(2) Denver Defeats (9) Rocky Mountain, 169-145
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Photo: Dave Wood. -
Photo: Dave Wood. -
Photo: Dave Wood.
BROOMFIELD, CO -- The first ever regular season meeting between Denver, Colorado's two powerhouse leagues was a hard-hitting, penalty-laden game largely dominated by the girls in glitter and blue. Denver led Rocky Mountain for the entire bout and was up by as much as 87 points before a Rocky Mountain rally fell short, with Denver winning by 24 points at 169-145.
A game-opening powerjam by Heather Juska gave Denver a 15-0 lead when opposing jammer Urrk'n Jerk'n was sent to the box for a track cut. Allowing Rocky Mountain just four lead jammers in the first 15 jams, Denver opened up an early 66-29 lead. However, a 9-0 by Urrk'n Jerk'n and a 13-0 powerjam by Casstrator quickly pulled 5280 Fight Club back into contention at 66-51.
Unfortunately for the ladies in red and black, the rest of the half was dominated by Denver, who stretched the lead to 88-55 thanks to a series of Urrk'n Jerk'n jammer penalties. At the half, Denver enjoyed a 14-6 advantage in lead-jammer calls and an 8-3 advantage in powerjams while Rocky Mountain actually outscored Denver 37-28 in jams in which both jammers stayed on the track throughout.
Jammer Stats
(jammer, lead jam calls/total jams, points scored)
Denver
Sharpless 8/12, 61
Juska 6/11, 49
Rangeon 7/11, 35
Adams 4/8, 24
Rocky Mountain
Urrk'n Jerk'n 5/16, 70
Sweet Mary Pain 2/9, 36
Casstrator 2/3, 22
Roboflow 2/6, 8
Frida Beater 1/2, 5
Toxic Taunic 0/5, 4
Über Alice 0/1, 0
The second half began much like the first half had ended with Denver extending their lead to 117-63 as their jammers were often the only ones on the track. Throughout the game, Denver's strategy of calling off powerjams before the Rocky Mountain jammer's minute in the box had elapsed led to frequent two-for-one scenarios in which Denver would start the subsequent jam unopposed at the jammer line. Denver stuck with a solid four-jammer rotation (Juska, Sharpless, Rangeon, and Adams) against Rocky Mountain's less structured approach -- RMRG sent 7 different jammers to the line through the game -- and Denver continued to stretch their lead throughout the second half, eventually pulling ahead by 87 points, 166-79.
Rocky Mountain took advantage of a series of powerjams of their own in the closing minutes, including a two-minute box trip for Sandrine Rangeon (who was ejected for intentionally contacting a ref) and outscored Denver 66-3 the rest of the way. Needing a powerjam gift a la Windy City (vs. Rose City) or St. Louis (vs. NYSE) to overcome a 169-145 deficit in the final jam, Rocky Mountain's Urrk'n Jerk'n faced off against sparingly-used Julie Adams. But Adams would not oblige and it was Urrk'n Jerk'n who was sent to the box, putting an end to Rocky Mountain's comeback. The jam ended at 0-0 as Denver skated away to what looks likely to be a #2 seeding for the Western Regional tournament.
Denver outscored Rocky Mountain just 56-50 in natural jams as each team scored roughly two-thirds of their points on jams that included a box trip for at least one jammer.
Both teams' next game is against Kansas City, who comes to town on the first weekend of June; Rocky Mountain plays KC on June 2 while Denver gets them on June 3.
Comments
Dave Wood
Thanks for the great writeup - everyone should check out Dave's awesome full set from the game here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150835907618757.412863.22290... It's a beautiful and personal representation of the game.
Video?
As cool as this reads, I certainly hope someone was there documenting this on video!!
pack is here
http://www.justin.tv/derbynewsnetwork/b/318776119
earache my eye
That was some darn good derby. But Rangeon's ejection was an unusually bad ref call. In the end, it didn't make a difference in the outcome of the bout, but the point differential should have been more than it was.
And how many times this year did the writer of a DNN recap also provide the photos for the DNN recap? Dave Wood Photography can do it all!
ejection
I didn't see what happened on the ejection (damn having one eye closed all the time!). I spoke with two refs who were not skating the bout but were watching it from right where it happened and they seemed to feel that it was the right call.
unintentional contact
I was sitting right at turn 2 when Rangeon and Prower collided. She was moving very fast to get to the box, he was looking at the pack, not the penalty/ref lane (as you'd expect). She tried to avoid him and he unknowingly stepped right into her path. Even with that she avoided him enough that neither party was knocked down. He was seriously startled and called the gross misconduct penalty immediately. I still have no idea why they decided an ejection was warranted.
Didn't see it
I didn't watch the bout and haven't found video yet, but the last thing the ref should be doing is watching the ref lane beyond what can be seen peripherally while focusing on the pack. If ref's are watching the ref lane instead of the pack, the quality of reffing at the bout will deteriorate drastically.
best perspective?
Of course refs, being generally lovable humanoids, make mistakes. But it seems like there oughta be a better review process around an ejection. Judging from the groans from the audience (a mix of both RMRG and DRD skaters and fans) in the immediate vicinity when the call was made, the contact didn't warrant the most severe penalty. A ref who was looking away from the incident shouldn't be considered to have adequate perspective to make that call, in my opinion.
To lacey underalls, the refs were calling a lot of minor penalties because there WERE a lot of minor penalties. Don't blame that on the refs, blame it on the ruleset. At least it seemed that the missed calls and the bad calls were evenly distributed between the two teams.
ejection
Great recap Dave and awesome pics, as usual!
Here's what happenend for the ejection: I got sent to the box on my fourth minor a few minutes from the end of the game. As I was skating to the box, the outside pack ref and I almost ran into each other because he didn't see me coming. So I avoided him at the last second and slightly touched him on the hip. I clearly didn't intend to touch him or push him and was just doing my best to avoid the crash. I ended up serving between one and two minutes in the box and then got ejected after that super long official TO. I'm still wondering how it was worth an ejection, but at least it didn't change the outcome of the game!
refs
i know it's been said before, but it's wrong that the refs can decide who wins a bout.
the current ruleset needs to be revised NOW. not next year, or the year after, but right effing NOW.
clearly, the jam refs need to be from a neutral team.
watch the video, the ref crew at this bout were some of the worst i've ever seen. at one point there were so many single whistles at once, that it sounded like a four whistle end of the jam. they are so busy calling silly minors that they miss majors.
hey, zebras: LET THEM SKATE.
New rules
Isn't the new rule set coming out in June/July?
A little perspective, please
I know it's been said before, but let's not forget that the refs in the sport are volunteers.
They're not paid. They get no skater glory. They sacrifice countless hours of their time... for what? So that the skaters can have the best sport possible.
I cringe when anyone insinuates that a ref may be biased. From all my conversations with refs over the years, I get the impression that they are rarely aware of the exact score. They're usually watching multiple things at once while simultaneously trying to communicate with other refs and NSOs. It seems to me that the job of reffing a bout is so difficult as it is that they would have a hard time doing anything but focusing on doing their job to the best of their ability.
Refs as Volunteers
Amen! I have a lot of respect for the refs from both leagues that officiated on Saturday. While it is impossible to see everything that happens on the track all the time, I know these men and women dedicate themselves to being unbiased and accurate in their calls.
neutral refs
clearly, the jam refs need to be from a neutral team.
Ultimately, I agree with this statement. Refs shouldn't be from ANY team. People talk about wanting to see roller derby in the Olympics -- well I can't imagine the sport being taken seriously by the Olympic committee if the games are officiated by people directly associated with the teams involved in the games.
That said, I think we're a LONG way away from making that a reality. As others have pointed out, nobody's getting paid here. The notion of flying in neutral refs for every WFTDA sanctioned bout sounds great in a world full of money. But we don't live in that world.
Personally, I hope the new rule-set (whenever it comes out) brings fewer whistles and makes it easier for refs to consistently make the right calls. Until that happens, I may scream and yell at them from time to time, but I'm generally of the opinion that they're doing the best that they can at a very thankless job.
whistles
Personally, I hope the new rule-set (whenever it comes out) brings fewer whistles and makes it easier for refs to consistently make the right calls.
Just want to hop in here, and possibly I'm misreading what you're saying, but the blanket "fewer whistle calls" should not be a goal of the rules, IMO.
The rules should be set up in a way that rewards the best skating and punishes the worst skating. From this I define "worst" skating as first unsafe, second unfair (fairness is defined as a good balance between ease of scoring and ease of defense) and third unenjoyable to watch AND play (in that order of importance). I do accept, however, some nod towards making the rules in such a way that a trained human is capable of making the correct calls as often as possible.
If that means that there are lots of whistles blown, then the skaters just aren't good enough yet, and they need to get better.
no minors
My comment about fewer whistles was my long-winded way of saying that I hope "no minors" is part of the new rule-set.
Gotcha
I would like a no minors ruleset, but unless it's drastically different than the one I saw at ECDX, then I would rather have no change. That no minors ruleset was abysmal and makes the game less safe and less fair.
Oh, I thought it meant, "I'd
Oh, I thought it meant, "I'd like to see the skaters learn how to commit fewer minors, since it's actually their fault for not following the written rules".
Silly me. The skaters are never responsible for anything, it's always the rules' and the refs' fault :)
I don't play roller derby
...so it's impossible for me to really know how hard it is to skate without committing minor penalties. But my sense is that they are called "minor" for a reason -- in most cases, they don't have much of an impact on the game. All I know is that it's rare that I see a jam between any two teams go more than a few seconds at any given time without a whistle (unless it's a power jam and everyone's just standing still waiting for the jammer to come around the track, but let's not go there :-) ).
So yeah, maybe every single derby player in the world sucks...but I'm inclined to think that's not the case. Instead, perhaps there's room for adjusting the rules -- if something doesn't REALLY matter (i.e. has no significant impact on the game), it shouldn't be a foul. Just my $0.02, obviously.
Minor Penalties
Are actions which, if they happen only once or a couple of times (I'm thinking of low-impact elbows, forearms, low blocks, et c) don't really effect the game much (a skilled skater can work around them) but if they are a *pattern* of behavior throughout the course of the game they can change the balance of the game entirely to favor less-skilled skaters. The minors, as they are currently called, are absolutely actions which impact the fairness and safety of the game.
Let's say that an opponent gets in the habit of tripping you in stride, and you're a good enough skater that you don't go down or out of bounds when it happens, but it still impedes your progress. In a no-minors scenario, the low blocking would only matter if it took an opponent out or out of bounds - even if it happened 500 times in a jam - effectively, this makes blocking with the forearms, feet, etc legal, as long as no one falls.
You're right that you don't play and you don't understand how really awful it would be to play that way.
middle ground?
Fair enough. I meant it when I said I didn't REALLY know what I was talking about. :)
...but I wonder if there's a middle ground. Are there SOME minors that could be reasonably eliminated or turned into majors? Or some way of redefining what impacts the game and what doesn't such that you only need the majors (i.e. come up with something in between what is now a minor and what is now a major and call it a major)? Maybe not.
I'm now an old fogey
But I kind of miss the wording of the 2.1 ruleset.
6.2.4 Impact
6.2.4.1 A foul has an impact on safety or game play when a measurable physical force or effect can be observed.
6.2.4.2 If the illegal action affects a skater but does not cause harm or adversely affect the game, it is treated as a minor penalty.
6.2.4.3 If the illegal action causes harm or has a measurable consequence for the game, it is treated as a major penalty.
WFTDA 3.0 and later rulesets removed nearly all referee discretion about what caused harm or adversely affected / had a measurable consequence for the game. While I completely understand why the rules evolved to focus on less subjective standards, I continue to believe that we lost something when we stopped allowing refs to make those choices.
penalties
First, a nitpick that there is no whistle for a minor.
But second, there are skaters who are top players for top teams and are able to skate in many many jams without accruing many penalties at all. It's possible.
There's an argument to be made that the skaters don't have much incentive to attempt to skate cleaner than they do. It takes 7 box trips to foul out. If we say 42 jams in a bout (probably a little low these days, but it makes the numbers easy), five skaters per jam and 14 skaters on a roster makes an average of 15 jams per skater.
That means a skater can go to the box in almost every other jam and play in the entire game.
Granted, fouling out of a game is definitely not the only cost of a penalty. That box trip is costing your team points as well (various attempts at analysis are putting this at about 2 points per box trip on average for blockers... obviously more for jammers). But it's a hard argument that the risk of maybe accruing a minor isn't worth the benefit of committing the penalty that shortens the time your jammer needs to spend in the pack (or whatever you're attempting to do).
I see and raise your nitpick, sir.
Of course, when that skater gets four of those minor penalties, they get what? That's right, a whistle and a trip to the box.
Touché
Touché
Sounds like an ejection was
Sounds like an ejection was not warranted. Great recap though. I bet the crowd was outstanding.
minor stat correction
I just went back and looked at the video of one spot where I had a "?" on my stat sheet. Urrk'n should have 68 points (not 70) and Casstrator should have 24 (not 22). Oops.
(Yes, I realize probably nobody cares...) :-P
I care ...
but I'm a stat nerd.
stats and photos
Well, I just want to restate how impressed I am that you were able to take enough stats notes to write an almost-perfect recap AND take some of the best photos of the whole bout AT THE SAME TIME. That's like winning a unicycle race while cooking a delicious mushroom and cheese omelet.
aww shucks
Thanks, Todd! All for the love of The Derby. :)
The wonders of cameras
Being a camera person what Dave did is wonderful, but there are some tricks that can be done with a camera that really help. One is that before every jam take a picture of the jammers and one of the scoreboard. Throw in pictures of the penalty box and you have a nice summary of the game. To add some depth take pictures of the penalty board too, which is something I don't know why isn't done more often.
photos for stats
I've thought of doing just that...but the way I shoot (most of my light comes from off-camera lights pointed at the track -- not the scoreboard), it would be a hassle. It's easier to just write it down.
The penalty board is tricky because it's generally pointed at the benches which means that you can't actually see it from most places you're likely to be sitting. Sure, with some effort you could shoot it, but you're likely not going to be seated where you can shoot it regularly. That said, I did grab a halftime shot during this bout to remind myself why my voice was already starting to fade after only 30 minutes. :)
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150835910323757&set=a.101508359...