Capital Region: Rich in Roller Derby

Enjoying some local roller derby.

Tonight some Hellions headed to the Armory to check out the Albany All Stars home opener. AASRD has expanded to three teams this season - their first four home bouts will be intraleague matches ending with a championship. Tonight, the Empire Skate Troopers took on the newest team, the Capital City Legislayers. Shout out to KCDC of CCL who made her derby debut tonight!  KC invited the Hellions to start blogging with the Times Union for a Capital District Roller Derby blog, which I contribute to along with Flexi Wheeler, Mathundra Storm, and members of AASRD and Capital District Men's Roller Derby.

As you can see, Mr. T is repping is CDMRD t-shirt, and I was rocking my New Orleans Saints gear (who sadly lost this evening).  I also got to buy my own CDMRD t-shirt.  I wanted to wear it, but since I was hanging out with Mr. T all night, I thought it would be a little too much.

Read more about the bout after the jump!

CNYRD Announces Season Schedule

Our friendly roller derby neighbors straight down I-90, Central New York Roller Derby (CNYRD) have announced their 2011 season schedule, which you can view after the jump.

Short and Disharmony

Here's a picture of me and Disharmony from practice last night. I was practicing jamming a lot, which is great because that's part of my goals for 2011. Oh, and notice I am wearing my *favorite* bright green HoTRD shirt.

We got to scrimmage a bunch tonight, which is always fun and a great learning experience for our new girls who are up and coming.

Disharmony, formerly Road Kill, is rostered for our next bout - woohoo! You might recall some of her fresh meat musings from this blog: a mini series called Meat Locker Missive.

Snausage got a chuckle from our juxtaposition lined up on the jammer line together. Yeah yeah, same old story: I'm small, she's tall. But I just wanted to capture this memory to look back 6 months from now when Disharmony's a killer skater and remember the fun scrimmages we had before her first bout.

Black/White/Pink/Green

Check it out!  I crack up when people wear almost the exact same outfit to practice. Unlike a normal team that requires you to bring a both black and white scrimmage jersey to practice, we mix it up and require pink and green.  Almost everybody on the team has our standard HoTRD bright green tank.  Epic Kate-tastrophe and Deadlie Mercury also happened to wear that very similar hot pink shorts on Monday night! Thank you Epic and Deadlie for letting me snap this precious picture after practice, despite how sweaty y'all are.

Also, can we talk about how Deadlie is a towering giant?  She has her skates on in this picture, but don't let that and her slouched posture fool you.  I think she's probably 6 feet tall. One of my favorite pictures of her is in this blog post from back in the summer.

Flexi is definitely crazy about pink and green.  Read her crazy post about our colors on the Times Union Roller Derby blog.

Not too much else to say.  Here's a picture from when we debuted our bright green tanks. They definitely stand out.

Empire Skate Showdown, September 2010

Next Hellions Home Bout: Saturday, January 15

Advance tickets are available online at brownpapertickets.com or from your favorite rollergirl.

As usual, we're offering a special derby discount to local roller girls: where your team jersey, scrimmage shirt, or other artifact with your team logo/image on it and get into the bout for only $5 at the door.

Definitely attending the bout?  Say so on Facebook!

For this bout we're playing the Nickel City Knockouts, one of the Queen City Roller Girls teams from Buffalo, NY.

Interesting and Original Derby Blogger: RollerWannabe - The Road to Rollergirl

One blogger I've been following for a while is TheRoadtoRollergirl.com, who you can also read quips from on twitter at @RollerWannabe. I'm not sure exactly where she's located, but I think it's somewhere in Texas. Her blog starts off earlier this year, when she declared to the blogosphere that she's ready to do what it takes to join a roller derby team.

Fast forward to June when she starts writing about her first fresh meat/training practices (the league she was skating with requires you to try out) and throughout the Summer she writes about little lessons she picks up along the way. Definitely worth reading if you are a current fresh meat, because she writes in a way that seems universal to all.  As the Fall rolls in, she starts writing about the upcoming tryout season.  I thought her reflection post on her Tryout Day was a particularly good read. Overall, she has a really great attitude and lots of awesome thoughts on derby.

Which leads me to the point of this post: a celebration of awesome and original content. She has two cute posts about the types of skates we used as kids - the Fisherprice 1-2-3s (I definitely had a couple pairs of these!) and a salute to those Brownie skates you rent at any standard roller rink (fade to memories of Guptill's skating. I could only last like 20 minutes with these babies before my feet hurt like hell.)

Her most recent post, Twas the Night Before Christmas, Derby Style, takes them all. She took the whole classic poem and derbified it. Here's a short excerpt, which describes the one and only Dumptruck as St. Nick:

A bag full of skates he had flung on his back,
And wheels filled his golden lamé fanny pack.

His nip-rings -- they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks half-exposed, his back kind of hairy!

His muttonchops framing the grin that he flashed,
No beard on his chin, but a Hetfield moustache;

I smiled ‘cause I couldn’t help notice the way,
His voice sounded just like a strip club DJ;

and then at the end:

With his fingers he gave me the sign of the goat,
crushed the can with his head, laughter roared from his throat;

He sprang to the bus, to his team gave a shout,
And they swiftly returned, climbed aboard, and peaced out.

But I heard him exclaim, as he guided the pack,
"Happy Christmas to all -- see you out on the track."

Three cheers for her amazing poem and for her blog in general! Make sure you check out the whole poem - it's hilarious and awesome!

Book Review: Going in Circles

I want to preface this by saying I wrote this review back in September, and have been waiting for the write time to post it. I figure now is the time, since Oprah.com ran an article by the author, Pamela Ribon, back and June - which has just popped back up in some of my derby circles..

What's interesting is that I did't 100% love this book (read my thoughts below), but I completely loved her article on Oprah's website. The book is not primarily about roller derby, and I had a lot of trouble relating to it. On the other hand, her Oprah article is well written and, in my opinion, completely universal in the roller derby world - which makes me feel a little bit better about not 100% loving something having to do with roller derby.

Definitely read the article... and maybe check out the book too.

***

google images

On the recommendation of a fellow derby girl, I checked Going in Circles, by Pamela Ribon, out of my local library and snuggled up with a book for the first time in a while.

I haven't written a book review in a long time (middle school?) so forgive me if I do it wrong.  I won't give away the ending at least.

This book is not about roller derby... primarily.  In fact, the first third of this 300 page book doesn't mention it at all.  This book is about a woman in her 30s going through a divorce.  And frankly, I found the first part depressing.  I know divorce is a fact of life, and that's probably the point of the book, but when I was expecting to read about derby, it kind of threw me off.

So fast forward to the good stuff.  The chapter in which the main character, Charlotte, is first introduced to the sport is actually my favorite part of the book.  She's invited to an "event" at a warehouse by her new, yet quirky, friend from work, and when she arrives has no idea what she is witnessing.  An excerpt:

A group of women peel off and stomp to the track together.  Two other women wait a few feet behind them.  A whistle blows, and the women in front all start skating.  That's the word for what they're doing, but it doesn't describe what's happening.  It's more like an attack, like an army on the move.

The whole chapter perfectly describes the experience of roller derby to the uninitiated.  To the confusion/horror of the knocking around, to the grateful observation of the pads and other safety gear.

Charlotte ultimately joins the team and earns the nickname Hard Broken.  The story takes place in Las Angelos with a banked track team.  Nevertheless, her endeavors from learning to skate, to making friends on the team, to dealing with life outside of derby, are things every derby gal can relate to.  And there are some pretty funny scenes.  Her interactions with her wannabe derby wife, Francesca, are constantly heartfelt and/or jocular.

What's difficult about getting through the book is Charlotte's constant struggle over her divorce.  Throughout the story, via Charlotte's odd mental flashbacks, the reader learns more about her not-so-perfect-afterall with her lame almost ex-husband.  These asides are often just stressful to read through, because Charlotte is so distraught over it all.

But luckily she has roller derby, and luckily this book plays that up a bit more in the end so all the excited derby girls (the intended audience?) can finish the book satisfied.

Interested?  Check your local library or read more about it on Amazon.

Roller Derby Secret Snowman

Tasty pizza from Play by Play.

Yum.

On Thursday night before practice some Hellions met at Play by Play (the bar where we have our after bout parties). We has some pizza and salad (carbs for energy before practice!) and enjoyed each other's company. I also had a mint chocolate Bailey's on the rocks (with a candy cane, haha!) I couldn't indulge too much because I had to skate in a couple hours. I was happy that Shrimp Scampi was there because I haven't seen her in a while! Anne the Bonny Basher, one of our skaters who moved away this summer was also able to make it, and she stayed for practice.  Hooray!  Except that Anne hits like a truck and I am scared of her.

About 16 people participated in our Secret Snowman (same thing as a Secret Santa gift exchange).

Here are some of the neat things people received:

Mathundra Storm got a book for writing down song ideas.
Did you know Storm is an accomplished musician?

Cool derby gift: Polar Derby!

Polar Derby! According to the description: the game is a rolling polar bear jam. Roll the colred dice to collect high scoring polar bears from the rink. Roll doubles to trip up opponents or "Free Skate" to take your pick of the pack. But press your luck too far and you may wind up flat on your face. The player with the most points skates away with the victory.

Derby style tights, X-men headphones, and a Zombie Christmas book. Derby
girls can be geeky sometimes.  Ok, a lot of times.

I got custom derby booty shorts from Ursula Udders! Awesome!!
They were made by Hot Across Buns on etsy.

Hot Across Buns is currently offering 20% off coupon with code HOT20

And lastly, I got my secret snowman, Snausage, a custom My Monster Hat Scarf (in Hellions colors!) made by the talented Anne Persand. I also ordered myself a matching scarf :)  Snausage, as you may recall, recently wrote a guest post on about Hellions practices.

Me and Snausge in our sweet Monster Scarves

Other people got various derby gifts such as socks and tights. A few items (the booty shorts, socks, and Monster scarves also appear on my roller derby fashion post, if you wanna read more about them.

Thanks again to Ursula for coordinating our little get together.  After our party, we headed over to practice (conveniently about 0.3 miles away). As if we hadn't induldged enough at the party, Ursula also brought these crazy colored cupcakes. Look at the blue! Of course, Ursula got a cupcake recipe book as she seems to be our resident baker of tasty and unique treats.

Injuries and Regrets and Envy at a Tough Work Out

Guest post by Hellions freshmeat, Snausage

It's really hard to be injured when you've just discovered a sport that you love and really want to master. It's even harder to be injured when you so how much fun everyone is having during practice.

Last week the Hellions had a brutal endurance practice, and I wanted so badly to join them. It started out with the always fun, 40 in 10 (40 laps in 10 minutes). I re-injured myself a week ago during 40 in 10, so I know how hard it is. After four minutes, I spotted a certain Miss Short Temper attempting to call off this endurance work out as if she were lead jammer! Most of my fellow meat made a spectacular showing of it, getting over 40 laps in the time allotted. Good job girls!

Wall squats

The next part of the work out was a core work out drill. It started out with three sets of thirty second squats. I sat this one out as my Doctor has forbidden me from doing squats. The second part was three sets of thirty second bicycles (a type of 'crunch'), 'superman' (lie on your belly with your arms and legs raised off the ground and hold), and planks. I did participate in this workout and am grateful that I have much more core strength than I used to. There was much groaning and grumbling from the assembled players and referees, but you know they loved it.

Bicyles - a type of sit up.

Afterwards there were pack formation workouts. This I also sat out, but watched with great interest and much envy. Players were split up into groups of four and given a number. They were then to skate together and change position when it was called out, for example, two in the front, two in the back. There were 'whips' being given, to help players get into position more quickly. It was great to see the cooperation between seasoned vets and fresh meat (new members of the league).

The second pack drill was to block the jammer. Teams of four went out with a jammer following behind. I must admit I got a bit nervous when I saw one of our newest members going up against Miss Flexi Wheeler, who was jamming, but she held her own against a truly great player. It made me want to go out there and try it myself! Teams went out, many people fell, and a great and educational time was had by all. Here's a video of two teams of four out on the track, with a jammer trying to sneak her way through.

And then came the hitting. Players went out in groups of two and three to throw hits at each other, shoulder hits and hip hits. And while all of this was happening, the referees were out practicing their own skills. Even at practice, they are not shy about calling illegal elbows or back blocking.  All in all, an enjoyable practice to watch, but much more enjoyable to participate in as I saw on Facebook by all of the postings about being 'sore, but happy'. Hopefully I will heal soon and be able to return to my skates, until then this is Snausage, signing off.

Fun Friday: Tap Dancing on Roller Skates

Check out this video Mr. T showed me of Gene Kelly tap dancing on roller skates. It's a scene from the movie It's Always Fair Weather (1955).

There's a lot I can do on my toe stops. Jammer start, jump around, run backwards, jumprope. I think I have new challenge! Actually, it looks like Gene Kelly is doing a lot of figure skating moves, which sort of makes we want to take artistic skating lessons.

At first I was skeptical that this might not be real. I mean - I don't mean to doubt Gene Kelly, but I feel like it could be staged or dubbed over.  I looked up the movie on IMDB and one of the commenters makes a good case for why this probably is real:

You notice how sparsely Gene Kelly's finest numbers are shot? Long takes,little in the way of cinematic flair? Well,ponder this for a moment-he will often do something truly spectacular at the end of a take,leading one to wonder just how many times the poor chap put himself through the preceding minutes before getting it right...

A case in point is the justly famed (among those in the know) "Rollerskate Number":In order to demonstrate that the skates are,indeed,authentic,Kelly will swap-flawlessly-from "tap" to "glide" at the end of each take.

Pretty talented, I'd say. I've never watched any of his movies, but just the dancing and singing alone makes me want to.  Happy Friday everyone - hope you enjoyed this little number!