stella's number in the pack on the other side of the powerjam while DeRanged stormed for 9-0, and suddenly Rocky Mountain was within striking distance at 104-91 and about 19 minutes left.
Oly's Atomatrix got her team some breathing room next with a 13-0 powerjam while Urrk'n was battered and eventually hit the box on a low block; Atom called with Urrk'n boxed, and the next jam was chaotic as both Oly's Tannibal Lector and Urrk'n were boxed almost simultaneously during a heavily defensive jam that ended up going 4-0 Oly. Rocky was down by 30 with 14 minutes to play, 121-91.
Oly called their first timeout with 10:18 left in the game, leading 129-96, but RMRG won or tied the next five jams to inch closer at 129-102. Still, though, time was becoming an issue for RMRG, with only 4:15 left to play; they called their second timeout. However, the nail in RMRG's coffin came two jams later, when Urrk'n Jerk'n and Tannibal Lector burst out of the pack at almost the same time but Tannibal took Urrk'n down; a few moments later, Urrk'n was boxed on a major track cut and Tannibal rolled for the game-sealing 10-0. It made the score 143-102 with 54 seconds left, and though Rocky took their final timeout, there was not enough time to make up the difference. Atomatrix claimed lead and patiently ran out the clock while DeRanged scored 4; the final was 143-106.
Oly takes their second West title in three years, the only undefeated team of the weekend with wins over Rose City and Jet City; Rocky finishes in second with wins over Sacred City and Rat City. Both teams will have to wait until all four WFTDA tournaments are concluded before finding out who they face in Denver at November's WFTDA Championships.
Comments
Falling Small
"6.3.7 - Flailing and sprawling skaters that trip an opponent, regardless of intent." (Major Low Block Penalty)
So, I saw a whole LOT of actions that looked like this to me but weren't being called. It happened in every bout I saw and it felt like it was happening in every other jam. Did any one else see this? Was there something else going on that I was missing, or were the refs interpreting the low blocks differently that I am used to?
Low block calls
By the looks of things, *some* refs were giving skaters a little more leeway than normal due to what looked to be a slippery-than-normal floor. I noticed lots of skaters going down much more easily then one might expect, being pushed out more easily than one might think, really easing up for corners to avoid slipping out, etc.
This didn't seem to apply to all refs or be applied consistently, but I think that was the root of the issue you describe.
Falling small doesn't make
Falling small doesn't make sense. A skaters top priority when falling should be not to get hurt. That could mean falling big to dissipate the impact across a greater surface area. Granted, after they fall, they should get out of the way of the other skaters. I don't know of any other sport that penalizes a player for falling. In soccer you get a penalty for slide tackling only if you did not make contact with the ball first. Now, if a skater falls with the intent of taking out their opponent, then that should be a penalty. But, if someone checks you or you get tripped, you should not get penalty because you fell and someone crashed into you. This is yet another rule of many that I don't like about roller derby.
A great example of falling "big"
Hopefully this link to Tim Gonzalez' facebook album works: https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10150395715023755&set=a.10150395711033755.413822.559258754&type=1&theater
Tannabal is falling stretched out fully, she'll absorb most of the impact with her hands, forearms and shoulders, her toes will hit the floor before her knees will. On DNN we've had the running joke for two years about Oly's tiny kneepads, and here's why: they seldom fall on their knees.
One thing you do notice about when someone falls this way, if they are in the pack (or about to be overtaken by it) they immediately get into the fetal position to get "small".
Bracket for Champs?
Obviously it can't be until after NC and SC, but does anyone know when the bracket for Championships will be finalized?
The funny thing about this game is that (aside from the pride of winning, psychology, etc.) the luck of the draw ends up being more important than who won the game. One of these teams will have to go through Gotham to get to the finals and one won't. Last year Rocky was the #1 seed in the west, but got the unlucky draw...it'll be interesting to see how it falls this year.
Hopefully it'll work out that the top 4 teams (Rocky, Oly, Gotham, and Rose) can all get to the semi's. That would make for a pretty amazing weekend.
I guess NOW we have our definitive answer...
Soooo many people were saying that the only reason Oly beat Rocky Mtn. in Denver this past June is because Rocky was missing 3 keys players, while Oly had a full roster. It was nice to see those three Rocky Mtn. players back for Besterns. It was even nicer to see The Oly Rollers defeat them once again. I expect a hat trick of victories over Rocky Mtn. for Oly this year. Can't wait to see Championships in Denver!
And the Answer is.....OLY
Amen, Derby Advocate. That said, what a classy game both teams played on Sunday, topped off by the hugs at the end. And then Oly skaters went and thanked the NSOs and Refs, like they do after every bout. Great athletes.
Stats?
Are the Second Screen Experience stats archived anywhere? I'd like to geek out over the game a little bit. :)
Home of Rinxter
Here you go. http://www.rinxter.net/wftda/repo/index.jsp
Jammer Penalties -> YOU LOSE
Thought some folks might find this interesting...
Oly: 2 power jams allowed (one of which was cut short)
Rocky: SEVEN power jams allowed
Kudos to Oly for playing smart. I'll put money on that being a MAJOR point of focus for them...I can't believe it happens by accident.
By my count, Oly scored 87 of their 143 points during the 11 jams impacted by those power jams. Rocky scored 36 of their 106 during their 2 power jams.
Non-power-jam-impacted jams were actually won by Rocky 70-56. 70% of the jams were played with both jammers on the track the entire time. Almost exactly 50% of the points scored in the game were scored in the other 30% of the jams.
My takeaways from this?
1. STAY OUT OF THE BOX JAMMERS!!!
2. The rules need to be adjusted to lessen the impact of jammer penalties.
To be clear -- point #2 isn't about "my team" losing this game. I honestly think this is the biggest problem with the current rules. In no other sport (with the possible exception of soccer!) does a single penalty have such a huge impact on the score of the game.
Jammer penalties
1. STAY OUT OF THE BOX JAMMERS!!!
2. The rules need to be adjusted to lessen the impact of jammer penalties.
Same info provided a completely different takeaway for me. I don't think that the rules should be changed AT ALL in that regard. I absolutely believe that to be the #1 team, your jammer should play legally and keep her ass out of the box. Jammers that can't play legal are a liability to the team (includes self, almost renamed Maj. Backblock for a season until I got it under control). Your stats didn't make me think Rocky got screwed by the rules - they made me think that Oly is the better team (for the moment) because their jammers are better. Yes, I said better. Being on the track scoring means you're better than the jammer that is in the box, penalizing her whole team.
Course Rocky can turn that around by Champs - concentrating training on minimizing penalties made a difference fast for my teams, always.
Can't wait til Champs!!!!
Oh, I didn't say that...
Your stats didn't make me think Rocky got screwed by the rules
I absolutely don't think Rocky got screwed by the rules. They screwed themselves (and/or got screwed by Oly forcing them into those penalties by playing great defense...it's hard to assess when you have one eye closed the entire bout).
My point #2 is a more general statement that I just happen to think is made clear by this game -- I personally think that the impact of a jammer penalty is much more significant than the impact of penalties in most sports. And I think it's unfortunate. You can take a really close game and have it just blown to pieces because of one back-block call (and let's face it...what constitutes a penalty in the sport isn't exactly cut & dry). Someone (here on DNN, I think??) had what I thought was a great suggestion -- as soon as the opposing jammer picks up a ghost point for a penalized player, release the player (or at least do this for jammers). I just think it would improve the balance of the game. My $0.02...and maybe not even worth that. :-)
I absolutely believe that to be the #1 team, your jammer should play legally and keep her ass out of the box.
I couldn't agree more!
So to be clear: I love me some Rocky. But I'm NOT making excuses for them (not that they'd need some photographer to do that anyway!)
The fault, Dear Dave, lies not in the rules. . .
. . .but in those that break them. Oly showed in both this bout and the one with Rose that they know how to play Derby by the rules, or at least play more closely to the rules. If other players choose to break those rules they have to be prepared to live with the consequences. I say “choose” because they are acts of volition, Ref mistakes happen, of course, but most penalties are deserved.
In Oly's first bout with Rose back in 2009 Oly was assessed something like 30 minutes more penalties than Rose, and lost 5 (I think) players to fouling out in the last couple minutes. Over the intervening years I've seen Oly change from a penalty heavy team to one that typically gets less, often a lost less, penalties than their opponents. I agree with you that it didn't just happen, they work on it. Other teams can too. As an example take Sassy, last year's Championship MVP, member of Team USA and widely considered to be among the best (if not the best) blocker in the game today. She often spends 1 or 2 minutes in the box per game. Clearly playing by the rules hasn't impacted her game.
It seems to me that if you lessen the cost of breaking a rule, more people will be willing to pay that reduced cost.
As a side note, your stats might be off, depending on how they were collected. Maybe someone out there knows the answer. Didn't Rinkster use the line item “jams in the box”? If a jam went two minutes and one of those was in the box, probably some of those points were scored outside of the power jam. If the penalty spanned the end of one jam and the beginning of another did that count as two jams in the box? If so there would be even more points scored during those two jams that were not scored during the power jam. I guess going over the video and trying to actually count the points as they were earned would answer the question. By the way, if that's how you got those stats then ignore this whole paragraph.
I agree with your main point, penalties do impact the game. Sometimes a single penalty, like punching an opponent in the head, or back blocking an opponent in the last minutes of a championship bout, can change the result of the whole game. That's why they call them penalties.
From the textcast
I got those numbers from the text cast. They're not 100% right, but pretty close, I think. I did miss one Oly jammer penalty though (5 more points for Rocky)...and ignored a jam where (I think) both jammers were in the box but only very briefly.
And I do realize that penalties should impact the game [ nice examples, by the way ;-) ] -- I just think jammer penalties play too big of a role in too many games, that's all. Power jams are boring anyway.
Agreed
It seems to me that if you lessen the cost of breaking a rule, more people will be willing to pay that reduced cost.
I absolutely agree with this, and everything else you and others are saying about penalties. I would love to see WFTDA continue a trend of making penalties more and more costly, either by reducing the number to foul out or by increasing the severity* of individual infractions.
Derby is an extremely young sport. Most of its skaters have only been SKATING for a handful of years, let alone learning the sport. Every other sport tends to have people growing up as kids playing the sport in little league, etc. Even with experienced skaters like Oly has, it takes a little bit of time to work out the rules, so we should expect all of derby to still be committing penalties.
Of course, little league plays by mostly the same rules as the Major Leagues do, and they just force the players to suffer through all the walks and errors until their skills
improve. Furthermore, for the players whose skills are good enough, they get rewarded for playing well.
I think there are definitely skaters that are very good, but they know they can play at a certain level of risk. They take extra chances on close and dangerous calls because they know the amount they gain from the times they make it is better than the amount they lose when they don't. It's especially true for blockers willing to take out jammers.
There exist skaters who go through entire bouts, skate in every third jam, and never go to the box more than once. It's physically possible to do so, and I want to see WFTDA challenge the skaters to step up and move to the next level of the sport.
Of course, the pessimist in me doesn't think that will happen. The BSFS paired with the massively huge number of young leagues is going to make it very difficult for a change like that to occur. But I hope it will happen some day.
*I eventually came around to liking the idea of no minors, but I disagreed with so many of those things being reduced to no penalty. I wanted to see more upgraded to major penalties for exactly the reasons I mention above.
"In no other sport (with the
"In no other sport (with the possible exception of soccer!) does a single penalty have such a huge impact on the score of the game."
Actually, a single penalty doesn't. It had that impact because there were also blocker penalties at the same time. The effect of additional penalties on top of jammer penalties appears to be like the square of the number of penalties as a factor :)
Exactly
Just what I was going to say, Busta. That's the problem I see. Frequently the biggest power jams are more a function of random timing of a couple of 4th minor blocker penalties that happen to coincide with a jammer penalty.
The last thing you want in any sport is to have the largest point swings decided as much by random chance as by the skills of the opponents. All points in the game should be a direct result of the skills, fitness, effort and heart of the athletes who are competing.
Minor penalties aren't random
Minor penalties aren't random chance. Maybe the timing of the 4th minor seems random, but there is a strong likelihood they are directly related to the period that jammer entered the pack and the period directly following her trip to the box.
I still say random
...at least until the threshold is consistent between different refs. Given the lack of a pile of cash to fly refs all over the place to train them all together all the time, this alone is a great argument for a no-minors ruleset of some kind.
Lineup management
If you happen to send a pack out there with all four blockers on three minors, you're asking for trouble. Penalty management: the overlooked skill.
The flip side
The flip side is skaters going out with fewer than 3 minors but accumulating two or more minors in a jam. That might happen by bad "luck" occasionally, but if it happens more often than that, those skaters needs to skate better.
Power jams aren't boring -
I mean if you like sports, you can't think power jams are boring. All the other sports I can think of could be considered 100% powerjam because teams can't score concurrently, right?
Powerjams are make or break time when your teamwork really shows. A good penalty kill is the consolation prize that shows a team has room to grow but can still shine even when they've fucked up.
Not Boring
I mean if you like sports, you can't think power jams are boring. All the other sports I can think of could be considered 100% powerjam because teams can't score concurrently, right?
Powerjams are make or break time when your teamwork really shows. A good penalty kill is the consolation prize that shows a team has room to grow but can still shine even when they've fucked up.
You're right. Not all power jams are boring. As pointed out above, it's power jams where the team with the jammer essentially stops the pack that are boring (IMHO). If the pack is actually moving, a good power jam kill really can be fun to watch.
I still like the idea of releasing the jammer once they've been counted as a ghost point -- just think it would make the game more balanced. Sounds like I'm in the minority there. Oh well.
A little, but not a lot
I think the occasional power jam kill is exciting and fun. If the rules were changed such that every power jam turned into racing the pack, it'd be far more boring than the slow/stopped packs. (That last sentence is not a comment on the Ghost Point Release idea, but on other ideas floating around in derby, i.e. the front is always the pack).
Jammer Penalties
I tend to think that jammer penalties come from a few things and most all of them are controllable. When a jammer gets tired, she's easier for blockers to control and hit and then it is easier to put jammers in positions to take penalties. She's also less in control of her body as fatigue sets in; so, the jam rotation a team chooses to use can affect jammer penalties.
Some jammers choose to take minor penalties rather than deal with a tough blocker. There should be no reward for intentionally taking cuts.
Some jammers think they are better than they are. They get out and think they can step in faster than the blocker can stop. So they pick up cuts that way. There should be no reward for being beaten by a superior skater.
And then some jammers enter packs with so much speed that all they can do is commit a penalty or hope that they get a lot of big holes to skate through. It's an all or nothing mentality and it leads to penalties against talented blockers. There should be no reward for not being in control.
Because these things are controllable, I do not think there needs to be any rule change regarding jammer penalties. Rules shouldn't be changed because jammers don't want to worry about being in control or their team doesn't worry about fatigue leading to more penalties. Instead, the onus should be placed on the jammer to be in control of herself and to make smart decisions.
Angus Con
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