East Coast Extravaganza

This weekend I was in Philadelphia checking out East Coast Extravaganza (ECE).  This three-day tournament is sponsored by the Philly Roller Girls.  According to the website, there were 900+ skaters in 47 bouts.  The main attractions were the WFTDA sanctioned bouts, which were played by teams who are part of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association.  The Gotham Girls played on Boston; Maine (we played their B-team last month!) took on the Dominion Derby Girls from Virginia Beach; Providence, RI, played girls from Minnesota (arguably the best game of the weekend!), and sooo many more games.  Roller derby is a national sport, and this tournament is one way teams from across the country can get together and play each other to figure out their nation rankings.

There were also plenty of "challenge bouts" (basically pick-up games) that anyone could skate in if they registered as a skater.  Silly me didn't get my act together until the last minute, so I missed out on this!  Definitely next year!  What's fun about challenge bouts is that you can sign up to play on a team with some sort of theme, and you're pretty much matched with girls you've never skated with before, as you all sign up to skate for a team remotely.  There was a men's derby challenge bout which was great because there were lots of people at ECE who had never seen men's derby.  We are spoiled here in the north east!

So anyway, I went down to Philly with Eloda and Ida.  We spent Friday afternoon in Philly, saw Reading Terminal Market (same place as Reading Railroad from Monopoly!!) and took a double decker bus tour around town.  Then we headed over to the Sportsplex to check out the action.  We watched the Gotham Girls play Windy City (from Chicago).  Gotham is currently ranked #1 nationally  and Windy City is ranked #9.  It was a good bout.  Both teams played exceptionally, but Gotham is just outta control. They won the game 191 - 50.  Still, it was was so fun to watch - all of the girls had so much energy and were very limber.

I hope to blog about some other games and experiences from the rest of the weekend soon.  Can't wait until next year!

Couldn't make it to Philly this weekend?  Check out some of the bouts on Derby News Network: http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/live/archive  They were broadcasting bouts all day on Saturday and Sunday.  Host a post-ECE derby watching party and perhaps play the DNN Drinking Game!  I definitely recommend Provide vs. Minnesota!  Such a close game.