NYC on Saturday

http://www.gothamgirlsrollerderby.com/

I'm headed to NYC tomorrow for the Gotham Girls Championship Bout at the City College of New York in Harlem.  What's better is that one of our fresh meat, Shrimp Scampi, is joining me!

As of the publication of this post, it looks like tickets are still available.  I've never been to a Gotham home game - they usually play at Hunter College ... so I speculate the bout location change is to accommodate more fans. I've tried to get tickets to Gotham games before but I always wait until the last minute when they've sold out already. So I'm super stoked I was able to nab tickets yesterday!

Gotham has several home intraleague teams. Their Championship Bout will see the Bronx Gridlock face off against the Queens of Pain. The main reason I am excited to attend this event is because former Hellion (and a league co-founder) The Beirut Bombshell is on the roster for the Queens of Pain! Bombshell moved to NYC a little over a year ago, so I only had the privilege of skating with her a few times. We were so proud when she tried out and made it to Gotham. Over my time involved with HoT, I've met her several times and she is definitely one of my roller derby roll models.

Gotham is ranked #1 in the WFTDA Eastern Region.  I will also be seeing them next weekend in Chicago at the WFTDA Championships!

Anyway, I think we plan to spend some time in NYC during the day on Saturday...Shrimp Scampi has never been so I've got to show her the sights! Times Square is clearly in order, but what should we check out beyond that? We can't wander off too far as we've gotta be back up in Harlem by around 7pm. I hate to just limit to midtown Manhattan, but I think that might be all we have time for.

2010 Zombie Prom

Space Chalky and Taxi: AKA the Zombie Prom King
and Prom Queen!

Not much to say except that it was hoppin'! Zombie Bomb provided a set of musical entertainment and we also had PYX106 there to fill in the rest. The best part of the night was when Space Chalky and his girlfriend Melissa, aka Taxi, were crowned the Zombie King and Zombie Queen!

Awards on display in the Royal Home.

The awards were provided by Carried Away Coffins, who also had a mini gallery at the Linda this past weekend.  In case you missed it there, you can check out the Coffin King 2010 Art Event at the Marketplace Gallery in downtown Albany through Saturday. There's over 200 Coffin Plaques representing 20 area tattoo shops...and you can vote for your favorite Coffin and help name the Coffin King 2010. I heard it's pretty good so I hope to stop by and check it out.

Also, thanks to the Times Union for stopping by before the prom to do a SEEN segment. You can see those pictures here.

Hellions Zombies! Back L-R Storm, Rock Lobster (fresh meat), Hana Solo,
Ursula Udders, Asa Diamonds. Front L-R: Shrimp Scampi, Deadlie Mercury
Photo courtesy of DM

New Series: Meat Locker Missive

One of our awesome fresh meat, Road Kill, has been contributing a weekly recount of her experience as a new skater with the Hellions of Troy. Unless you've been keeping up with our facebook, you've been missing out on her musings.  So I'd like to start cross posting it here!

Meat Locker Missive #3: The Fine Art of a Derby Hit

Guest post by Roadkill

This week we meat have had the benefit of 2 full practices on the track, with vets helping us enormously (normally, we get one day a week on the track and the other 2 days on the sidelines working away on skills and endurance drills while the vets scrimmage or practice). But the real bonus has been a fuller introduction to hitting techniques and how to take a hit. If for some reason you've found your way to this post and don't know a lot about roller derby: it's a high speed contact sport!

2010 Albany Zombie Walk

Getting gruesome.
Photo by Kayla Galway.

After applying way too much makeup for last year's zombie events, I was hesitant to doll myself up as dramatically. However, since WAMC provided makeup artists at the walk meetup location, I decided to go for it anyway!

Zombies started congregating for the walk at 3pm, and by the time 5pm rolled around we had a nice big group. Thank you to AOA Greg for stopping by to capture some pictures of the walk. Check out the post on AOA.

Photo by Kayla Galway

The Walk went very well. I loved people's reactions as they watched from store fronts. Zombie Squad was there to keep back zombies from getting to close to the innocent. We also had mounted police to control the flow of traffic. Sadly no firetruck.

Here's a video of the Walk, courtesy of Space Chalky!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn3vKiOtp0w Check out "Zombie Billy Mays" around 3:50.


Update: Photos by Sebastien B.: http://barre.me/2010/10/25/albany-zombie-walk-2010/  He got a picture of Haggis on her skates, and my favorite zombie with the numbers on her face.  Woohoo.  Thanks for coming out to shoot! Full slideshow here.

Once we got to the parking lot of the Linda, there was a Thriller Dance Off as well as a Brain Eating Contest. I wanted to grab dinner with some Hellions before the prom started. I rounded up my friends but couldn't find Mathundra....where was she?

Find out after the jump...

The Point of No Return

Written with help from Hellions Head Ref, Miranda Wrights

A few nights ago at practice, we were discussing the strategy of "poodling" with the fresh meat. "Poodling" is when you take a player (usually a player who will be a jammer soon) with 3 minor penalties, and force them to get their 4th minor (4 minors equals a trip to the penalty box). When penalized at the very beginning of the jam, they go straight to the penalty box. They leave with minors at zero and start jamming with a clean slate. You wouldn't want to send a jammer our to jam if she has three minor penalties. One minor infraction and she's wasting time in the box. Dang!

How do they get their fourth minor? They start the jam out of play—like in front of the pack line or behind the jammer line. Since the only jammers can start behind that line, an astute ref sends the poodling player to the box with her 4th minor when the whistle blows.

However, a clever poodler uses the “Point of No Return”, a special spot on the determined based on the location of the penalty box. 7.3.2 of the WFTDA Rules states "When a skater is sent to the penalty box, she must immediately exit the track and skate to the penalty box in the counter-clockwise direction." Counter-clockwise is “derby direction”. If she has skated past the penalty box, she can’t turn around, skate clockwise, and try to enter the penalty box. She must skate all around the track and legally enter the box.

The Point of No Return is the point just after the last seat in the penalty box—beyond that is considered "past" the penalty box. Since time is of the essence—a blocker wants the shortest distance before this point.

What’s the best strategy? When the penalty box is between the pivot and jammer lines, poodling behind the jammers is the shortest distance to the box.

If the box is at turn three (about a quarter track behind the jammer line) then poodling behind the jammers isn't ideal. The poodler can’t skate clockwise to the to the box, even though it's the shortest distance. Instead they would have to go all the way around the track. Remember, you have to enter the box from a counter-clockwise “derby” direction.

So a strategic player starts as close to the box as possible without getting on the wrong side of the Point of No Return. Time is of the essence when you are sent to the box: your minute in the box does not start until your butt is in the seat!

Derby Bracket Contest

Screencap of contest.

This has been floating around Facebook... it's a 2010 WFTDA Championships bracket contest from Dave Wood Photography. From the facebook page:

On the weekend of November 5-7, 2010, twelve of the best roller derby teams in the world will come together in Chicago for the Uproar on the Lakeshore Championship Tournament. The bracket has been announced -- all you have to do is predict the winners and you could find yourself the winner of some quite lovely prizes. Hop on over to the contest page and submit your entry!

It looks like the photographer is based out of Denver, CO.  Check out his website for some artistic/action derby photography (under portfolio > roller derby).

Well, what are you waiting for? Enter the contest here: http://davewoodphotography.com/derbycontest/

It's free to enter and your winning bracket selections will put you in the running for prizes from Heartless Wheels, Sock Dreams, fiveonfive Magazine, Savage Skates, Wicked Skatewear, and Dave Wood Photography.

Update: Need something to base your picks on? Check out the Championship Preview from Roller Derby Inside Track. Great run down on all the teams participating.

Derby Fashion

Here's some derby stuff I've come across recently that I really like.


Skate Cardigan by Wicked Skatewear. $39.99. I first saw this at Wicked's booth back at ECE. I almost bought it, but had spent way too much money already. If they have it at Nationals, I might pick it up... I wonder if I could get away with wearing this to work.

Custom AssOgrams by hotacrossbuns. $12.  I've seen some funny phrases, such as "Get Low", "See Ya", "Kill the Jammer".  I'm just trying to find the right phrase for me.  Any ideas?

MEAT socks from Sock Dreams (and other vendors). $10.  I'm not fresh meat anymore, but I wish I found these socks back when I was.  Sock Dreams has tons of awesome derby type socks. I would like shopping spree there!

Monster hat from mymonsterhat.com. $15.  The amazing Anne Persand has a "no discard policy" for making her hats.  All scraps from the hats are made into something.  If they're large pieces, she reworks them into unique custom hats from special requests (she did a unicorn hat at Eastern Regionals!)  Smaller pieces become little plush monsters or are used for stuffing them.  Anne's work is a fun fusion of craft and art - which fits right into the DIY world of roller derby!

Here is Mathundra Storm modeling a custom lighting bolt hat, followed by a custom HoT hat Anne created for Flexi.

Visit mymonsterhat.com to place a custom order.  Anne will pretty much make you ANYTHING.

An MVP for us All

Check out this post by Jeremy, aka Mr. Euthanizer, aka Sonic Euthanizer's husband. The Hellions love the Euthanizers and I love this post he wrote for our very own Flexi Wheeler.

Check out more of Jeremy's blog, 7 and a Half Pounds, too. He's a runner and a daddy and a derby lover.

Schenectady Art Night Recap

Rambo, Mutton, and I had a lot of fun at Art Night Schenectady last Friday! There were LOTS of people milling around Proctor's, and I'm sure even more were out and about in the other venues. The organizers of Art Night are really friendly.

Short and Mutton enjoy some cake.

It was really fun to skate around inside Proctor's, lobby, even though it's carpeted. We were set up near the Muddy Cup. There was also a Cake Boss type competition on the other side of the lobby, and even cake for sale! The three of us each sampled a slice. Bettie's Cakes had a cupcake decorating station downstairs, and I saw lots of people with awesome cupcakes. Yum! If you want to drool, look at their photos on facebook. Wowww. One of the owners also stopped by our table to say hello.

We talked to a lot of people, and some girls bought some shirts. I love talking to people in Schenectady about Rollarama. Almost everyone says, "I used to skate there when I was a kid!" if they're an adult; or, "I skate there!" if they are a kid, haha. It's so great that Schenectady/Rotterdam has a nice family facility like that. All my town had was a dang bowling alley.

It's also hilarious when people finally notice we're on skates. Do they think we glide so gracefully across the floor by walking? My favorite thing to say to people with strollers is "nice wheels!" On the carpet near Muddy Cup, there was a big circle pattern, maybe a 12 foot diameter, which I was skating around the perimeter. A lady was watching me, so I said, "do you ever just feel like you're just skating around in circles?" Ahahha, I am so funny. I really love Schenectady, everyone there is so nice.

Reading Rambo and Short Temper

A big shout out to Reading Rambo, who did an incredible job as our bout production manager for our bout last week. She helped coordinate our appearance at Art Night - we really want to be a presence in Schenectady because we'll be bouting at Rollarama for the foreseeable future. And it really is a great venue. Look at this ridiculous picture of me and Rambo. Am I really that short?? There are a few other pictures where I just can't believe the height difference. Pretty much any picture where I am situated near Epic Kate-tastrophe or Deadlie Mercury. Anyway, Rambo is awesome and is so dedicated to the success of our team. If you ever see her, make sure you give her a high five!

Oh, and Mutton! She's one of our super awesome fresh meat. She's been a big help to me with pr/marketing stuff for this bout, so high five to her, too!

Art Night Schenectady is the third Friday of every month. The next event will be November 19.

Zombie Walk/Prom Teaser

The Zombie Walk and Prom were on Saturday, and it was so much fun! Here I am at the end of the walk in the parking lot of the Linda.

I also want to note that the best part of this photo is the guy with the clown wig and the unicycle in the background.  It takes all types to put on a zombie walk.

During the walk, I have to give a big shout out to the Zombie Squad for working with us in an official capacity this year. They were so professional also a tremendous help throughout the weekend. And great at keeping unruly zombies in line throughout the walk.

Before the prom, 14 of us stopped over to Shining Rainbow on Central Avenue for dinner. We were obviously quite a site. Definitely got some looks from the other patrons, but the owners were very welcoming.

Anyway, I plan to highlight some of the fun stuff from the walk and prom this week, so stay tuned.