Orange County’s OC Rollergirls will be hosting a major event this weekend in sunny Corona, California — 5 WFTDA leagues competing in a total of 8 games over two days in the second annual Roll for A Cure breast cancer benefit.

The results of these games will no doubt be of particular interest to derby fans, as the #10, #11 and #12 ranked teams in the nation will all be battling it out with each other (that’s Bay Area, Portland and Minnesota, respectively) in bouts that will surely shed some light on their relative abilities. 24th-ranked Houston and hosting, as-yet-unranked OC will also get in on the action.

Saturday’s marquee bout is probably the 3:30pm opener of 11th-ranked Rose City vs. 12th-ranked Minnesota — neither team has played an all-star bout this calendar year but both bring a lot of history and talent to the floor. Rose City rolled over Charm City, 126-37, in November 2007, while Minnesota lost a nailbiter to the same Charm City, 73-69, a month later in December. However, Minnesota had split their all-star squad for a doubleheader that night, with the other half of their players going up against Arizona, while Rose City had gone with their top 14, so it’s debatable as to how much the Charm City results can illuminate the possible outcome of this match.

Two major high-level bouts will take place on Sunday, as 10th-ranked Bay Area goes up against Rose City at noon and then battles Minnesota at 3:45. Bay Area rolled easily through April’s “Big One” unofficial California State Championship against less experienced competition, but the last time they took on a team close to them in the rankings, they just barely fell short in a 62-56 loss to 9th-ranked Philly (that bout took place in November.) Bay Area will surely be looking at Sunday as a chance to prove themselves again, although Rose City and Minnesota will also surely be looking at Sunday as a chance to break into WFTDA’s top ten.

As an added bonus, AZRD’s Ivanna S. Pankin brings the current roster of Team Awesome, her all-derby all-star team, out for halftime and between-bout scrimmages against brave members of Angel City, San Diego and Orange County.

Full schedule and rosters below the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

DAVIS, CA — After the first day’s round-robin mini-bout action at The Big One tournament, it’ll be the top four seeds Bay Area, Angel City, Sacred City and Central Coast advancing to Sunday’s full-length semifinals. Sunday’s action will kick off at 8:30am with a 60 minute bout between Angel City and Sacred City, followed by Bay Area vs. Central Coast; there will then be a consolation bout for the two losing teams before the championship match.

Highlights of the opening day’s action included a thrilling last-jam comeback win by Angel City over Sac City — Angel City’s Estro Jen jammed to a full-length 9-1 win to lift her team to a 39-38 victory — and a surprise upset from 7th seeded Bakersfield over 5th seeded Sac City, with Bakersfield winning 20-17. Full round robin standings:

Group 1
Bay Area 3-0 // Angel City 2-1 // Bakersfield 1-2 // Sac City 0-3

Group 2
Sacred City 3-0 // Central Coast 2-1 // Orange County 1-2 //Port City 0-3

Mini-recaps of the whole day’s action after the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a epic confrontation brewing on the West Coast this weekend as eight California leagues descend on Davis, CA’s Davis Indoor Sports Center for a two-day tournament. Hosted by Sac City Rollers and Bay Area Derby Girls, The Big One will feature the Sac City Rollers, Bay Area Derby Girls, Sacred City Derby Girls, Angel City Derby Girls, Bakersfield Rollergirls, Central Coast Roller Derby, Orange County Roller Girls and the Port City Roller Girls.

The lineup features four WFTDA teams (9th-ranked Bay Area along with unranked Angel City, Sacred City and Orange County), and is being billed as the first annual California Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby Championship — which brings up the question of whether next year’s will be called “The Big One 2,” but that’s another story.

Saturday’s action consists of two groups of four teams, each playing a round robin of 20 minute mini-bouts. The top two teams from each group will go on to the second day. On the second day, the four finalists will play four full length games with a half hour break between games: two semi-final bouts and a 3rd place game followed by the Championship game.

The action on Saturday goes from noon to 8pm, while Sunday’s bouts take place from 8:30am (!!!) to 5pm.

Notable transfers into California leagues include Pia Mess (formerly of Rat City) skating for the Bay Area Derby Girls and Venis Envy (formerly of the banked-track Lonestar Rollergirls) skating for the Angel City Derby Girls. [Check out ViaDerby's recent interview with Venis Envy.]

Read the rest of this entry »

To make the most of their cross-country trip to Raleigh, the thirteenth-ranked B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls played back-to-back dates against some of the East Region’s most challenging leagues on the weekend of November 17th and 18th. Having come out of the previous night’s action on the losing end of a 74-45 decision to fourth-ranked Carolina Rollergirls, the Bay Area skaters took on the tenth-ranked Philly Roller Girls in a bout organized with the assistance of the ever-helpful Carolina Girls just 16 hours later. Carolina loaned the guest teams use of the Skate Ranch, one of CRG’s practice facilities, as well as refs and other staffing, thus allowing the out-of-towners to compete in a “hangover bout” to round out the weekend.

Though tempers flared and play may have become a bit sloppy at times, the general atmosphere and pace of the game would prove this to be a serious misnomer: the small audience of Philly and Bay Area fans who showed up - along with the local devotees of the sport at large - were treated to a fast-paced nail-biter of a bout that could easily have gone either way until its final seconds.

Read the rest of this entry »

Please realize, first and foremost, that I’m a week overdue on this assignment. I worked the bout in question, and was kept quite busy by the action on the track: as such my distinct recollections are few and far between. Though Carolina’s home stats team was kind enough to share some of their numbers with me between periods, I am still left with a lot of gaping and seemingly-unrecoverable memory lapses. Post-Thanksgiving food coma, hangover, and currently-in-progress beers may have negative effects upon brain power as well (further research is needed before this can be established as fact). In the meantime, gonzo journalism may be the only practical solution.

The following statements are true: 4th-ranked Carolina Rollergirls faced off against 13th-ranked B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls on the evening of November 17th at the Dorton Arena in Raleigh, NC. Dorton is, without a doubt, the most attractive derby venue that this writer has ever laid eyes on. The building seems to have been designed with the same quasi-futuristic sensibilities in mind that elsewhere produced such contemporary structures as Disney’s Epcot Center - but with a much stronger eye for normalcy. The local folk will tell you that if you visit the arena at the right time of day during the right time of year, and the blue glass windows catch the sun just right, you’ll be treated to a spectacle that is nearly as beautiful as it is blinding.

Read the rest of this entry »

Saturday night’s matchup between 4th-ranked Carolina and 13th-ranked Bay Area has a bit of history to it, as the teams met in the first two national-level flat-track roller derby tournament events. In February 2006, Carolina knocked the B.A.D. girls out in the first round of the Dust Devil single-elimination tournament, 107 to 77, and seven months later they defeated them again in a 20 minute bout at Seattle’s Bumberbout, but that time by a much closer score of 30-24. When Carolina vs. Bay Area was scheduled at the beginning of the year, Carolina was sitting in 7th place in the WFTDA rankings, while Bay Area was at 9th. A great deal has happened in the interim, though, and the leagues have gone in opposite directions since then.

Much was made of Carolina’s loss of three marquee players over the course of this year — Roxy Rockett and Teflon Donna went to Philly and Eris Discordia has been long sidelined with a collarbone injury — but Carolina, even more so than most teams, has demonstrated that their whole is greater than the sum of their parts. They added ex-AZRD skater Denise Lightning to a core group that features the smashing blocking of Militia and DVS, the nimble jamming of Zella Lugosi, the double-threat fan favorite Princess America and the infinitely reliable Shirley Temper, and continued to rise in the WFTDA rankings.

The girls from Raleigh can lay quantitative claim to being the hardest-working team in roller derby — their last four games have been against the #1, #3 and #6 teams in the nation in Kansas City, Texas (twice) and Tucson. Although they only have one win to show for that tough run (a 80-73 upset win over Tucson in the first round of September’s national tournament), they also took two of the three losses down to the wire — 64-59 against Texas at home and 116-108 against national champions Kansas City. The remaining loss, a 110-46 blowout to Texas, showed one of Carolina’s few weak spots … they tend to fade in the later stages of a multi-game tournament, but when adequately rested for a single 60 minute showdown, they’re capable of defeating any team in the sport.

Bay Area, on the other hand, hasn’t seen too much recent interleague derby action, but the one recent game they did have was remarkable: a completely dominating 126-8 win over unranked WFTDA upstarts Angel City. Bay Area has never been a team to take their foot off the gas when they’re ahead — in February, they smoked Pikes Peak 198-15 at the Dust Devil Western Regionals — but the Angel City win was made even more impressive by the fact that Bay Area was missing one of their best players in Kitt Turbo, who’d suffered a broken ankle not long before the bout. It’s hard to accurately judge Bay Area’s chances in this bout, with all of their 2007 history being blowouts of lowly ranked teams or blowouts by highly ranked teams, but the history of the two teams, along with Carolina’s recent high-level competition and B.A.D.’s loss of Kitt Turbo, would seem to suggest that Bay Area comes in as significant underdogs. Be that as it may, captain Miss Moxxxie and standouts Racey Lane and Taxi Scab will be working hard to lead their team to what would be an exceptional upset.

Additional reporting: Southbay

UPDATE: Carolina rolls to victory in a low-scoring contest, 74 to 45.

Princess America (Co-Captain) 1492 // Shirley Temper (Co-Captain) 56 // Bianca O’Blivion 83 // Billy the Kid ACE // Denise Lightning 223 // DVS 131 // Eva Lye 13 // Holly Wanna Crackya 999 // Kali 51 // Kelly Clocks’em 212 // Kitty Crowbar 110 // Militia X // Ms. Anthrope the Mordant 17 // Zella Lugosi 73

Kitt Turbo (Injured, Bench Coach/Captain) 667 // Miss Moxxxie (Co-Captain) XOXO // Taxi Scab 50cents // Racey Lane 1314 // Sassy Slayher -30.06 // Polly Puredread 676 // Killer Vee 33 // Liza Machete 1 // Lusty Malice 4 // Motley Cruz 06 // Kimfectious 47 // Diane Rott 78 // La Femme Nikilla AK47 // Demanda Riot 0:00 // Lemme Chokeya 88

After the Carolina game, Bay Area will be making the most of their trip out East by taking on the 10th-ranked Philly Rollergirls in a special bout at high noon hosted by Carolina on Sunday. Philly had a tremendous run in early 2007, opening with a defeat of Charm City and then surprising many by going on to defeat Boston, Providence and Texas’ Hustlers home team, but they’re currently coming off a disappointing loss at Heartland Havoc Eastern Regionals, where they were the victims of the Gotham juggernaut in a play-in game for the national tournament, 139-81.

Ironically, ex-Carolina skater Roxy Rockett won’t be on the Philly roster this time out, still nursing an injury that kept her out of the recent Philly championship bout, but Philly still brings a number of dangerous weapons: Teflon Donna will be playing in her old stomping grounds, the one-two jammer combination of the similarly sized and similarly speedy Mo Pain and Violet Temper has been known to quickly tire out opponents, and the ferocious hitting of Nina Knockout and Robin Drugstores is a pretty good illustration of why Philly is known as the Hostile City. Bay Area is taking on a tough task by challenging this crew a mere 18 hours after a battle against the #4 team in the nation.

UPDATE: Philly squeaks out a tight victory, 62 to 56.

Additional reporting: Southbay, The Statisfier

Kitt Turbo (Injured, Bench Coach/Captain) 667 // Miss Moxxxie (Co-Captain) XOXO // Taxi Scab 50cents // Racey Lane 1314 // Sassy Slayher -30.06 // Polly Puredread 676 // Killer Vee 33 // Liza Machete 1 // Lusty Malice 4 // Motley Cruz 06 // Kimfectious 47 // Diane Rott 78 // La Femme Nikilla AK47 // Demanda Riot 0:00 // Lemme Chokeya 88

Mo Pain 8 // Violet Temper 06 // Dara Licks 67 // Teflon Donna 85 // Nina Knockout 36xxx // Robin Drugstores 714 // Ivana Rock 11 // Mandawar 333 // Euro Thrash XIV // Annie Christ 777 // Shenita Stretcher 305 // Butterscotch Cripple 42

New WFTDA league Angel City is wasting little time in challenging themselves against high-level competition, having done battle with 19th ranked Rocky Mountain in June and now going up against the tough B.A.D. girls. Angel City took a 173-119 loss in that matchup against Rocky Mountain, but they are certainly nothing to take lightly, bringing a couple of genuine breakout stars in Diesel and Estro Jen and a crew that seems intent on making a mark in WFTDA play quickly and dramatically.

Bay Area is something of a question mark right now, having been almost completely dormant as a travel team since Dust Devil, where they crushed Pikes Peak 198-15 right before getting karmic backlash against Rat City, who dismissed them from the tournament 112-35. The Bay Area girls did get a measure of revenge in April, when Rat City’s home team Grave Danger came down to challenge the Bay Area travel team and was sent packing, 95-75, but there’s been no other interleague play for Bay Area since then. There seems to have been a fair amount of turnover in the B.A.D. Girls interleague roster since February, but impressive tournament players that remain in the lineup include Kitt Turbo, Taxi Scab and Racey Lane.

UPDATE: Bay Area puts a serious hurting on Angel City, 126-8.

Ms Dfiant 3D // GoGo 402 // Estro Jen ru486 //gina VVV // Sweet Ass Success 77 // Diesel 66 // Sugar 111 //Punk n da Trunk 1221 // Hard Cora 31 //Dia Blow 667 // Scarlene 245 // Holly Caust 000

Kitt Turbo # 667 // Miss Moxxxie (Co-Captain) # XOXO // Taxi Scab # 50cents //Racey Lane # 1314 //Sassy Slayher # -30.06 // Polly Puredread # 676 // Killer Vee # 33 //Liza Machete # 1 // Lusty Malice # 4 //Motley Cruz # 06 // Kimfectious # 47 //Diane Rott # 78 // La Femme Nikilla # AK47 //Demanda Riot # 0:00