Mitten Kittens Victorious at Fall Brawl

Posted on November 29, 2007

Nov. 26, 2007 - AK-40oz.

Michigan’s Finest attended the first ever Fall Brawl this Saturday and took home the sterling silver! The tournament saw the first of the Kittens in official bout play, and they came with the ferocity there were shades of when they faced the Windy City Rollers. Featuring a mixed all-star lineup (Grand Raggidy: Dot Matrix, Jackie Daniels, Bette Mangler, Vindicator, Lil Ha Ha, and Lindsay Blowhan/Detroit: Cookie Rumble, Bikini Killer, Vega Vendetta, Devil Kitty, Kat Von D Stroya, and “The Phenom” Racer McChaseHer) the Kittens pounced on the opposition right out of the bag.

Facing the Rockford Rage travel team the Kittens jumped ahead and took the first round 74-7 with a well-rounded assault from primary jammers Racer, Jackie and Dot. In the second round the kittens faced off against Cincinnatti Rollergirls, new members of WFTDA. Cincinnati bested the Ft. Wayne Flying Squirrel squad and looked to be one of the top contenders of the tournament. Cincinnati’s big blockers and hard-hitting defense, with speedy jammer Sadistic Sadie, batted the Kittens back and forth. With the clock winding down, Cincinnati had managed to wear down the Kittens and take the lead. Having faced penalty trouble, they called a timeout, the fired up and came out furiously with the big cats.

With under 1 minute remaining, the Cincinnati girls had the lead again by two and Cookie, Bikini, Dot and Jackie lined up with Racer looking to grab at least enough points to send the bout into overtime. Thanks to some fantastic teamwork and the game breaking jamming of McChaseHer they caught 4 points before time was up, and advanced to the finals. Cincinnati took third in the tournament and definitely made an impression on everyone on the tourney as a team to watch for.

After the nerve-wracking last minute victory the Kittens started the Championship against hosts Ft. Wayne’s Bomb Squad travel team with a barrage of hitting and a strong jammer rotation to take an early lead and try to get some quick points before Ft. Wayne could make adjustments. Having played 2 bouts already the Mitten Kitten skaters seemed more confident and comfortable working with their nemesisters from across the Great Lakes State, and played incredibly strong together. The Bomb Squad had beaten the Hammer City girls of Hamilton Ontario and the Rebelles from Grand Rapids, both great showings for the Ft.Wayne team. They fought hard to the end, but the Kittens had figured out their rhythm and struck hard and early and never let up. The final saw the Kittens with 98 and the Bomb Squad with 16, and with wins over two tough, young WFTDA teams the Kittens emerged victorious as the first ever Fall Brawl Champions!

Though we don’t know when the Kittens will strike next, both Grand Rapids and Detroit will feature bouts with most of the tournament’s skaters. This Friday (Nov 30th) Kittens and Blue Collar Broads Jackie Daniels, Dot Matrix, Bette Mangler, Mira Maheiney, Lindsay Blowhan and Lil Ha Ha will face off against fierce rivals The Roustabout Rollers and MK assister extraordinare, The Vindicator. www.gr-rollergirls.com

Captain Cookie Rumble, Devil Kitty, Vega Vendetta, Bikini Killer and the rest of the Detroit Pistoffs kick off their intra-league season against the D-Funk All Stars and Kittens Black Eyed Skeez and Polly Fester (MVP vs Windy City) on December 8th at the Masonic Temple in Detroit. www.detroitderbygirls.com

Diary of a Detroit Derby Announcer - Regionals Day 2

Posted on August 20, 2007

August 18 Heartland Havoc travel report from Rusty Wheeler

Saturday, August 18, dawned clear and bright over Columbus, Ohio, scene of day 2 of the Heartland Havoc roller derby tournament. Had a cheap breakfast in the food court, sitting at a table with a couple of folks (a skater and ref) from a Kentucky roller derby league.

I proceeded to Battelle Hall to watch the first match of the day between the #7 seeded Windy City Rollers (obviously from Chicago with a name like that) and the #1 seeded “Dairyland Dolls” from the Mad Rollin’ Dolls in Madison, Wisconsin. Windy City came out on fire, and throttled the Dairyland jammers, and then took charge of all aspects of the game. Windy City won in an upset, 94-63.

That brought up the second game of the day, the #9 seeded Detroit Derby Girls vs. the #2 seeded Minnesota RollerGirls. Since Minnesota had brought their announcer, Scotty Cruz, and because Ohio’s announcer, Tank, wanted only three total announcers for a bout, Big Poppa Razzi and I decided to alternate periods between us. Poppa took the 1st and 3rd periods, and I took the second.

I was really worried about playing Minnesota. Going by past records, Minny had played Carolina pretty even, and back in march, Carolina stomped Detroit’s butts flat. But hey, anything can happen in a derby game, right? So, then, let’s rrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooooooooollllllllllll!!!!!

Racer McChaseHer took the first jam of the game vs. Minnesota’s Roxanne Rolls, and Racer outscored Roxanne 4-3. Then DDG’s Honey Suckit upped the score to 8-3. On the 3rd jam of the 1st period, Minny’s Desi Cration skated a double Grand Slam and outscored DDG’s Elle McFearsome 10-4 to put Minny up 13-8. Uh oh, I thought, here we go (oh, me of little faith!). Next Racer outscored Suzi Smashbox 7-4 to cut the Minny lead to 17-15, then DDG’s Killbox outscored Minny’s Roxanne Rolls 6-4 to tie the score at 21-21. Well, that certainly looked better on the scoreboard, I thought. It also helped that Minny’s jammer went to the penalty box during the jam. Minny’s jammer started the next jam, and DDG’s Vega Vendetta took advantage, racking up nine points to none for Minny, giving Detroit the lead, 30-21. The next jam between DDG’s Honey Suckit and Minny’s Jawbreaker produced no score. By the end of the period, Minnesota got a little closer, but Detroit still led 38-33. Yay!

DDG’s Racer McChaseHer opened the 2nd period with a Grand Slam, scoring eight points to zero while giving Detroit a 46-33 lead. Then Minny grabbed lead jammer status three straight jams, but only cut Detroit’s lead to 54-43. Detroit then took charge, getting lead jammer four straight jams and outscoring Minnesota 14-6 to then lead 68-49. But then Detroit was shut out five straight jams to close the period, with Minnesota getting lead jammer each of those five jams, and scoring 17 points. Ouch. At the end of the 2nd period, Detroit led by an all too slim margin of 68-66. Momentum was clearly on the side of the Minnesota RollerGirls.

The third period opened, and the entire Detroit team shifted their play into a higher gear. Detroit’s jammers got the lead eight straight times. Detroit also shut out Minnesota for the first five jams. Detroit shut them out 6 out of the first 8 of those jams, and only allowed five points while Detroit’s jammers scored 20 points. At that point Detroit led 88-71, and time was running low. But I also have to clearly state that the reason Detroit played so well with getting lead jammer, was not just because of the jammers’ abilities, but also because of the superb job Detroit’s blockers did in bottling up Minnesota’s jammers while simultaneously clearing paths for DDG’s jammers to get through. It was magnificent skating!

There were only three jams to go, and Detroit outscored Minnesota 11-6 in those jams, with Racer McChaseHer sealing the deal with eight points on the last jam, giving Detroit a well-earned 99-77 victory. It was also the second major upset of the day. It also meant the Detroit qualified to attend the national roller derby championship tournament in Austin, Texas at the end of September! Mamma Morphine (Morphine’s mom) of the Texas Rollergirls was in attendance at the Heartland Havoc bout selling tickets to the national tournament, and even better was the fact she was wearing a black DDG hoody all during the Detroit-Minnesota bout! (Thank you, Mamma Morphine!)

For those who are statistically minded, top scorers were: For Detroit: Racer McChaseHer 46 points, Killbox 19, Vega Vendetta 13, Honey Suckit 12, Rock Candy 9. For Minnesota: Desi Cration 24 points, Suzie Smashbox 19, Jawbreaker 15, Roxanne Rolls 7, Harmony Killerbruise 4, Rebel Stella 4, Voodoo Prodigy 4.

Other games after Detroit’s game on Saturday night saw New York’s Gotham Girls destroy the Philly (Philadelphia) Rollergirls 139-81. Philadelphia had a bye the previous day, being out of the top four seeds (seeded #4), but Gotham, the #5 seed, easily handled them. About two-thirds of the way through the first period, the score was 13-1 in favor of Gotham. Gotham led 49-35 after one period,and 94-60 after two periods. Gotham’s jammers, especially #55, Suzy Hotrod, will be a handful for Detroit’s blockers on Sunday. Also, Bonnie Thunders, Cheap Skate, and even Beatrix Slaughter will be tough to totally stop. Gotham also has some real tough blockers, in particular the wickedly good Beonslay. After all of DDG’s skaters watched Gotham dismantle Philly, I noticed DDG’s Whiskey Soured hob-nobbing with Beonslay. I told them both I expected to see them joined at the hip in Sunday’s game. They were sharing the derby love, chumming like a couple of old pals. I’ll bet it will be a different kind of derby love (more like derby smackdown!) in Sunday’s game!

There was one final game on Saturday night. It featured the #6 Providence Roller Derby, winners on Friday night over Ohio, playing the rested (due to a bye) #3 seeded Carolina Rollergirls. I was pleased to see that Carolina put a whippin’ on Providence who was led by that sassy Dolly Rocket, Carolina winning by 98-55. I do have to say that Dolly Rocket is a great skater, easily the best skater on Providence. Apparently she is also moving to a different city so that will be Providence’s loss.

Diary of a Detroit Derby Announcer - Regionals Day 1

Posted on August 20, 2007

August 16/17 Heartland Havoc travel report from Rusty Wheeler

Most of the DDG travel team and support staff traveled to Columbus, Ohio, on the evening of Thursday, August 16, to attend the Heartland Havoc roller derby tournament. Twelve WFTDA teams from the East region were attending this event, with the top four finishers earning a trip to the National playoffs in Texas in September.

We arrived in Columbus around 11:30 pm, then checked in at the Hyatt Regency in downtown. I stayed up until 3 am (having stayed up until 2 am the night before) to work on updating DDG stats, just to have a few more tidbits of information to talk about at the bout. I definitely think I go way overboard trying to get the stats updated, I need to stop that stuff!

Awoke at 7am, and just for convenience, ate breakfast in the Hyatt’s restaurant on the 2nd floor, “The Market Stand Cafe.” As usual for a fancy hotel restaurant, it was expensive. I only had two scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, and toast, all for $11.50. Yikes.

I then quickly walked several blocks north of the Hyatt along High St (I didn’t see any folks along the way who appeared high, though) to the MoJoe Lounge, where a team captain meeting had started at 8 am. That was followed by a 9 am ref meeting in the same location. I left the ref meeting around 8:45 as I had to walk back to the Hyatt to attend an announcer’s meeting at 10am in the 2nd floor bar (sorry for any drinkers in attendance, but the bar wasn’t serving that early). “The Tank” from the Ohio Roller Girls was coordinating the announcing for the HH tourney, and they went over some things, gave us our admission ID badges, then a short walking tour, showing us the location of the food court - way cheaper than the restaurant where I ate breakfast!

But on to the games!

The first game of Friday was between the #10 seeded Atlanta Rollergirls and the #7 seeded Windy City rollers. Atlanta went out to an early lead, but Windy City came back and took the lead. Windy City ended up winning by a 106-77 score. I was still preparing for the following Detroit (#9) vs. Boston (#8) game. DDG’s Big Poppa Razzi hadn’t arrived, so Baam Baam of the Mad Rollin’ Dolls (Madison, WI) was prepping with me as Tank had assigned him to the game. Poppa Razzi finally arrived about 30 minutes before the DDG game started, so we had three folks talking on the mics.

Announcing was sort of difficult. Where we were sitting, we couldn’t actually hear what was being blasted through the loudspeakers to everyone in attendance, which meant that with the background level of noise we really couldn’t hear our fellow announcers very well. But we weren’t getting body-checked all over the derby track like the derby girls, so we figured it wasn’t too bad of a deal for us low-lifes, uh, I mean announcers!

And what a game it was! Boston’s Sarah Doom outscored DDG’s Rock Candy 4-0 on the very first jam, then Racer McChaseHer outscored Maura Buse 9-0 to put DDG up 9-4. After 6 jams the score was tied 20-20. On the 8th jam of the 1st period, Rock Candy outscored Maura Buse 10-zip as Buse had to go to the penalty box for being naughty. Detroit led after the 1st period, 36-32.

Racer put Detroit up 41-32 after the 1st jam of the 2nd period, but after the 3rd jam, Maura Buse put Boston up 44-41. Summer’s Eve-L had a bit of trouble with naughtiness herself, and managed to go to the penalty box a couple of times while jamming. After 5 jams Boston led 58-44. Boston seemed to sense they had a chance to pull away, but DDG cut the Boston lead to 58-53. At the end of the period Boston led 68-62.

There were seemingly more Boston fans (with signs) than DDG fans in attendance, which was a bit of a disappointment as Detroit is much closer to Columbus than Beantown, but c’est la vie. (By the way, “c’est la vie” is French for “time to cheat!”)

OK, so the 3rd period started with Boston outscoring the big D by 4-0 to then lead 72-62, then Racer outscored Sarah Doom 8-0 to pull Detroit to within 72-70. Finally, on the 5th jam of the 3rd period Killbox scored 4 points to put DDG up 78-77. But then Sarah Doom (pronounced “Doooooooooooooooommmmm” by the way) put Boston up again by 84-78.Then Maura Buse made it 88-79 just past the halfway mark of the 3rd period, and things were starting to look a bit grim for Detroit as time was beginning to run short. Then on the 9th jam of the period, Honey Suckit outscored Maura Buse 10-0 to put DDG up 93-92. Maura had been banished to the Box early in the jam, and Honey took full advantage of Boston skating without a jammer.

This is when the game got to its most intense moments. On the 10th jam of the period, Racer made it a 95-93 game in favor of Detroit. Cookie Rumble and Sarah Doom both were scoreless in the 11th jam. That set up the 12th jam of the 3rd period, with Racer vs. Doom. Racer was trying to pass one last Boston skater which would have given Racer lead jammer status and would have salted away the win, but referee Justice Feelgood Marshall instead penalized Racer for cutting the track, so DDG lost their jammer at a very critical juncture. Then, wouldn’t you know it, Sarah Doom got around the track, and with mere seconds remaining passed two Detroit skaters to tie the score at 95-95 when the clock ran out. If the clock would have had a few more ticks left, she would have passed another Detroit Derby Girl which would have won the game for Boston. As you can guess, the crowd was entirely on their feet during these last few jams, and everyone was going completely nuts. I usually try to not rip the refs too much, but I boldly asserted that ref Marshall had jobbed Racer by giving her a bogus penalty. (Later, after the game, Racer stated that she had cut the track and did deserve the penalty. So I will have to find ref Marshall on Saturday and give him an apology). Still not so sure about that though.

There was one minute rest, and the game went into overtime. There was no lead jammer status to fight over as the jammers began accruing points on their first trip through the pack. This also meant that the jam would last the full two minutes in length. One big problem, though, is that Detroit’s Racer McChaseHer was starting the overtime jam in the penalty box! (Remember that penalty she got on the last jam of regulation time?) However, Racer got out of the box and promptly zoomed around the track twice to Boston’s Maura Buse’s once, outscoring Boston 8-4 on the overtime jam and winning the game for Detroit 103-99. Whew! I think I said “Holy kielbasa!” I was almost speechless, which was OK as announcer Baam Baam was saying something, even though I couldn’t hear what was being said. Detroit players mobbed each other on the track right after the score was posted. I have to say that last jam was so hectic and confusing that I had no clue about what scores might have been achieved until they posted them on the scoreboard. There were players getting knocked down all over the track. Wow. If you missed attending this game, you missed a good one!

Lest it sound like it was the “Racer McChaseHer” (who scored 49 points) show, many Detroit skaters contributed to the bottom line. Honey Suckit scored 16 points, 10 of them very late in the game when they were badly needed. Rock Candy scored 14 points, Vega Vendetta scored 8 points, all in the 1st period. Killbox had 7 points. Cookie Rumble scored 5,and Summer’s Eve-L scored 4.

I haven’t seen the stats regarding blocks and assists and penalties yet (AK 40 oz, Lexpletive, Skid Bro, and Tin Gypsy were working hard all day long — four games in a row), but there were a lot of hard hits dished out in this game. Each team took the hardest hits the other team could dish out, and didn’t back down at all. What a bunch of tough derby girls!

Boston basically went with a three player jammer rotation of Sarah Doom (42 points), Maura Buse (27 points), and Claire D. Way (26 points), however, Claire didn’t jam after the 4th jam of the 3rd period, Boston also jammed Wanda Whipya (1 jam for 4 points) and Lois Common Dominator (1 jam for 0 points).

After the Detroit game, it was a bit of letdown to see our good friends from the Grand Raggity Rollergirls (seeded #11) get blown out by the Gotham Girls (#5). Gotham outscored GRRG by more than 150 points, winning 206-47. GRRG did the best they could, but I have to say that Gotham are like a machine. Their jammers are all fast, and their blockers take every opportunity to deal out punishment to not only the other team’s jammer but also to the other teams blockers. One gal in particular for Gotham, Beonslay, struck me as being particularly difficult to block.

The final game of the evening saw Providence (#6) beat Ohio (#12) 126-99. Providence was firmly in charge, but Ohio made a game out of it. Ohio had cut the lead to only 15 points late in the game before the Easterners pulled away again late.

Heartland Havoc - Eastern Regionals are under way

Posted on August 17, 2007

Congratulations Ladies on your win against Boston! The final score: 104 - 99. Next up, the Derby Girls take on Minnesota. The fun starts tomorrow at 3:30pm.

LeadJammer.com is keeping a live blog throughout the weekend. Check it out for the latest information, and play-by-play action. http://leadjammer.com/2007east_liveblog/#

On the Road

Posted on June 21, 2007

We’ll be posting our latest travel adventures here!

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