2011 Winter - Spring Season

Wondering about the next time you can check out some Hellions action? See you in January!

We've got a fun season coming up. Hopefully debuting some new girls in our home bouts, and taking on some challenging teams away. One bout I'm excited for: Green Mountain Derby Dames up in Vermont. Skiing anyone? Happy we're taking on WFTDA leagues - I love learning more and more about the organization when we get to play teams who are members. Still got my eye on the prize for the Hellions - one day!

All home games take place at Rollarama in Schenectady. Hope you're able to make it out to a bout (or three!) this season!

Fun Roller Derby Stuff on Etsy

Keep Calm and Derby On by PosterPop

Periodically I like to skim etsy.com for for derby stuff. Here are a couple things I recently came across that I really like.

Keep Calm and Derby On Poster by PosterPop. $15.00
This shop actually has a variety of "Keep Calm..." posters. This poster is available in many different colors - so you can stylize to match your team!

Being part of a roller derby league can be a hectic but fun time. I think it's always important to keep this phrase in mind.

Custom Name Patch by lizmiera. $3.50
I collect patches so I think this is pretty awesome. This seller also has a variety of interesting designs, plus other styles of name patches, including one in tattoo style writing.

Custom patch by lizmiera

Put this patch on your:

-Gear/grm bags

-Backpack

-tote bags

-scrimmage shirt

-sweat shirt

-jacket

Important note: if you click on a link for an item and it is sold out, make sure to check the seller's shop for a new listing. You will probably still be able to get it!

Slay Belles Photos on Nippertown.com

Nippertown.com posted some pictures from our Slay Belles - Naughty vs. Nice bout on their website, which were taken by Bill Dhalle.

Take a look: http://www.nippertown.com/2010/12/06/live-the-hellions-of-troy-rollarama-12410

Journey from Fresh Meat to Graduated Skater - Part 2

Check out Part 1 of Valerie Valkyrie's story here.

The continuing story from guest writer Valerie Valkyrie regarding her past 5 1/2 months with the Hellions. She's been with us all summer and has been an incredible asset to the league in terms of craftiness, willingness to participate in league events, and general friendlyness. Meet Valerie Valkyrie!

Guest post by Valerie Valkyrie

Valerie Valkyrie

When that fateful Sunday arrived, we hit the track with gusto and labored through our drills, pushing ourselves and trying not to focus on our mistakes. At the end of the night I was pleased with my performance but still unsure if I would pass. I knew where I may not have met the minimum requirements and where I didn't meet my personal standards. I drove home with a knot in the pit of my stomach and my fingers crossed.

Waiting the 24 hours to hear the results was less painful than I expected it to be. My day was full with school assignments and I didn't have much time to dwell on the test, although any free moments found my mind wandering to my t-stops, hits and whips. The second I got out of my evening class I raced to my car and may have driven a little too fast to Schenectady. I was miserable knowing that missing the first 20 minutes of practice meant likely missing the graduation announcements - maybe I should've skipped class that night. As I walked into the rink, Flexi smiled at me and extended her congratulations. I grinned and jumped and squealed. And then I got down to business putting on my gear to join the big girls on the big track because as exciting as passing minimums and graduating was, it simply means that I am in for even more work.

My first night as a graduated skater was an extended 3-hour practice and since I arrived late I knew I needed to stay for the whole thing. It was exhilarating and exhausting and I was sore afterward and I can look forward to that for the rest of my derby career. I spent so much time focusing on meeting those minimum skills and on passing the test and I hardly gave any thought to what would happen after that. I knew in my the back of my head that the hard work and training continues but it wasn't something that really registered until I hit the track. I realized that even though I can perform all the necessary skills, I now need to put all of that together in the midst of chaos. I'm back to being a beginner and I so look forward to developing a new set of skills.

Win a Copy of Roller Derby Workout from Lucyindasky

Local derby blogger Lucyindasky is giving away a copy of Roller Derby Workout. I keep hearing great stuff about this DVD! It'd be great for even non derby people I bet. Also, if you win, you can participate in in the 2011 Roller Derby Workout Challenge on facebook!

Enter the contest here: http://www.lucyindaskywithdiamonds.com/2010/12/ho-ho-ho-its-giveaway.html
and check out the rest of her blog. Support local derby!

The contest winner will selected on Wednesday December 15 - so get on it!

Journey from Fresh Meat to Graduated Skater - Part 1

Sparkly HoT sign made by Valerie Valkerie

Check out thoughts from guest writer Valerie Valkyrie regarding her past 5 1/2 months with the Hellions. She's been with us all summer and has been an incredible asset to the league in terms of craftiness, willingness to participate in league events, and general friendlyness. Meet Valerie Valkyrie!

Guest post by Valerie Valkyrie

This is a long time coming.

I promised Short I would write a few different blog posts for her - one about my new skates and another about my love for hitting. But life took over and inspiration walked out on me and I never got them done. So I'm taking this time, so close to my recent graduation, to pour out my thoughts while they're still fresh and new.

I showed up at my first Hellions of Troy practice about 5 1/2 months ago. The first weeks were exciting but exhausting. I had also started a brand new on-my-feet-all-day retail job and I was constantly sore. My legs and feet were always aching, begging for a break. But I powered through it because something about roller derby caught my heart.

Brand new pair of roller skates!

Due to a lack of protective gear and then a nasty virus I missed almost a month of practices, upon my return the meat class was preparing for a minimums test and I was not ready. I tried it anyway, failing about half of the requirements and watched my compatriots graduate and take their derby names and kick ass on the track.

A few weeks later we held a recruitment night and brought in a few handfuls of new fresh meat and I went back to basics with them. After I had put in three full months of hard work, I felt ready to take minimums again and began pestering the coaches to run them - I can only imagine how annoying I must've been but I'm admittedly very impatient and I wanted to go, go, go! I understood, though, that they would be running a big test for just a few of us considering most of the newer meat wasn't really ready yet. So I waited and practiced and waited and practiced. And did wall squats and planks and ran drills and practiced falling and learned to place hits. And every time I started getting frustrated and maybe just a little bit bored, I was treated to a practice with the vets. Getting a taste of pack work and hitting and blocking drills was just the motivation I needed to continue working my ass off and wait (albeit impatiently) for minimums.

For the last month I wasn't the only one chomping at the bit - the women who joined during that recruitment night in late July were more than ready for a chance to prove their skills. It was announced that testing would be coming up in November and many of us spent those weeks alternating worry with excitement.
Would we pass?
What skills should we focus on?
Who could we snag to help us develop that lacking technique?
What fancy hot pants will give me the best range of motion while still making me look cute?

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Valerie's saga tomorrow!

How to Add Your Derby Wife to Your Facebook Profile

Adapted from here, from Michi-chan of derbydata.com.

Love it or hate it, the new Facebook profile setup has something interesting to offer. While Facebook automatically generates your friends list to display on your profile, and you've been able to list your relatives on your FB, you can now also add a custom list. Below is a guide on how to add your Derby Wife to your profile.

If you have not converted to the new Facebook profile page, do that first (warning - pretty sure you can't revert back to the old style profile once you revert. But we're all used to that by now, aren't we?)

Steps 1 and 2

http://www.facebook.com/about/profile/

1. Go to your personal profile page.

2. Click on the "Edit Profile" button on the upper right.

3. When the new screen appears, click on the "Relationships" link on the left side.

Step 3

Steps 4 and 5

4. Scroll down to where it says "Featured Relationships".

5. Click on "Create new List".

6. A pop-up box will appear. Make your list name "Derby Wife" and select your lucky derby wife from your list of friends.

7. Click "Create List".

8. A new section called "Derby Wife" will appear on the profile editor.

9. Your derby wife will now appear on your profile page in the same area on the left side where your relationship and your family appears.

As you can see, I used my boyfriend as an example. I don't have a derby wife (and am currently happily single in this arena, so don't worry). After I did this example, I checked his profile and this custom relationship did not appear on his profile as well. I'm sure this is to prevent some sort of abuse of the system, but make sure you let your derby wife how to add you to her profile as well if you want!

Don't have a derby wife? You can use this tutorial for any relationship you want: your closest team mates; blogging friends ("blends" as THS calls them); pets that have facebook profiles... whatever you like! You are allowed to list more than one person your custom relationship - so girls with multiple derby wives, this is for you!

Improving my Jamming

In our December 4 bout, Slay Belles - Naughty vs Nice, I was put out to jam more times that I ever have been before. Six in total. I feel a lot more comfortable jamming since my first time jamming, but I know I've got a way to go. But looking at the statistics from the bout, I am pretty proud of myself!

Photo by Kimberly Vockel.

Here are my jammer stats from the last bout:

Total jams: 17 out of 35 total
   Jammer: 6 of 17

I was able to earn lead jammer 3 out of 6 times. In the times that I didn't earn lead jammer, I did not score any points (the jam was called off by the other jammer before I could make a scoring pass).
In the other three james, I scored 3, 5, and 3 points, for 11 points total.  Other jammers on my team scored 12-14 points each, with Kitty being our top scorer with 26 points :)

The final score was 63 Nice - 115 Naughty.

Point scoring aside, I think I've also improved on my technique as a jammer. One thing I struggled with was once and made my initial pass and rounded around to the back of the pack, I would slow down as if I think I could more easily maneuver around them (especially if there were one or two blockers hanging back waiting for me). This has never worked out for me.


In reality, what a jammer should do, and what I worked on in the last bout, is not give up any speed once she reaches the back of the pack. It's much harder to hit a faster, moving target. Quick reaction time and agility is very important - the second you see a way through, you have to leap (sometimes literally) at the chance.

With these thoughts in mind, I was able to break through a couple times. Believe me, it's hard when you've raced your heart out around the track, only to find Flexi Wheeler (she played on the Naughty team, I was on Nice) waiting for you. Tell yourself: don't be scared, you can do it. Then race up, juke around, and look for your next opportunity to leap.

Deep Derby Discount

Hey local derby girls and boys!

If you bring your USARS card or wear your team jersey to our bout on Saturday, you can get in for the reduced price of just $5! Tell the girls working at the door Short Temper sent you. I hope to see you there!

What I've Been Doing While I Haven't Been Blogging

Heyo! I am back. I'm gonna tell you about what I've been up to the past two weeks.

N(Sm)ashville
Last week I was in Nashville for turkey festivities and mini November vacation. You can read about my insane open skate experience here. While in Nashville, we also saw an NHL hockey game - the Nashville Predators vs. the New York Rangers!! The only hockey I've ever seen was the Albany River Rats, haha. This was fun to watch because all the skaters are so awesome! You would think that knowing how to roller skate would translate well into ice skating ability. Well, it does not for for me. I stink at ice skating. But these hockey players were awesome skaters. Backwards skating on ice like 23424 miles per hour!
The New York Rangers won the game 3 - 2 in overtime.  OH YEAH.

I did try to look up the Nashville Rollergirls, but it didn't look like they had anything going on last weekend.

Prepping for the bout this Saturday
Our next bout is coming right up! Did you enter to win free tickets from Nippertown and All Over Albany? Also, there's going to be a coupon in the Schenectady Gazette on Saturday for $2 off the price of an adult admission at the door. ;)

The theme of our bout on Saturday is Naughty vs. Nice. I'm on the Nice team. :) Tonight at practice I caught up on what I missed while I was away. It felt awesome to be back on my own skates.

Entering this contest
Win Roller Derby Workout exercise DVD from local blogger and derby girl, Lucy in Da Sky. Leave a comment on her blog for a chance to win the DVD. No skates required and your legs will never be the same. This workout DVD looks like it would even be good for non-derby people.

Friday
I think I am going to see Cold Spring at EMPAC. I have no idea what it's about, but there's gonna be some derby girls in it -- on SKATES -- so why not?