MRDA Champs

If you are keeping track at home, you will notice that I traveled to Baltimore three times in the span of a month (August into September) and in October I found myself rolling down 87 thrice for adventures in NYC/Long Island - the Gotham Boot Camp, CDTA vs NYSE, and on October 22 - Men's Roller Derby Association (MRDA) Championships. The event took place at Skate Safe America (also LIRR's venue) and was hosted by the New York Shock Exchange.

New York Shock Exchange

My second post ever on this blog was about men's roller derby. Since then I've come to appreciate it more and more. I definitely see some differences between the way men and women play, but I like watching both.

MRDA Champs featured six teams from around the United States:
Dallas Deception (Texas)
Magic City (somewhere in Florida)
St. Louis Gatekeeper (Missouri)
Puget Sound (Seattle area)
Pioneer Valley (Western Mass)
New York Shock Exchange.

woohoo, PVRD!

PVRD is my favorite MRDA team. Ever since I saw them last year, I've been all about the mustaches.  I also love the Shock Exchange, cause hell yeah New York! Plus they're all super awesome. Side note: CDTA is obviously my favorite not-yet-MRDA team.


The other four leagues I didn't know much about.  Dallas?  Texas has roller derby, that's cool.  St. Louis? The guys with beards. Also, where the heck is St. Louis? Puget Sound = Quadzilla.  Magic City? wow... those are some ridiculous names on that roster.

So that's what I was working with going into the tournament.

It was a solid event of all-day derby - there were 8 full length men's bout, plus one women's bout in the middle to break things up.  I hung out mostly with the dudes from CDTA and there was also a bunch of people from the Utica Quadfathers there and Central New York players there.

Capital District Trauma Authority
Roarshock, Jonny Malice, Massacre, Wellen Dowd, and Museknuckle

Being the top two ranked teams, St. Louis and NYSE had a first round by. NYSE ended up playing Magic City in the first game, and the score was a lot closer than I expected.

Grambo from CNY volunteering at
MRDA.

Magic City is ridiculous.  I mean that in a mostly good way, although at first I was not sure how I felt about them. Rumor had it that most of their skaters have a background in jam skating. They definitely had some fancy footwork. Overall, NYSE played a tighter game strategy-wise and were able to take the win. Check out the Derby News Network recap here. There's a comment which is a bit critical of NYSE's strategy that won them the game, but heck - that is the way derby is played these days. It's just playing smart based on the rules of the game.  Anyway, the first picture on that article where Magic City (green) is facing reverse direction pretty much sums up the whole game.  It was an exciting game to watch.

PVRD had a tough first game against Puget Sound, who are a powerhouse in the west. After losing to them, they played Dallas Deception, which was a little bit closer.

The best game of the day, in my opinion, was Magic City vs. St. Louis. Two teams I knew little about going into it, but I think this bout exemplified some of the best men's derby has to offer. The two teams were very well matched game and I decided I just really like to watch Magic City skate.
If you watch any videos of the bouts from MRDA Champs, I definitely recommend Magic City vs St. Louis.

These are just my basic impressions from Champs.  If you want some real stats based, unbiased recaps you should check out DNN here, here, here, here, and here.