DNN Best of 2011 Reader Poll: Place Your Votes!
Voting is now closed. Results will be posted as soon as we sober up from Christmas and compile them!
After an entertaining Sunday night of examining the results of our nomination thread for our third-annual DNN Reader Choice's Awards, we are pleased to present the finalists, right here for your voting pleasure!
Thanks to everybody who made nomination suggestions. (And a special thanks to the minority of you who actually read and followed the nomination rules laid out in the introduction. We probably shouldn't be surprised that most of you rebels were so insistent on not doing so.)
In a few cases, based on reader feedback, we've moved certain nominees from the category they were originally nominated in to a new one. Don't worry, nothing's been removed, but the voting options might not all be in the places you previously expected to find them.
If you're looking for the Photo of the Year category from 2009 and 2010, we've spun that off into its own contest on our sister site DerbyLife.
Finally -- we had a few suggested categories that we considered but ultimately chose not to include in the final poll. The goal of this poll has always been to recognize the people, leagues, games and venues that truly stood out over the course of a year in a way that any dedicated fan of the sport could objectively appreciate. For suggested categories like "Best Mascot," "Best Bench Coach" and "Best Referee," we felt it was extremely likely that voting would be too skewed by people just voting for the nominee they were most familiar with, rather than on whose skills would be equally apparent whether you were on the track, in the stands or watching online. This is also why we capped nominees at 10 per category and only have two write-in categories -- Most Underrated Player for both women's and men's play.
There was also a suggested category for "Best Textcaster." If you'll allow us a moment of general appreciation, we want to say that every DNN textcaster brings unique skills and flair to the task -- and many of them for the first time, under pressure, or for days on end for hours and hours. There are so many heroes of textcasting, but we want you to know that every single person who has volunteered to textcast for DNN is the best, for one reason or many. Every single one of you. Thanks DNN textcasters - we love you all! All of you get cookies.
But enough preamble - as mentioned at the top, we know how much you guys hate to read. Onward to voting!
You must be logged into DNN to see the voting form in this post (and obviously, to vote). Don't have an account? If you got a problem, yo, we'll solve it.
Voting will remain open until Friday, December 23.
Comments
I need to watch more Men's Derby
... I couldn't vote for any Men's Categories :(
Ditto
I am in the same boat.
let's figure that out
Can you forward us info about the browser and operating system you're using when you encountering that problem? Preferably via the Submit link.
I think they are saying they
I think they are saying they "can't" vote for the men's categories because they haven't seen enough (or any) men's games and do not have an informed opinion. Same reason I didn't vote for any men's categories.
No no...
It's not a browser problem, it's a "I didn't watch enough men's derby, so I don't know who to vote for" problem. ;)
no menz
Yeah, I saw one men's bout this year, and it was in March. I left those spots blank as well.
Watch More Men's Derby
Yes. Please, watch more men's derby. Try it. You'll like it.
"Best" Men's Roller Derby Online
Derby News Network is currently hosting most of the nominations for "bout of the year" online.
Here's a few:
New York Shock Exchange vs. St Louis GateKeepers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atXvxT-6NpQ
Puget Sound Derby Outcasts vs. St Louis GateKeepers: http://www.justin.tv/derbynewsnetwork/b/298107616
Puget Sound Derby Outcasts vs New York Shock Exchange: http://www.justin.tv/derbynewsnetwork/b/298127278
I do watch the Men's D
And I think you forgot someone who was nominated and should be up there. Hollywood Chuck Bury. I *think* he was nominated for best double threat but should be under best men's jammer, realistically. Yes? No?
reading comprehension fail
yeah, we like to mock others, but it happens to us too :)
I don't watch a lot of men's derby
but I did have to vote for Powder for best blocker just for this:
http://www.justin.tv/derbynewsnetwork/b/298519364
Credit where due
The Magic City blocker completely owning that jam is actually Zambone (#1X).
zambone, was great, not sure
zambone, was great, not sure why he wasn't nominated as best blocker, maybe a good write in for most under-rated?
You must have cooties.
It worked fine for me...
I didn't vote for any Men's
I didn't vote for any Men's categories because it's not real derby. #OHNOSHEDIDN'T
2009 called...
2009 called... they want their baseless contempt back.
This.
This.
Lol. Preach, Quad! (OMG, I
Lol. Preach, Quad! (OMG, I just said lol.)
yr the best Quad!
yr the best Quad!
You're lame and your sexism
You're lame and your sexism and hatred are too. Get your head out of your ass.
Why would you bother? Merby
Why would you bother? Merby is lame and this sport is only legit now because of women.
A lesson in equality
Honestly, your comment is completely offensive in everyway. Yes, women may have started derby again and I love them for it, but it does not mean that men do not have the same right to play/love derby as much as women do. You can turn around and say that women have been/are oppressed and now we are taking a stand... really so it's ok to have the same mindset towards men... sure if your sexist, but no if equality is a value that is important to you. I skate in a league that has a mens team and they push me everyday to be a better skater/person. Please come try skating with them and then tell me what they do is lame, because they play the same game we play with the same amount of heart.
Also I'm just going to teach you something about sports since you said that women legitimized derby as a sport. The largest stage a sport can be played on is the Olympics. If roller derby is to even be considered to be placed in the Olympics games it has to have a MALE and female counterpart. So take your blinders off and watch amazing people play roller derby, women and men alike.
Sincerely,
A female skater
Legend's Lesson
Well said, Legend. People who love derby should appreciate all it takes and all it has to offer, no matter who is on the track.
Merby
Very well-said. I love to watch merby for what I can learn from it. I also sincerely appreciate the almost nonexistence of slow-derby. A lot of these male players have got some power and I would love to skate with some guys sometime.
Also, a lot of these men are the ones who have supported derby from the beginnings as refs, volunteers, NSOs, SOs, family members... And they've made some great contributions to modern roller derby as a whole.
Sexism
Y'know, sexism works both ways, and its totally sad to see that some still can't support our brothers in derby. Lighten up!!!
LOL
Another attention-craving bigot who unfortunately has to use derogatory remarks to get people to converse with him/her...
I need to watch more mens derby....
Hopefully, there will be more MENS derby soon in the works. I am very proud of my DERBY family throughout the world. There were some things in the WOMENS categories that I myself didn't have enough knowledge to vote for, so I asked a couple derby peeps and came to a vote for that ballot. Never in my LIFE have I been accepted instantly, by such a large FAMILY of friendly, fun, and motivated individuals that compete for, and against one another. Who knows? Maybe one day we will see a COED ballot! DERBY IS LIFE. Long live DERBY.
The "Other" Categories
For suggested categories such as "Best Mascot", "Best Bench Coach" and "Best Referee," why not do what some other professional sports do.
Have a designated crop of people make the votes for those categories, i.e: the derby media (writers, announcers, textcasters, etc) or even the fine people at DNN, so the votes are not skewed based on personal relationships.
In baseball, the Baseball Writers Association make the picks for categories.
Another suggestion is to send out a request to all of the refs asking them to make their pick for best referee and base it on that. The same could be done for bench bosses (have bench managers choose make their selection for manager of the year), mascots and any other categories that may be troublesome.
Just a few suggestions that crossed my mind. :)
Best Official
I dont know, I think best Offical (Striped or NSO) should be nominated for just like the skaters are. Unlike coaches, officals travel, are not attached to a single team, and we work with a variety of different people in a bout. I think having a Best Offical category would be a great way to recognize the hard working officals out there that make derby happen. (Honestly, I'd be happy with just a Best NSO category, they all do so much and get the least amount of respect)
Down with OPP
Yes the NSO's do so much to keep track of Other People's Penalties--Communicating with the refs as well as a lot of running around and standing with that heavy white board. They deserve the recognition.
I think we all agree that
I think we all agree that Officials deserve recognition. The problem is that this is a reader poll and a lot of (most, even) DNN readers are not directly involved in derby. Sure, we have a lot of skaters and insiders who frequent the site, but there are just as many fans among us. All sports fans know their favorite teams & players, but only the most hardcore know anything at all about the refs and other officials that make their favorite sport happen. Do you know who your favorite baseball umpire is? Or who your favorite NFL line judge is? I mean, we could maybe try it, but I feel like "informed electorate" would be a problem.
Hell, I'm a pretty serious, well-traveled fan of roller derby and I could probably only name a dozen officials by sight, and I've never bothered to judge who's better than who.
I agree with recognizing them...
But the only problem is the Best refs aren't noticed when they are doing their job, its much easier to notice the bad ones!
Favorite Head Ref
My favorite head ref this year was Dr. Vroom. She's runs a fair game. Her expectations are clear. She's polite and professional. Her calls and explanations are consistent and clear. She's not trigger-happy with calls, but she doesn't miss much either. I've never once heard someone claim she was one-sided. She doesn't run a game like a cop or a politician, she runs it like an official. I always know what to expect and what's expected of our team, and I'm never unpleasantly surprised. She's been at this a relatively long time, and she's one of the best in the business.
We made the NW swing this year, and I was also really impressed by Sir Osis. I saw him at Regionals, too, and he was excellent; so honorable mention to him.
There are a lot of deserving referees out there, who focus on officiating, not on being derby personalities. I think that, often, the best officials don't get recognition because they are doing exactly their job.
Kudos to all of you zebras who do the hardest job in derby.
Best NSO
I'm a total homer on this one, but Cincinnati's Local 513 are the bomb.
Best Officials Hand Signals
Should've totally been a category.
Though, I think we all know that Cop A Phil is going to run away with it.
PHIL!
Hands down, the king of signals ;)
I don't know...
I think The Albino Wookie would give him a run for his money.
Best Grand Slam Signal
Cop A Phil definitely gets the award for most expressive grand slam hand signal. Now if we're talking Best Official Pre-Bout Stretching Routine, Rawk would win hands down.
Best Call off signal- skater
Actually team usa made little dances how each jammer called it off, it was hysterical. This would also be a fun category!
Phil
Is my favorite jam ref ever!
venue
FWIW, the venue in Denver is called "1STBANK Center" and not "1st Bank Arena".
Speed Dealer
Speed plays for Puget sound and Lane County Concussion, not Portland.
Speed doesn't play for LCC
Speed doesn't play for LCC anymore. He is only playing for PSOD now.
Decisions Decisions
OMG so many tough decisions!!
Thanks
Thanks for all the great work you people do at DNN.
Love it, Smarty Pants
Its friggin hilarious that Smarty is up for Rookie of the Year. She's been playing since something like 2002 - but according to your rules, she qualifies - AND SHE DESERVES IT. Her already good skills have improved exponentially since she started skating more competitive interleague. I've watched her rocket up all year and she just keeps getting better and better. My goal of playing longer than you has now been updated to longer AND better. That's a lot to live up to, because there is a lot to be said for someone who plays a sport for its duration and still improves 8+ years into the sport getting serious. You're an inspiration, Smarty Pants.
YAY for Bob
So glad to see Bob Loblaw get recognized as the amazing skater and person that she is!
Ditto
I can't think of a person who doesn't deserve this more. Judging by performance over the last year, love of the sport and being a team player...Bob should get this, hands down.
Out of curiosity
Why was best team defense or team strategy or something like that not considered?
Well...
With all due respect, we strongly believe "best team defense / strategy" is synonymous with "WFTDA champions" in any given year. In most other traditional sports, you can win a championship with a great offense and mediocre defense or vice versa, but it doesn't really work the same way in derby. (Although I guess I'll go ahead and undercut my own argument by saying I suppose one could make a case for Oly 2009 not having the objectively best defense / strategy of that year but still going undefeated on their incredible skating ability.)
Is that a can of worms I see before me?
...one idea that I've seen done elsewhere would be 'tactical innovation of the year'.
Off the top of my head this might be things such as three-knee starts, powerjam pacelines or scrum-braced walls -- things that may not have been developed in any given year but things that were arguably first used on the national stage to useful effect in the past season (apologies if those weren't. I haven't had my coffee yet, but wanted to get the ball rolling). Could see it generating a bit of debate too.
No reason it can't, either. Anyone have any suggestions for tactical innovation of the year?
Believing and the data to support
may very well be two different things. But we will not really know until all teams are required to either use the likes of Rinxter or a comprehensive stats nerd like N8, to pull out that kind of information. But, there does seem to be a start in that direction with rinxter being used for the East and West playoffs and WFTDA Champs this year. So, in the near future you probably can look and compare teams' overall +/- differential over a period of games or a whole season and compare it to others. I get what Taxi Scab is saying though, because you can have a team that lets a lower amount of points be scored against them, game after game throughout the regular season, because of their defense and play style. Looking at the end of the year though, yes, Gotham may have very well been the team with the "best" defense, but Bay Area or another team may have the second best.
I guess flattrackstats does actually take some of this info into account with their rankings. I suppose it is possible based on their accumulation of data, one could take all the regular season scores from the top 20 teams and pull out some info to compare team's overall defense and offense based on scores. So, yeah, if someone does the work.
Everyone does know though, that you can access all that info online at www.rinxter.com?
Everyone can be like N8
You don't have to wait for the future (or N8) to compare teams over the season.
Flat Track Stats does this today.
http://www.flattrackstats.com/teams/summary
You can sort on offensive points (AVG Pts Scored), defensive points (AVG Pts Allowed), +/-, wins, losses... . . to see how teams compare over this season, or over all time.
~rzr
Timing
Could I respectfully make a request to the benevolent DNN Overlords that this whole process be pushed forward a month into January of 2013 the next time around?
Mid-December is a horribly busy month for a lot of people. Some are dealing with finals. Others are traveling or dealing with family who have traveled. Shopping, etc. It seems that an exercise like this would be a lot more beneficial if more fans/readers were able to put the holidays behind them and invest the time it takes to make up to fourteen different nominations.
I may be alone in this, but the whole nominating process deserved more attention than I could afford to give it this year. There are a lot of skaters in my league who I had hoped to put on the board, if only to publicly make an argument for their inclusion. Life just didn't allow me the luxury of time this month.
Thanks for your consideration.
the quiet storm award?
an award for the backbone of the pack. the folks out there doing work. the just carols and reckless endangerments of charm city, echo from rocky.
quad loves the quiet storm award
Athena of Steel City
Hoosier Mama of Windy City
D-Bomb of Oly
Nuk'em of Cincinnati
Ima Hurtchu of Naptown
Smarty McFly of Arch Rival
Holly Go Hardly of Charm City
Abe Drinkin' of Shock Exchange
Magnum PIMP of St. Louis Gatekeepers
Ron Scaremy of Race City
Abe Froman of Harm City
Fro Serious of Connecticut Death Quads
Spankenstein of Pioneer Valley
Shortbus of Twin Cities Terrors
Nice Quad and I agree with
Nice Quad and I agree with you on all of them. If it was not called the "QUIET STORM" I would add:
Quad Almighty of Harm City
Dirty Larry of Twin Cities as well!!
You guys both wreck me just not very quiet! ;)
quiet
Yeah, "quiet" is not one of my strong suits...
You're still pretty though
You're still pretty though
Quiet is over-rated...
Quiet is over-rated. Better to be fast, bad and pretty...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxLokrATgIw&feature=related
Favorite Gimpy DNN Bout/TextCaster Award
So far the nominees are me and Justice....
Quiet Storm...
Slap Jack, Sacred
Trauma, KCRG
Toucan Slam, Slaughter
Lil Mama, Montreal
Jessica Revis, Denver
D-Bomb, Oly
Elle McFearsome, Detroit
OMG WTF, Gotham
Rosie the Rioter, Charm
Ally McKill, Steel City
Frida Beater, RMRG
quiet storm ... indeed
the entire philly defense.
Results?!
When will the results be posted? I'm on the edge of my seat!