Catch live streaming derby this weekend

Not of the Hellions, unfortunately (although you can check out this DNN archive of our match against Montreal from this past summer)...but it's the final weekend of WFTDA Playoffs - North Central Region edition.

My favorite North Central team? The Minnesota Roller Girls! I caught them once East Coast Extravaganza. I love 'em! I have one of their stickers on my helmet >:) BTW, they have two skaters heading to Toronto in December to represent USA Roller Derby at the Roller Derby World Cup!

Starting at 9am Eastern, you can catch the action at http://derbyaccess.com/.
(At 1pm Eastern, make sure to catch Bout 4: #3 Minnesota RollerGirls vs #6 Mad Rollin’ Dolls!)It's the best roller derby the North Central region has to offer. Check it out, so you can estimate how teams will faceoff against the other regions at Championships in November (including New York's own Gotham Girls).

You can also stream the video on your iPhone. (The derby access link above can be used on any other mobile phone though). I've watched some of the games on my phone (when I was on the road), and the quality is great.

Lastly, Derby News Network is providing supplemental live coverage throughout the event. Happy viewing everyone!

Eastern Region Play-offs: Nightmare on 95 Day 1

I've got thoughts on three of Friday's bouts for you.

In the first game of the tournament, the Dutchland Derby Rollers took on our friends from Maine Roller Derby (we're playing their B team next week!). I think it was a surprise to a lot of people, but Team USA rostered skater, V-Diva, recently transferred to DDR from Lehigh Valley. Maine did well but Dutchland took the win- their next bout would've been against Gotham (#1 tournament seed) later in the day - except they chose to forfeit. Read about that over on derbynewsnetwork or pretty much any facebook wall of someone related to roller derby.

The London vs Carolina game was one I had been looking forward to. I saw London play Providence Roller Derby, and I thought they were pretty great! Last year at Regionals (back when it was "Regionals"), Carolina played Montreal, winning by only a couple points. In my mind, this was sort of an international rematch for Carolina.

Carolina literally facing of vs London

London ruled the game with smart trapping and super recycling from their blockers; and beautiful footwork by their jammers. Even with hard strikes to the hips driven by Carolina, the London jammers would rarely take a tumble, and more like do some sort of spin-around move and stay on their feet. I actually saw this move from a couple jammers this weekend, including Charm City's CC Bang Bang.
Carolina interesting strategy of starting facing the jammers. From the crowd, it seemed intimidating. I'm curious about this strategy - I'm sure we'll be hearing about it.
The final score was London 160 - Carolina 67.


Montreal vs. Steel City
So, first of all you had to wonder - is the whole league wearing unitards under their jerseys, like the coaches? Or are those just pants?
This was a low scoring game for the first 10 minutes, with a score of score 16 Steel - 6 Montreal. Steel inched up to about at 25 point lead, but in the final jams of the period, Montreal nearly shortened the gap to 49-41 - still a quite low scoring game.
Soon into the second period, we saw the first 1 point lead change.  Midway into period two, the Steel City jammer was unable to take advantage of a powerjam due to what appeared to be an equipment malfunction seconds into the jam. A minute passed as she attempted to adjust her kneepad (?) and shortly the Montreal jammer was back on the track.
Steel City's defense endeavored to be ruthless: with big girls Athena and Bonecrusher in the back of the pack, it was nearly impossible to get around them. I'd like to rephrase myself and say that they were big girls... with incredible endurance and jammer stopping hits. By the end of the period, Steel regained the lead and took the game 134 - 88.