A point of frustration

A long time ago everyone was all about spreading the word about derby. But in successive attempts to email teams for stories, no one is answering.

This is a horrible way to keep a blog going, particularly when my focus is using traditional journalistic storytelling in regards to derby.

Simply: If know one is willing to talk to me, I can't tell your story.

Live by the sword, die by the sword

We all fall into mental traps of our own device. Skaters do it. Refs do it. Even coaches do it.

Especially coaches do it.

We fall in love with strategy and the decision making.

In the heat of battle, coaches are called upon to devise the ultimate strategy and instill confidence in his/her players. When it works, it's brilliant. When it doesn't, you get a sinking feeling in your gut. And the you grasp on to it like a fleeting child getting sucked into a giant vortex of doom.

We recently played a team and we were down by 20 points with about three and a half minutes to go. Personally I felt like the point-spread was out of reach for the situation we were in - We had one hot jammer, and their skaters were doing a seemingly miraculous job of staying out of the box (How, I don't know, but I wake up in a cold sweat dreaming about it).

Our only opportunity to come back was to force the opposing jammer to take a bad penalty and go straight into our power-jam No offense is the best offense strategy (Slow derby). We ran into several problems:
1. We couldn't draw a penalty against the opposing jammer even when all four blockers and the jammer were combining efforts. We fell short of knocking her out of bounds and trying to draw cut and/or back blocking penalties on her.
2. Our walls fell apart. It didn't take the other team long to open up gaps and allow their jammer an easy pass.
3. We failed to chase when she did get through to try and reabsorb her into the pack.
4. Our jammers remained in the pack without trying to make it through, choosing to stay and play defense.

It's frustrating to be a coach, ask the team to implement a strategy and then it falls a part on so many levels you don't have time to fix it. We had burned our timeouts trying to keep the clock from ticking off.

After the jam expired, I called for it again. This time with a new lineup. It again failed. I'd fallen in love with something that was pulling me down into the quicksand, and I couldn't let go. The final score ended up being 119-167 I belive. We managed to score zero points in the 3-plus minutes, meanwhile our ultimate defense collapsed.

It's a hard lesson. But maybe I'll learn from it. In the end I don't blame the players, I blame myself. I couldn't let go of the powerful idea of making a key decision, which likely ended up costing us.

Adding another bullet point to the derby resume

Last night (Saturday, July 14) I head reffed a bout for the first time in my derby career (five or so years).


Since I began coaching three years ago, reffing has taken a back seat to my team's need for guidance, skills and strategy. I've only been able to pick up a few bouts here and there in the stripes, including a recent mixer in which I jam reffed for the third time.


I feel like all my experience and rules knowledge really came into play during the entire bout. I focused on leading my crew of referees and non-skating officials and worried less about moment-to-moment game play. Sure, I still made plenty of calls, but instead of always making the calls I was there to make sure the Jam Refs were allowed to make the calls on their jammers or that the other Inside Pack Ref was picking things up, too.


There really wasn't anything that sprang up new, but we did have a couple of learning experiences for many of the refs, including jam refs who needed some clarification on point scoring and best practices. But hey, every bout is a learning experience.


The host league was incredibly hospitable, making sure I had a solid crew in stripes and NSO shirts and it paid off in the end. The NSO and I were in constant communication. Communication is integral to not just officiating but all of derby.


I plan to take this experience and move forward in regards to both coaching and reffing.

DRILL: Welcome to the shark tank

I don't post drill blogs very often, but I'm bored, and the lack of responses from interview requests has me feeling a little down. So here we go ...

Shark Tank
Works best with 8-20 skaters. Takes approx. 5-10 minutes to play one game, sometimes less.

You'll need helmet covers and four cones.

Refs help to watch for illegal hits, but coaches can watch for things, too.

Place cones in a 10 foot by 10 foot square formation. Designate two skaters as "it" or the "sharks" and give them helmet covers for distinction. All other skaters are considered "fish."

- "Fish" may skate in any direction within the confines of the square. They may not exit the square.

- "Sharks" may move through the square, exit the square and even skate around the square.

- The "sharks" goal is to use legal hits (clockwise block would be the only action that is typically illegal, but for the sake of the game is legal) knock the fish down or out of the square. Once down or out, the "fish" exits the square. "Fish" may counterblock. The game continues when only two "fish" are remaining. They now become the new sharks.

If you're skaters are particularly skilled you may shrink the square or add additional sharks, but typically two are just fine. Particularly when they start working together or combo their hitting.

WFTDA games review panel rules Minnesota-Windy City bout ended in tie

"The Games Review Panel has voted to uphold the sanctioning and the tied score of the 6/16/2012 game between Windy City Rollers and Minnesota RollerGirls."

WFTDA membership has voted in the past that major rules violations alone are not sufficient to de-sanction a game. We found, while the lack of an overtime jam is a major rules violation as a result of officiating errors, there is insufficient evidence that there were enough instances of poor and inconsistent officiating to revoke the sanctioning from this game. As for the unprecedented tied score, we stand by the submitted bout paperwork as the correct totals for the game."

~ Women's Flat Track Derby Association, July 7, 2012

June 2012 DNN rankings

http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/2012/07/dnn_releases_july_2012_power_rankings


The rankings by Derby News Network are out, and while there's a few given top spots (Gotham, Rose and Denver) surprises continue to happen.

The Chicago Outfit have struggled this last season with the transfers of Sweet Mary Pain and Gaygan (Molly Hachet also transferred, but I couldn't remember if she was on the A-team roster) with tough losses and even tougher close games.

Their games against Arch Rivals during the 2011 North Central Region Tournament were literally off the chain, each team splitting their contests, but ultimately Outfit getting the better end of the deal. Perhaps, we'll see a repeat this year.

Windy City and Minnesota have the top two slots locked up in the North Central Region. We're still waiting WFTDA word on the association's ruling after it was determined the game ended in a tie during the clash at Roy Wilkins Auditorium. WFTDA has ruled that the tie stands and the bout remains sanctioned. (WCR has two bouts remaining prior to the NC tournament: South Bend, July 14; and Denver, Aug. 25.)

Iowa darlings, the Mid Iowa Rollers, have bounced back from a bizarre season managing a decent ranking in the WFTDA's South Central Region, their play against Kansas City vaulting them up the rankings. Proof that a team can play the big competition, lose and still gain something out of it.

Wasatch has vaulted in the rankings, mainly through the same course, e.g. playing tough teams and getting key wins against other teams in their region. It's hard to imagine this relatively new team has grown so quickly so fast. (Personal editor's note: There are some pretty awesome women on that team.) Their ref crew could easily be one of the top 20 in the nation, and it shows through Wasatch's play.

Montreal's surprise win over Charm City has the rankings boards and derby journalists excited about the New Skids again. They displayed excellent skill last year during ECDX and their shot at a championship bracket berth shot down by London in the 2011 East Region Tournament. Montreal gave an impressive performance at ECDX this year and could easily vie for a top 3 spot in the eastern regional tournament this year.

Ties not limited to Father's Day

In September 23, 1908, Fred Merkle committed a base running error when his teammate crossed home plate for the winning run for the New York Giants. The crowd stormed the outfield. Convinced the game was over, Merkle, who was heading to second base on a Al Bridwell single, turned around and headed for the club house. The Chicago Cubs recognized Merkle had never touched second base and scoured the area for the baseball, even tackling a Giants fan for the trophy. Long story short, the Cubs retrieved the ball, tagged second, and recorded the out, negating the winning run.

In all the hoopla, the game ended in a rarity for the sport of baseball, a tie.

The National Hockey League eliminated ties in the 2005-06 season, ruling that games would end in a shootout after a five-minute 4-on-4 overtime period. Prior to the ruling, teams earned 2 points in the standing for wins, and 1 point for a tie. Currently, any team losing in the overtime period or shootout is awarded 1 point for an overtime loss.

The National Football League currently records 17 games ending in a tie, the most recent between Philadelphia Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals who played to 13-13 on Nov. 16, 2008.

Historically, they don't occur often. Roller derby, or more specifically the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, has particular guidelines to ensure that games do not end in a tie.

That changed on June 16, 2012, during a contest between Windy City and Minnesota. While the scoreboard at the end of the game showed Minnesota the victor by a 160-155 margin, further scrutiny of the score showed the point total should have ended 155-155. The game and its outcome are currently under review by WFTDA.

You can watch the bout, available at YouTube.

The game remained incredibly tight throughout the 60 minutes.

In a game in its amateur stages, roller derby doesn't have the luxuries afforded professional athletic competitions, namely the backing of an independent officiating organization.

Derby's DIY attitude unfortunately extends to the referee and non-skating officials, as each league is customarily sharing talent when they bout. The home and away teams each bring in their own talent to staff bouts.

Thankfully, with WFTDA's recent addition of a leveled certification for NSOs and it's already rigorous referee certification process, the sport is slowly transitioning into a uniform standard. Most tournaments are staffed via a head referee and head NSO selected talents from an applicant pool.

I'm not sure how the MINN-WCR bout was staffed, but I'm assuming it's through the former process of a shared talent pool.

The problem with any system is that mistakes are made. The problem with derby is that there's so much uncertainty to be translated by a small set of eyes.

Points in most other sports are easy to spot: The ball goes in the hoop, the puck goes in the net and the guy with the ball crosses into the end zone. Points are clearly assigned based upon an event in which very little interpretation is necessary.

In roller derby, the jammer scores the points by legally passing blockers as she skates in bounds. Points require a jam referee to be watching his/her jammer while accumulating information from several sources.
-An outside pack referee relaying a penalty or No Pass No Penalty inside
- An inside pack referee relays Out of Play penalties so a jam ref can appropriately determine pass/point
- The penalty box may hold ghost points

Even after points are awarded, the officials may find that points were Awarded in Error, and must take them away or that the jam referee missed a point in the box.

Or worse, there could be a math error or a mistake between the score sheets and the scoreboard.

Lots of things could happen. And they do happen. Mistakes are made. It's unfortunate that a bout had to be "called" if even unofficial in error and now the outcome is left up to WFTDA.

I'm not sure how the situation would resolve, but if it is found to be a tie, then I think the teams should have to skate in a makeup game. Regardless, Minnesota certainly proved it deserves to be at the top of the North Central Region.

LINKS
http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/2012/06/13_minnesota_4_windy_city_play_stalemate
http://www.windycityrollers.com/wcr-and-mnrg-all-stars-play-exceptionally-close-bout/
The last six minutes from fan video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YQ74mOTaCM