Poodle versus playing

I had a conversation with a visiting referee from Cajun Rollergirls on Wednesday, in which he recounted penalty wrangling for a Texas home team bout featuring a team of veterans.

In that bout, the team deliberately didn't poodle (intentionally picking up their fourth minor through an False Start Illegal Procedure). Instead the team would somehow play and pick up fourth minors through regular game play.

I marveled at such a feat, essentially playing the game at an extremely high level and having the control to pick up your fourth minor during a jam, rather than intentionally pick it up at the beginning at the jam.

Both strategies have their merit, but the level of play that it takes to pick up your fourth through game play just astounded to me.

I guess in a world of minors that will soon end, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. I'm incredibly excited when we refuse to allow something as simple as a minor penalty affect strategy or game play.

Last night we played Mid Iowa Rollers. We had scouted them pretty hard a few weeks back when they played and defeated Iowa City's Old Capitol City Roller Girls, and developed our own strategies based on a few miscues from OCCRG.

What we didn't practice was picking up our fourth minor during game play.

We didn't win. But then again we did way better than I thought we would. We managed to force them to play derby.

Our two top jammers in rotation would start to pick up their minors and it eventually came time to decide whether to poodle them or let them skate. It was more out of necessity to have them skate, as one player already was in the box. With both of my jammers playing as blockers in the same pack they managed to pick up their fourth minors at different times and get clean for their next jam rotation.

An unexpected side effect to such a tactic: You're giving your (future) jammer a minute to rest in the box, instead of poodling her, letting her sit for a minute and then have to play as a blocker.

By having her pick up her fourth after the pack whistle you minimize how much time she has to skate before she will jam.

Sure, it's not without its faults. One picked up a major instead of her fourth, but she eventually got rotated into the pack again and picked up her fourth minor. And a player could end up picking up her minor at the the end of the jam, only to sit for a minute, then play, then jam. But in a world of 45 second to minute:thirty jams, it doesn't really affect the game that much.

Top 10 Things to happen to Derby in 2012 - For better or worse

(Editor's note: I'm going to preface this with a quick note that opinions in this blog that are entirely my own.)

WFTDA.TV charging for live video stream: Numerous complaints came about the low quality HD feed, but remember the simpler days when DNN provided fantastic coverage and only asked for donations? I do. WFTDA continues to find ways to leech off the people who helped put the organization together. If we keep cannibalizing off each other, we will kill this sport, and have no one else to blame but ourselves. The FREE audio feed keeps dropping out, and the commentary is set up for video, not audio. So for all that practice at being an announcer with a live crowd, your primary audience has to pay to see the action. Un-fucking-believable. Why would I pay 50 dollars for the video pass, and then have to fork over another 15 dollars for a DVD. Is this money going into better broadcasting, because that's where WFTDA should put there money before they pushed DNN and other web journalists out of the mix.

The end of the Gatekeepers versus New York Stock Exchange bout during Spring Roll. Behind considerably, NYSE takes exceptional liberties with the rules to manipulate gameplay into a come-from-behind win. As angry as you want to be, you still shake your head at the impossibility of come back facing New York, yet they managed to pull out a win.  The Gatekeepers got some measure of revenge against NYSE in their August 11 rematch, winning 197-141.

Gotham's win streak: Gotham's 187-84 win over Bay Area tied the WFTDA all-time sanctioned win streak at 22 on Sunday, July 22, and later broke that record with their 265-60 win over Star of Texas hostesses Texas. Gotham (hasn't/hadn't) lost a game since November 6, 2010, when they lost by 34 points to Rocky Mountain, 113-79, in the semifinal game of the 2010 WFTDA Championship Tournament. Rocky Mountain went on to beat Oly by one point, 147-146, to earn first place. Since that loss, Gotham went on to win third place against Philly at the 2010 tournament, blazing its 2011 competition, becoming the 2011 champions, and currently undefeated in 2012 season play.


Peg-Assist at ECDX - While not nearly as game-changing as Windy City's use of the Spiral Staircase last year, Rose City's little manuever to swing their jammer around to the front wowed fans and players alike. Within the next day leagues were posting links and videos of the feat, and more than a few hundred skaters were practicing it. Windy City would use the manuever against Bay Area during the Star of Texas Bowl on July 22, 2011.

Gotham's possible repeat as champions - Every other championship caliber team, save for the top two North Central teams, seem to have had a mass exodus of players. While New York has had its share of players leaving, it's hurt their competition more. Oly and Rocky took considerable hits to the roster, leaving Rose City as the West Region's gem.

The North Central tournament hosted in New York - What the fuck? I understand that leagues put in bids to host the region and championship tournament, but did no one from the North Central actually bid? Why the fuck does Niagra get to host the tournament, when they're in the East Central?

New rule set - There's been a lot of speculation over the past coming months what with WFTDA's announcement of the new rule set. A lot of fans and players are talking about the riddance of scrum starts. Least of anyone's worries: No minors.

Minnesota-Windy City Rollers skating to an uncontested tie. What the fuck. WFTDA declared that no game could end in a tie. And then they ruled that it ended in a tie. Of course, this only shakes up the North Central Region, as the two teams have jockeyed in the No. 1 and 2 slot for the past three playoffs (at least)

Oly's charter roster: Who's on it and where do they come from? There have been rumblings about Oly pulling players from other cities to come and play for the Cosa Nostra Donnas, many of which never actually practice with the team. http://bettyfordgalaxy.blogspot.com/2012/08/oly-oly-oly-what-when-onda-who.html
http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/2012/08/dnn_interview_joy_collision_arizona_oly_transfer
The recent retirement of Romina "Stella Italiana" Muse, left a hole in the roster no doubt, but compared the level of skaters Oly is pulling in, that news remained rather quiet.

Really?: This was written last year, arguably during the rise of men's derby, but it started to creep into circulation again, thanks to Facebook. I can't believe anyone would have the audacity to print this. I'd be interested to see where the writer's opinions rest a year later. http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/jackalope/2011/03/five_reasons_we_dont_need_mens.php

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