St. Baldrick's - Jezibelle N. Hell shaves her head for charity

Roc City Roller Derby hosted a St. Baldrick's event the same day as our bout.  Jezibelle N. Hell decided to raise money and participate.  She said she shaved her head three times in high school... so, no big deal!  But it is a big deal.

The St. Baldrick's Foundation currently funds more in childhood cancer research grants than any organization except the U.S. government. The Foundation coordinates its signature head-shaving events worldwide, where volunteers get bald to stand in solidarity with kids fighting cancer and raise money to support life-saving childhood cancer research. St. Baldrick's events are the largest volunteer-driven fundraising opportunity benefitting pediatric cancer research.  - http://www.stbaldricks.org/

Here are some photos related to the shaving event

Action shot

In the locker room after shaving.

It's not too late to donate to St. Baldrick's via Jez' page: http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/629484/2013

No big deal that our photoshoot was also the next weekend.  Jezibelle rocked it.  At least her hair was easy to "do"!

Photo by Dino Petrocelli
Makeup by True Grace

Quick Recap of First Two Bouts

March 2 - HoTRD vs. Green Mountain Derby Dames

HoT vs GMDD.  Photo by Sean Childs

Our first WFTDA sanctioned bout!  Against our great friends from Burlington, VT - the Green Mountain Derby Dames!
I was on the roster for this bout, however I ended up with a late case of the flu (!!!) and ended up having to miss the bout - I couldn't even go and watch.
GMDD is a strong team and was a good challenge for us.  The final score of the bout of 228 GMDD - 110 HoT.


March 23 - HoTRD vs. Roc City Roller Derby

HoTRD vs Roc City.  Photo by Kris Dreessen

This bout took place at RIT college - neat!  This is also where our former skater CrickHit goes to school - so we got to hang out with her that weekend.  She's skating with Roc City's B team... so awesome.  I wish I started derby in college!

Roc City took an early lead and racked up point quickly. The score at halftime was 211 Roc - 55 HoT. After a good peptalk in the locker room from coaching, we refocused and kept the damage minimal. Roc still took the win with a final score Roc 306 - HoT 126, but we were happy with the second half.  Roc also had perhaps the best hospitality ever - their skaters set up a potluck so there was tons of different and delicious food to enjoy after the bout.
Roc City also hosted a St. Baldrick's event that day - Jezibelle N. Hell participated - blog on that coming up soon!

Hellions head out to Rochester for a roller derby weekend

This weekend we are headed out to Rochester to take on Roc City Roller Derby.  It's a double header bout, more roller derby than you can shake a stick at!

Roc City B-Sides vs. NHRD Queen City Cherry Bombs @ 6:00 PM 

Roc Stars vs. Hellions of Troy @ 8:00 PM

Gordon Field House @ RIT -- Doors @ 5:00 PM

I totally love their bout art work!

Our last full length bout against Roc City was in 2011 against their B-Team , a close game! Hellions 85 - Roc City 92.  This time we're sending the Hellions for a sanction bout, which will count towards our WFTDA ranking.

I actually missed that game that year (I think I was on vacation?).  The last time I was in Rochester was for roller derby was for a newbie scrimmage with the Utica Roller Girls in 2010!  I think it was one of my first away scrimmages.  I specifically remember being afraid of one of their really tall skaters, GWAR (who still plays, I see).  I described her as "7 feet tall" in my blog post about the scrimmage, hahaha.  We will see if that is actually the case.

That weekend I drove out to Rochester with Kitty P and Reading Rambo and we stayed at Kitty's house.  The next day we went to the Lilac Festival.  It's one of my most fond roller derby field trip memories.

Empire Skate Showdown recap - part 1

Photo by Hazmatt

The Hellions of Troy Roller Derby League earned a top three finish at the 2nd Annual New York State all-female flat track roller derby tournament "Empire Skate Showdown", hosted by the Long Island Roller Rebels in Old Bethpage, NY on Saturday, September 3, 2011. Nine New York teams participated in a total of seventeen thirty minute challenge bouts during the double-elimination tournament.

Double elimination meant that one loss would send a team down to the losers bracket, still with a chance to win the rest of their games to still come in on top.  A second loss could mean elimination from the tournament.

The Hellions scored their first win over the Hudson Valley Horrors (Kingston, NY) with a score of 67 - 40. The game started off fast. Like....insanely fast. The first couple jams it seemed that both teams want to use a strategy of racing the pack. This couldn't be maintained by either team, which slowed the pace of the jams down (which also works!)

Photo by Sean Hale/Hale Yeah

Our next match was against Roc City Roller Derby of Rochester, NY. The Hellions took a strong lead in the first 15 minutes, but after calling a team time out, Rochester rallied to shorten the gap to under 10 points. The Hellions held strong in the remaining minutes and held onto the lead with a final score of 74-71.

Taking advantage of a power jam.
Photo by Sean Hale/Hale Yeah.

Two wins secured a spot in the quarter finals, where the Hellions faced Central New York Roller Derby (CNYRD), from Utica, NY...

Stay tuned for Part 2!

Catching up on bout recaps: HoTRD vs ROC City 7/23/11

Last month the Hellions traveled to Rochester, NY for roller derby! Oh so I hear - I was on vacation.  Boo, I like Rochester - I was out there last year in May to scrimmage with them.

It was a close game, the final score was Hellions 85 / Roc City 89.  We may meet Roc City again this weekend at Empire Skate Showdown on Long Island.

Anyway, here's a couple photos for ya from Hispanic Attack's photoset on Facebook.

Warm up

Delinquent Dollie lapping the pack during warm up.

Pre-bout.

Kitty earning lead jammer, as called by The Constable.

The Happiest Place on Earth?

Every time we go out to Utica we stop at the Exit 31 FasTrac.  It's become a tradition.  This is just a short post celebrating our not-so-secret love affair with a gas station No.  It's more than that.  It's a titanic emporium with enough food, drink, and entertainment reserves to satisfy an army of derby girls. And it's a great place to gas up before hoping on the 90 back to the Capital Region.

The last time we were at FasTrac was a beautiful Sunday afternoon a couple weeks ago.  The Utica Roller Girls invited a few Hellions out to their space to play in a scrimmage with them against the Roc City Roller Girls new home team: the Rottenchesters.  Rambo and I made the trip to Rochester (to play the 5-H8-5s) with URG a couple months ago to scrimmage them before, so I was excited to play with Roc City again!  Plus URG = <3

Slushies in Hellions colors!

But this isn't about that.  What, are you here to read about Roller Derby?  Well, derby isn't all about roller skating.  It's also about wonderful road trip hijnx with friends.

Drumstick, Shock, Storm, and Beau preparing their
 FasTrac milkshakes.

Stylish!

The first thing you need to know about FasTrac is that there is a variety of frozen beverage to satiate you before you depart the great city of Utica.  They have this magical machine that makes milkshakes.  All you do is pick out a frozen flavor cup of your choice, stick it in the machine, press a button, wait a minute while it whirls around, and TAH-DAH!!!  A delicious frozen beverage.

FasTrac also has a fine selection of small gifts, gags, snacks, and candies.  Check out the fabulous zebra ring we discovered.  Perfect for a referee!

How could a place called FasTrac NOT cater to roller derby?  See you next time, FasTrac!

Derby Road Trip

Earlier last week I didn't have any plans for the weekend. In fact, I thought it might be nice to spend it at home and relax. Then I got an invite from Pink E. Racer from the Utica Rollergirls to join them in Rochester for a scrimmage on Sunday morning against one of Roc City's new home teams. ALRIGHT!! Kitty and Reading Rambo also decided to join us.

Fast forward to Saturday evening: Rambo and I are rolling down I-90 to meet Kitty who already happened to be in Rochester. We figured driving out Saturday evening would be better than leaving Albany at 7am for the 11am scrimmage. We're crazy, but not that crazy.

Sunday morning, Kitty took us to breakfast at Tim Horton's. w00t! Then we made our way to Roc City's facility - the arena where they skate is really nice! It was my first time skating on Skate Court - I approve.

Rochester's team was very new. It's my understanding that of the 15 or so girls there that morning, only four had bouted before. Their first bout is coming up on June 12, so they were hoping for some outside teams to help them prepare. Needless to say, we were dominating them. BUT, I personally feel they have a lot of potential and they also did a GREAT job adapting to some of our strategies. For example, I am short and I will take advantage of that when necessary. Roc City had 2 or 3 girls who were probably 7 feet tall with their skates on, I am not kidding. And one was named GWAR. I was shaking!

So anyway, I decided to skate low to the ground, which made me a more difficult target. That strategy worked out for me for awhile, until a few of the girls figured out they could also get down low, which made me much easier to hit. Nice adapting!

Another awesome part of of this trip was that my friend Liz, who lives in Rochester, came out Sunday morning to watch us scrimmage. Liz is my first college friend to see me play!

Being involved with roller derby always offers you the opportunity to be doing the last thing you thought you would. Luckily, it's usually awesome things like this!

Thank you to Roc City Roller Derby for hosting us on Sunday morning and for providing lunch. It was nice meeting you all - good luck with your game on June 12!