At last, the 2008 Detroit Derby Girls home season is at an end, and what better way to end the season than with a double-header featuring two games with all four of the DDG teams in action!

In the consolation game it will be the winless (0-3) D-Funk Allstars taking on the 1-2 Pistolwhippers. That game is followed by the DDG Championship game between the 2-1 Devil’s Night Dames vs. the 3-0 Detroit Pistoffs.

The games are at the usual location in the Drill Hall at the Masonic Temple in downtown Detroit, MI. Doors open at 6pm, first game starts at 7pm.

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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:

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On Saturday, the 16th ranked Boston Massacre will host 26th ranked Cincinnati Rollergirls at the Shriner’s Auditorium in Wilmington, MA. Cincinnati will be looking for their 4th win this season, but Boston will be looking to extend their 2-0 winning streak.

Cincinnati has started off the season strong, with wins over Fort Wayne, Naptown, and Ohio and a recent win over Derby City in an exhibition game. Notably, the Naptown game set a new record for the lowest total score ever in a WFTDA-regulation bout — Cincinnati won 59-32. Cincinnati’s roster features several versatile players including Hannah Barbaric and Roseanne Scarr who are noted for being excellent blockers as well as fast jammers. CRG will undoubtedly impress the Boston crowd with their speed, agility, and maneuverability.

This will be the Boston Massacre’s third all-star game of the season, with previous wins a 119-69 over then-unranked ranked Dominion (now on the board at in the #20 spot) and a 116-49 exhibition bout win over the Bronx Gridlock, the Gotham Girls’ reigning local champions. With several pack weapons, the Boston Massacre is firing in good rhythm and their blocking teamwork and pack communication are on par to make this a strong match-up.

The Cincinnati Rollergirls will be fielding a full roster of 14 as will the Boston Massacre. Missing from the Massacre line-up will be Anna Wrecks’ya and Miss Mary Smack, who will be replaced by Harlot Fevah and Sugar Hits. This is sure to be an exciting game with both strong offensive and defensive play. Boston’s “JV” squad, the Boston B-Party, opens the action with a face off against the currently unranked all-star team from the Connecticut Rollergirls (correction: not the all-star team, a combination of all-stars and local CT players.)

For Cincinnati fans not able to travel to Beantown, the bout will be shown via a live feed on the big screen TV at the Underground at the Know Theater at 1120 Jackson St. in Over-the-Rhine.

The Cincinnati Rollergirls will next skate at the Cincinnati Gardens on Saturday, May 17 at 7:00 p.m. against the 9th ranked Philly Roller Girls. The bout is a double-header, with the Black Sheep dueling Philly’s Liberty Belles and the Cincinnati Rollergirls “B” team, the Silent Lambs, skating against the Black-n-Bluegrass Girls from Northern Kentucky.

The Boston Derby Dames’ next bout wraps up their local season as the defending champion Wicked Pissahs take on the Cosmonaughties for the Season Two title on June 14. This rematch of Season One’s championship is sure to be a screamer, with the Cosmos gunning for a different outcome this time around.

Both leagues will be attending the East Coast Derby Extravaganza on June 21 and 22 in Philly. Cincinnati will be taking on Grand Raggidy (23) and Texas (4). The Boston Massacre will be playing Houston (24) and Rocky Mountain (14), who just handily defeated Boston’s closely matched sister league, the 15th-ranked Providence Roller Girls, in a 137-9 blowout in Denver.

Additional reporting: Harley Quinn

331 Betty Spite // 1984 Claire D. Way // 617 Cookie Push // 9669 Harley Quinn // 99 Harlot Fevah // 843 Krush Puppy // 011 Lois Carmen Denominator // 34B Maura Buse // 28 Pussy Venom // 24 Quick Sandy // 4.0 Sarah Doom // -0 Shelby Shattered // 1001 Sugar Hits // 3D Triple Deck-Her

76 Sadistic Sadie // 85 Hannah Barbaric // 18 Roseanne Scarr // 75 MPH Blu Bayou // 45 caliber Arche Enemy // 60 Shirley Temptya // 66.50 Sister Saralicious // 21 June w/ a Cleaver // 74.00 Juwanna Hurt // 4 Killian Destroy // 41 Panterrorize // 29 Ruff’n the Passer // 11 Sk8er Kinney // Mae C. Stars

DENVER, CO — May 3rd brought Providence Roller Derby’s 15th-ranked Rhode Island Riveters to Denver to bout the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls’ 5280 Fight Club, ranked 14th in the nation. Both teams recently walked away from close defeats – Fight Club lost to 13th-ranked Charm City in March while the Riveters suffered a narrow upset to the unranked Maine Roller Derby less than a month ago. Regardless of past bouts, it was generally assumed that this would be an extremely close match due to these two teams’ spots next to one another within the rankings.

Things started off with RMRG’s She Who Cannot Be Named up against PRD’s Hysterica! on the jammer line. She Who grabbed lead as well as four points, calling it off before Hysterica! could make it to the pack. Next up, RMRG’s Frida Beater faced off against PRD’s Cleo Patronize, adding nine points for a total of 13 while PRD was still stuck at zero. RMRG continued to rack up the points and keep PRD at zero until the tenth jam of the game, when Hysterica! managed to score four points as well as gain lead jammer, though by this point RMRG was already at 39 points. Hysterica!’s points were the only ones to be put up on the scoreboard throughout the first period for PRD, with halftime putting RMRG at 67, PRD 4.

While the Riveters had no shortage of hard hitters such as Bunnicula and Burnin’ Helen, they seemed to be suffering in the jammer department – Hysterica! would be the only point scorer of the game as well as the only jammer to successfully gain lead with the exception of one jam by Cleo Patronize. Fight Club’s defense was outstanding, however, with pivot Winona Fighter controlling the front throughout the majority of the game while blockers Madam Maimya, Ida Hustler, Pinky 500 and Assaultin’ Pepa built unbreakable walls and consistently kept the PRD jammers from ever leaving the pack. The final score found RMRG at 137, PRD 9.

The top scorers for RMRG were Frida Beater with 60 points and She Who with 58. Frida grabbed lead jammer 70% of the time while She Who earned it 69%. Luscious Smacksome and Smashbox earned nine points each, while Ida Hustler scored one.

PRD’s only point scorer for the night was Hysterica! who earned 9 points and gained lead jammer 33% of her time on the track.

Rocky Mountain doesn’t waste much time before their next challenge, heading down to Phoenix to take on Arizona Roller Derby this Saturday, May 10th. Providence’s next action will be their local season opener, as the Old Money Honeys take on the Mob Squad on May 30 — but they’re next in all-star action at Philly’s East Coast Extravaganza on June 21 and 22, taking on 22nd-ranked Atlanta on Saturday and 13th-ranked Charm City on Sunday.

By the final whistle on Saturday night, the Philly Roller Girls 2008 intraleague seeding will have been determined. Although any skater on either the Philthy Britches or the Heavy Metal Hookers would tell that her team should be first-ranked, we’ll find out for sure when the two teams meet head-to-head in the second of the evening’s two bouts. First up, however, the Broad Street Butchers face off against the Carolina Rollergirls’ Trauma Queens, who hope to fare better at the hands of a Philly home team than their sisters the Debutante Brawlers did in their 65-77 loss to the Hookers in March.

The Trauma Queens have only one bout to their name this year - a win vs. the Tai Chi-tas - while the Butchers are winless against the other Philly teams this year and have yet to play visitors from another league. The Butchers will be hoping to sharpen their skills in preparation for the East Coast Derby Extravaganza in June, at which they will challenge the Dutchland Rollers of Lancaster, PA; however, they will surely miss the services of all-star jammer Persephone (broken hand in her team’s 46-92 loss to the Hookers in April) as well as blockers Skirt McGirt and Jane Fondle.

The second bout of the evening will see the new and improved Heavy Metal Hookers taking on the 2006 and 2007 league champs, the Philthy Britches. The Hookers are claiming that 2008 is the “Year of the Hooker,” but the Philthy Britches have never lost a bout in three years of intraleague action and are coming in hot with big wins recently versus Harrisburg (142-92) and the Connecticut Rollergirls (123-36). This also happens to be a preview of this year’s Warrior Cup championship bout, as both teams have secured a spot in the finals. Even though the outcome of this meeting will not affect who plays in the June championship, the teams will surely be using this occasion to prepare their game plans for that meeting - and bragging rights are on the line.

The Hookers may be playing with out 2007 league MVP Teflon Donna, as her spot on the roster will be a game-time decision; the Britches will skate without two of their powerhouse blockers, Rosie Bloodbath and Dara Licks.

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On Saturday night, Charm City start their third season with a double header in downtown Baltimore, as the defending champion Night Terrors go up against the Junkyard Dolls and the Speed Regime takes on the Mobtown Mods. After two all-star bouts in the Baltimore Armory, Charm City moves to DuBurns Arena (home of major league indoor soccer’s champion Baltimore Blast) for their local season.

This five-bout season will be a bit shorter than the first two Charm City local seasons — with each team only facing each other once before a playoff doubleheader, every bout will be crucial to determining the #1 seed for the playoffs.

While the Night Terrors and Speed Regime dominated the first two seasons, a number of trades, retirements and transfers has scrambled the landscape and given the Junkyard Dolls and Mobtown Mods a serious shot at this year’s Donaghy Cup.

Night Terrors

The Night Terrors find themselves in something of a unfamiliar position as the 2008 season starts. Every longtime Charm City fan knows their storybook tale of their thrilling two-point last-jam comeback win in the 2006 CCRG championship over the previously undefeated Speed Regime and their season-long struggle for supremacy with the Regime in 2007, but with two convincing wins over Speed Regime to finish that season, they find themselves no longer scrappy underdogs but established front-runners, with every team in the league gunning for them.

However, the Terrors still have very much have something to prove this year — that they can take a championship without the help of the phenomenal two-time MVP Joy Collision, who has moved to the Mobtown Mods after two seasons with the Terrors. They’ve also lost all-star Dr. Skabs and veterans Mexican Fury and Nasty Trick since last year (all to CCRG retirement.)

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On Sunday night, May 4th, the New Jersey Dirty Dames share the spotlight with the New York Shock Exchange in the first of a series of 2008 co-ed doubleheaders hosted by the NJDD at their Kendall Park home rink.

The Dirty Dames’ All-Stars (the “Hub City Hellrazors”) and the NYSE host a replay of last April’s historic co-ed tilt against the female and male Pioneer Valley skaters from Northampton, MA. A year ago, the Hellrazors fell to PVRD’s women (”Western Mass Destruction”) 86 to 58, and the New York Shock Exchange made its bouting debut in a defeat of the PVRD’s men (”The Dirty Dozen”), 109 to 51. With a year’s added experience across the board for all four squads, this year’s results will be anyone’s guess.

The co-ed event will be formatted with four 20-minute periods, alternating as womens / mens / womens / mens, followed by a four-squad after-party.

The most recent public exhibition by the undefeated New York Shock Exchange was a 10-minute quickie on March 29 against Midwest Men’s Roller Derby, a halftime exhibition hosted by the Windy City Rollers.

The NYSE prevailed, 8-3, but lost one of their steadiest jammers, Teen Wolf, due to a bad injury in which his leg was broken in three places. For information about Teen Wolf’s injury and how you can help, click here.

Pioneer Valley’s squads both arrive fresh off April victories, and this will mark the third consecutive weekend of combat for the Western Mass Destruction. On April 26, the PVRD women traveled to New Jersey to handle Morristown, 123 to 44. On April 19, the PVRD women defeated the Diamond City Scream Queens of Wilkes-Barre, PA, 61-53, while their male counterparts cut down the Diamond City Death Kings, 87-50.

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This Friday night, Albuquerque’s 18th-ranked Duke City travels north to take on 25th-ranked Denver at Denver’s Fillmore Auditorium in a game likely to have significant ranking implications for both teams. Denver’s clearly hoping to break into the top twenty next quarter, especially with two very high-level bouts scheduled for June against #5 Gotham and #3 Carolina. Meanwhile, Duke City hasn’t played an all-star team ranked near them since their July 2007 win over Sin City 104-84 (Sin City was ranked #17 at the time of that contest) and is looking to prove their mettle as tournament season draws closer.

Both leagues have fairly recently faced some of the highest-level competition that derby has to offer, with Denver going down 150-80 to #1 Kansas City in February and Duke City falling 158-36 to #4 Texas in December. Both bouts were away games for the losing teams. While the February KC game stands as Denver’s most recent interleague experience, Duke City handled the new West Texas league just two weeks ago, 149-31.

Conveniently enough for those trying to gauge these leagues’ respective powers, though, both Duke City and Denver went up to Minnesota last November to take on Minnesota home teams, and both came away with wins — Duke City squeaked past Minnesota’s Rockits 81-76, while Denver posted a slightly more convincing victory over the Atomic Bombshells, 117-71. It should be noted, though, that the Rockits came away with the 2008 Minnesota home title, while the Atomic Bombshells finished in last place.

Duke City brings a crew fairly similar to the one that rolled over West Texas on April 13th, keyed by jamming specialists Muffin and Kamikaze Kim and the crushing blocking of Death Ro, Dahmernatrix and Bullet Tooth Tracy. There’ll be a handful of Duke City girls making their WFTDA-bout debut here, as blockers Elvira Mental, Killer Queen and Tiger Lili will be strapping on skates for the first time in a bout for rankings. Meanwhile, Denver is again down one of their best skaters in Rockett (she also missed the KC game with a torn MCL), but most of the crew that recently faced Kansas City is still intact, with only Reapercussion and Lt. Redrum new to the Denver all-star roster since that bout.

Dahmernatrix 010001 // R2BeatU 5 // Bullet Tooth Tracy 3 // Death Ro 86 // Punchkin Pie 1 Slice // Kamikaze Kim 00 // Amanda Jamitinya 9inches // Muffin 350 // Elvira Mental H20 // Sabrosa 505 // Killer Queen // Tiger Lili 69 // Vixenator 011011 // Miss L. Command 211

Angela Death XIX // Atomic Fire 02 // Berlin Brawl 10 // Boo Boo Radley 5 // Bria Fraid 357 // Candy Vour 1,2,3 // Dharma Gedden 3 // Disco-A-Gogo 99 // Fiona Grapple 31 // Jersey Trouble (908) // Reapercussion 19 // Lt. Redrum 68 // Sheila Tack 1.21 // Slick Vick V

By Matt DeCapitator, additional reporting by The Statisfier

ENOLA, PA — Sunday, April 20th saw the Nuclear Knockouts kick off Harrisburg Area Roller Derby’s 2008 season with a long-awaited bout against the Philthy Britches, one of the Philly Rollergirls’ intraleague teams. Five of the Britches’ thirteen skaters were returning to the track for the second night in a row after skating to a 47-145 loss against the Gotham Girls in New York City with the Liberty Belles travel team on Saturday. These five, as well as their teammates, were out for victory, blood, and redemption. But the weekend’s prior action wasn’t the only history brought to the rink on the 20th: in December of 2006, the Knockouts took quite a shellacking in the form of a 193-73 outing against another of Philly’s home teams, the now-defunct Hostile City Honeys. Eager to prove themselves a more formidable competitor than the team that the Philly skaters remembered, the Knockouts had more than just revenge in mind. In the end, however, the Philthy Britches emerged victorious, beating the Knockouts 142 to 92.

The evening’s action commenced with the Britches’ Gloria Grindem shutting out the Knockout’s Nash Villain 5-0. The Britches continued the lead in the second jam with Racey Intent scoring 3-2 over Harrisburg’s Rainbow’s Revenge. H.A.R.D.’s NastyNiss emerged as lead jammer in the third jam and skated to a 3-3 tie with Philly’s Mo Pain, followed by another tie of 2-2 between Harrisburg’s Mother Trucker and Philly’s Violet Temper. In the sixth frame, Rainbow’s Revenge was able to put some substantial points on the board for the Knockouts, scoring 10-6 over Racey Intent in spite of a leg injury sustained midway through the spin at the hands of Philly’s tough defense. Injury played a part in the next jam as well when Harrisburg’s Cruel Britannia was knocked into the infield with a nasty leg injury, only to find herself directly in the path of a referee. The jam was called off, but not before the ref had tripped over that same hurt leg. Fortunately, the injury was not serious enough to keep Britannia off the track for more than a few jams.

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In the wide world of sports, fewer rivalries run as deep as the one between Philadelphia and New York. Women’s roller derby is no exception to this rule. Philly and New York will meet once again on the track as The Liberty Belles hope that third time is a charm in their quest to topple their sisters from the Big Apple, the Gotham Girls.

The Philly Roller Girls think of the Gotham Girls as their big sisters. Gotham generously helped Philly get started by training PRG’s skaters how to play roller derby when the sport’s revival was still new to the East coast; Gotham was also instrumental in Philly’s induction into the WFTDA in 2005. This close relationship is one of the reasons Philly chose New York to be their first interleague bouting opponent in October, 2006. The change of pace from intraleague to interleague WFTDA action was a rude awakening for the Belles, as the final score was 103 to 69 in Gotham’s favor can attest.

However, in the months following that experience, wins against Charm City, Boston, Providence, New Orleans and the TXRG Hustlers propelled Philadelphia to the 4th slot in the Eastern rankings - one spot above Gotham - just in time for the Heartland Havoc tournament in August of 2007. This seeding meant that after a first-round bye for Philly and an easy 206-47 Gotham win over Grand Raggidy, the teams would met for the second time on the day two of the tournament. Improved as they might have been, the 139-81 decision in Gotham’s favor showed that the Belles were still no match for their sisters to the North.

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