Scrimmage vs Mid-Hudson Misfits

On Sunday night the Hellions hosted the Mid-Hudson Misfits, a team from Ulster County, NY. We had two new skaters playing who had never bouted: Painted Lady and Felony Femme! MHM had several newer skaters as well.

Felony Femme,  black jammer, breaks through the pack.
Photo by Linda Conley

Painted Lady, right, works in a wall with Bloody Knuckles Betty, Wicked Irish,
and Trixie Firecracker to hold back the MHM jammer.
Photo by Linda Conley

The teams and officials started showing up around 6:30 and as always it was a group effort to tape down the track. Anya Tailgate's boyfriend recently made an awesome contraption that easily lays down rope and tape all in one go! We had several visiting officials for the scrimmage as well, including LudaChris Speed and a referee named "Goodeye Might". Please say his name outloud and laugh when it gives you an Australian accent. I love it!

 Some skaters also invited some friends and family, so we had a tiny crowd to catch the action. One of our superfans, Special Ed, even made MHM some welcome signs!

Betty and Wheezy work together to
hold back the MHM jammer.
Photo by Linda Conley

For this scrimmage I jammed (instead of blocking) almsot exclusively. We used about a 3 or 4 person jammer rotation. Honestly, I wish I had warmed up a little better for the scrimmage. I did some easy laps and stetched, but not what I typically do before an actual bout. Reminder newsflash to me: a scrimmage is treated pretty much just like an actual bout! Even though I felt a little lethargic, I think I jammed pretty well - very much in part due to the excellent blockers on my team.

Me, one-on-one against the MHM jammer!  Looks like she has the upper hand,
or should I say leg, in this photo though :)
Photo by Linda Conley

Wicked Irish giving me a little push to help me break past the last two pink blockers.
Photo by Linda Conley

Even though MHM is newer, they still had some good concepts of strategy and a couple good jammers. They were also very, very nice! I love when derby girls are friendly or chatty on the line. I have a lot more fun. I have known Square Brute and Opehlia Knockers of MHM for almost my whole derby career- they are so nice!

Ophelia Knockers and Square Brute (in pink, left) work together to hold me as jammer back.
Photo by Linda Conley

The Hellions won the scrimmage but I think we all had fun and it was a good learning experience.

Excitingly, the Mid-Hudson Misftis just announced their season schedule! Their first bout is Friday March 15 against Oneonta Roller Derby.

First time scrimmaging

During practice last week we had the opportunity to introduce some of our new girls to the basics of scrimmaging. They've been working on stops, falls, and basic hits .... so we thought it might be fun to throw them into some real action! Their WFTDA minimum skills test is also coming up soon!

Freshmeat girls Cricket* and June Bug* were eached "drafted" to a team, black and pink respectively. I wore pink that night, so I got to work with June Bug. There's a couple things you try to remember to tell people the first time they scrimmage:
+ If you get knocked out, come in behind the person who hit you out so you don't get a cut.
+ Work with a partner.
+ Stay on the line.
+ Watch for the jammers!

Cricket and June Bug lined up to jam - first time ever!

On our team we also moved June Bug from the inside line to working in the middle. At one point, we had them both jam! Here they are lined up on the jammer line. They actually both jammed a couple times and each got lead jammer at least once. I saw Cricket jump right over a downed skater and it was awesome!

June Bug - Lead Jammer!!

Cricket looks to take the inside line to race ahead of the pack!

When you practice jumping as a freshmeat, it can be awkward because you're not really jumping out of necessity, you're just jumping over 3 inch orange cones to prove you can do it. We don't always practice jumping at the same speeds we actually play at. So I was very impressed when the time came to jump over a whole person (a lot bigger than a little 3 inch cone), she did it without a doubt. We were all like "YAYYYYYYYYYY that was awesome" and she just looked at us with a "what did I even just do?" This actually happened to me during my first bout.

That's one of the best parts of your first scrimmage. You don't even know how good you are and we can barely express how proud and impressed we are by all your hard work.

*the theme of this quarter's fresh meat class is "edible insects" and includes other names such as 'Centipede' and 'Locust'.

Scrimmage with Suburbia against Hudson Valley

Reading Rambo on the line for the Hellions
once again! (ok, just temporarily)

On Tuesday night, some Hellions traveled down to Kingston for a scrimmage against the Hudson Valley Horrors. We had about 8 people that were able to make it, so some girls from Suburbia Roller Derby came up to fill in our ranks...including former Hellion, Reading Rambo! Rambo moved downstate about a year ago.

This was the first scrimmage for one of our new girls, "Fugu", who just passed her WFTDA minimum skills test, so she doesn't even have her official roller derby name (Fugu is her meat name). Her background is in hockey and she has been tearing up the track!

The scrimmage was fun, we always enjoy getting together with the Hudson Valley girls. This was the first time I think I've had the pleasure of meeting skaters from Suburbia (although, I might've met a couple Suburbia peeps in 2010 at Eastern Regionals). They were fun!

Two Suburbia girls I met were Fifi Fleshwound and ... ok, so this is silly, but Fifi jokingly told me her name was "BeBe Aggressive".. get it, "Fifi and BeBe!"? ... and I knew at that point I would never be able to commit her actually derby name to memory. Friend!  Tell me your name!  .... Fizzy Lola!  Thank you, Vixen.  Haha, great name! I might still call you BeBe - I like both names! <3

Fifi and "Be Be"(?!)

I am looking forward to seeing these two and the rest of the Suburbia girls again soon - we're playing Suburbia in a couple weeks at their venue in Yonkers.

Here's a couple more pictures from the scrimmage.

Val on the jammer line, behind one of those new fangled rugby scrum starts.

Lehman Smothers and Puffy Bangs on the jammer line as Hudson Valley figures our their
plan of attack.  Which probably involved Rxy Ramalotte laying on the pain.

Hudson Valley Horrors scrimmage (+ Sonic Drive-in)

On Monday, March 7, a bunch of us traveled down to Hyde Park to scrimmage the Hudson Valley Horrors. These girls are so fun and nice, and I love their rink, Roller Magic! It has a really beautiful floor, sorta like Rollarama. HVHRD is also the home team for referee Ludachris Speed, and everybody likes him.

Both teams had a good number of girls, but we also ended up with Square Broot, Spazzy, and Savior Self on our team. Square Broot's name cracks me up!  Math!! <3

The teams were evenly matched. At half time the score was 68-68!

Pink blurs = Hellions; black blurs = Horrors.  (Ah yes, the horrible iphone photography you've come
to expect from this blog).

Yak Stew (background) on the jammer line.

One of our most recent fresh meat graduates, Yak Stew (still so new she doesn't have a derby name yet) made it down for the scrimmage. Here she is lined up on the jammer line ready to rock...

And she got lead jammer status!

Go little pink blur, go!

The final score of the scrimmage was 132 - 104.


And then after the scrimmage... we had to go to Sonic. Of course. Annnnd, special note.. our waiter/food bring-er out-er guy wore this roller skates!! (Because we begged him to).

Greetings from Sonic in Kingston, NY. Love, the Hellions.

Great Derby Social 2011 - Recap

Photo by Knockout.

As I mentioned in the February events post, there was a roller derby social in February up in Enfield, NH. The Great Derby Social was just that - a time to meet or reconnect with derby people in the northeast. Most of the leagues that were there were from New Hampshire and Vermont. The Hellions and the Utica Roller Girls represented New York! There were also a few leagues from Massachusetts.

Disharmony, Knockout, and I headed up to New Hampshire on Saturday afternoon (February 12). It was a nice drive; it did start snowing when we arrived, though! We blew in around 5pm - by that point things were well under way so we hauled in our stuff, set up "camp" at one of the snack bar booths, and checked out the scene.

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.

First ACRD Mixed Scrimmage

On Saturday, October 2, Shockratease, Mr. T and I headed out to Syracuse for the new monthly open scrimmage hosted by Assault City Roller Derby.  Girls from Utica, Assault City, Rochester, and Central New York were there, plus a good handful of refs and NSOs from the area.  I've met some of these girls before through games, scrimmages, and tournaments before, so it was nice to reconnect and also make some new friends.

ACRD practice space.

ACRD practices in a retail space literally in a mall.  Their space was just big enough, and they had some mattresses on the wall in key places where clearance is tight. I did collide with one a couple times, which was actually kinda fun, haha. We had a few people peek in through the entrance into the mall - but official spectators were not allowed due to space limitations.  I can't imagine what people were thinking when they peered in and saw 30 girls in fishnets skating in circles.


ACRD did a really great job organizing the event.  Teams from all over the upstate/central area were invited and I thought we had a pretty good turnout.  It was a mixed scrimmage, so we all lined up in order of perceived skill level and were assigned either black or white. I ended up being on a team with mostly Utica Roller Girls and a few CNY girls, so that was nice.  Shock was on the other team, but she got to play with Blaze from ACRD (who I mentioned in my recap of the CNY vs. ACRD bout).  She's not quite as scary in person as she seems on the rink (again, I mean that in a good way!) but she is seriously an awesome skater and a great proponent of roller derby.

First ACRD mixed scrimmage.  Photo by Pete Rodriguez.

Happiest place on Earth.

The two teams were very evenly matched.  I didn't jam, but I did get a chance to play pivot a couple times.  It was cool to work with different girls and everyone was really nice about sharing tips and tricks.  Pied Viper was on the opposite team (I also wrote about her in the CNY/ACRD recap) - she was kicking butt as jammer but I managed to stop her maybe once or twice.  Wooo!  This scrimmage was great because I got to play with girls who I've admired from off the rink before.  I had a lot of fun.  Thank you Assault City!


And of course ... no trip out to central NY is complete with out a stop at FasTrac.  Can't wait until next month!

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!