– By Rusty Wheeler, February 11, 2012
The Brighton Roller Dollz played an intraleague derby match entitled “Valentine Vendetta” at the Rollerama II roller rink in Brighton on Saturday, February 11, with the teams taking on names from popular red-colored candies at Valentine’s Day; when all was said and done, the Jawbreakers had skated to a hard fought 96-59 victory over the Red Hots. The Jawbreakers were led by their Jammer MVP (and captain) Lost and Found and Blocker MVP Murder City Mistress; the Red Hots were led by Jammer MVP Distemperment and Blocker MVP (and captain) Vincent Van Ho.
Rosters
Red Hots: 2am After Party; 11 alterKATEshun; 22 Ana Matronique; Lucky13 B.A.B.S. the Bruiser; 20 CarolDactyl; 1393 De’Vil; 1cc Distemperment; 3D Dropper Down Dirty; h8r Kasey Bonez; 313 Skid Rock; 72 SteF-BOMB; 31 Sunny Anarchy (asscap); 28 Vincent Van Ho (captain); 27 Woody WouldDeck-Her.
Jawbreakers: G6 Asian Zing; 24 Bobbi Pro-Hurt; 37 Calamitous Intent; 88 Crushendo; 796 Dewey Decimauler; 6776 Little Sinister; 70L Lost and Found (captain); 1221 LoveTap; 34 Luck B. Alady; 1200 Miss Bea Haven; 40cal Murder City Mistress (asscap); 0 Serratonin Smackdown; 4 Shameless Shananagans; 1019 Slammy Con Paine; 333 Zom B. Itch.
1st Half
Once again the evening started off with a demo lap to explain basic roller derby, then the Jawbreakers’ Lost and Found opened the scoring with an 8-0 jam win over the Red Hots’ alterKATEshun when KATE got penalized with a major penalty for cutting the track, thus heading right to the penalty box and handing the ‘breakers their first power jam of the night. Lost and Found did get one grand slam (for lapping the opposing jammer) in that jam. Crushendo added to the Jawbreakers’ lead with a 4-0 win in jam 2, and Miss Bea Haven added a 5-0 grand slam win in jam 3 (also helped by the Red Hots’ jammer, De’Vil, heading to the box with a cutting the track major penalty), and the Jawbreakers had a 17-0 lead right from the get-go. Asian Zing added a 2-0 win in jam 4 to up the lead to 19-0. Finally, in jam 5, the Red Hots got their first jam win, a 1-0 squeaker by alterKATEshun, although the score stood as 19-1 for the ‘breakers.
Jam 6 went to the ‘breakers, 4-0, with Crushendo taking advantage of a Red Hots blocker in the box. The Red Hots then got a little offense of their own in jams 7 and 8 with De’Vil and Distemperment skating to 4-0 and 3-0 jam wins, respectively, to cut the lead to 23-8. The Red Hots got their 5th consecutive lead jammer in jam 9, and alterKATEshun made two scoring passes to Lost and Found’s one pass to win the jam 8-4. The Hots got a little closer in jam 10 with a 4-0 jam win by Woody WouldDeck-Her, and then trailed 27-20.
The Jawbreakers’ Miss Bea Haven opened the lead a little with a 4-0 jam 11 win, but then Distemperment closed it again for the Red Hots with an 8-0 win (with a slam) in jam 12, making the score 31-28 for the Jawbreakers. The Red Hots blockers in jam 12, AfterParty, Kasey Bonez, SteF-BOMB, and Dropper Down Dirty, totally prevented the ‘breakers’ jammer, Calamitous Intent, from ever escaping the pack on her initial pass. Distemperment could perhaps have scored more but instead she earned a major penalty to send her off the track, and to top it off, received another minute in the box for insubordination as she didn’t immediately heed the referee’s instructions to head for the box. That meant she would have to spend the next two minutes of jam time sitting in the sin bin. The Jawbreakers’ Lost and Found promptly took advantage of the power jam situation as she cruised to a 20-0 win in jam 13, gaining 4 grand slams along the way. She was also helped by having a Red Hots blocker, AfterParty, also in the box, and when AfterParty exited the box during the jam she was sent right back into the box with a major for back blocking. That upped the ‘breakers’ lead to 51-28.
The final three jams of the half saw the Jawbreakers marginally increase their lead. The ‘breakers’ Crushendo won jam 14 by 5-0 (with a slam), then the Red Hots’ B.A.B.S. the Bruiser won jam 15 by 4-0, and the ‘breakers’ Dewey Decimauler finished off the half with a 4-0 jam 16 win to make the half-time score 60-32 in favor of the Jawbreakers.
In the 1st half, the Jawbreakers took advantage of three “power jams” where the Red Hots’ jammer was off the track cooling her skates in the penalty box, outscoring the Red Hots 33-0 in those three jams. Take those three power jam opportunities away, and the half-time score would have been 32-27 in favor of the Red Hots. So, just as in hockey, having an advantage in numbers of skaters on the floor, especially when the other team has their only scorer, their jammer, in the box, usually makes a big difference in the game. Besides the 4 minutes their jammers spent in the box, the Red Hots also had 11 minutes in penalties to their blockers. The Jawbreakers lost blockers to the box for only 7 minutes in the 1st half, with zero minutes of lost jammer time.
In the 1st half, defensively, the Red Hots captain Vincent Van Ho was hitting anything that moved on the track, particularly if it moved too slow to get out of the way of her heavy blocking! She totalled 15 actions (blocks and assists), including 5 jammer knockdowns. Her teammates AfterParty and SteF-BOMB turned in fine blocking performances with 14 and 10 actions, respectively. AfterParty also had 4 jammer knockdowns. The Jawbreakers’ Murder City Mistress was dealing out some serious damage of her own with 12 total actions in the half. Teammates Slammy Con Paine had 11 actions, and LoveTap had 10 actions.
2nd Half
The Jawbreakers cooled the Red Hots’ fire to open the 2nd half, outscoring their opposition 18-0 in those three jams. Miss Bea Haven opened with a 10-0 double grand slam win when Red Hots’ jammer, Distemperment, went to the box with a major penalty for cutting the track. Asian Zing got a 3-0 win for the ‘breakers in jam 2, also helped when the Red Hots’ jammer, CarolDactyl, went to the box. Jam 3 started off strangely when the Red Hots were able to substitute for their jammer (CarolDactyl) in the box just before the jam started, electing to have alterKATEshun wear the star whilst seated in the sin bin. (Carol was apparently not injured, as she skated in jam 4 as a blocker.) No matter, the Jawbreakers’ Lost and Found skated to a 5-0 grand slam jam win. After those first three jams, the Jawbreakers held a nifty 78-32 lead over the Red Hots.
Jam 4 went to the Red Hots’ Woody WouldDeck-Her 1-0, and jam 5 was won by the Jawbreaker’s Miss Bea Haven 2-0. Calamitous Intent won jam 6 for the ‘breakers by 7-0, earning a grand slam along the way. alterKATEshun got a 4-0 win the Red Hots in jam 7, followed by a 4-2 jam 8 win by the ‘breakers’ Crushendo over Woody WouldDeck-Her, aided by Woody making a side-trip to the penalty box for a major low block. The Red Hots then substituted Distemperment for Woody in the box between jams, but although the ‘breakers’ Miss Bea Haven got lead jam and Distemperment never made it out of the pack (once she got back on the track), jam 9 ended 0-0, no doubt aided by the blocking of the Red Hots’ Ana Matronique, AfterParty, SteF-BOMB, and Vincent Van Ho. Jam 10 went to the ‘breakers’ Asian Zing, making the score 94-39 for the Jawbreakers.
The Red Hots finally mounted some offense late in the 2nd half. The Red Hots’ alterKATEshun won jam 11 by 2-0, then her teammate Woody WouldDeck-Her won jam 12 by a 9-2 margin over Crushendo (Woody earning a slam), then teammate Distemperment also earned a slam in a 5-0 jam 13 win, and teammate CarolDactyl won jam 14 by 4-0. That closed the gap to 96-59, but there were only a few minutes left in the game. The Jawbreakers’ Lost and Found broke a drought of four straight jams of the Jawbreakers not getting lead jammer when she did get the lead in jam 15, although she called it off as a 0-0 jam. Then, in the game’s final jam, neither the RH’s Woody WouldDeck-Her nor the JB’s Crushendo could get lead jammer, and in spite of the jam going the full two minutes, it also ended as a 0-0 jam, making the final score 96-59 for the Jawbreakers.
Once again, the Red Hots were plagued by the penalty bug, losing 19 skater-minutes to the box (including four minutes of jammer penalties). The Jawbreakers managed to lose only10 skater-minutes to the box in the half (none of them jammers). In the jams in which the Red Hots had their jammer in the box for at least part of a jam, the Jawbreakers outscored them 22-0, making a power jam advantage for the game of 55-0. Take away those 55 points, and the score would have been 59-41 for the Red Hots. So, skaters, take note–spending time in the penalty box does influence the outcome of derby matches! Also, the Red Hots skater AfterParty fouled out of the game with her 7th trip to the penalty box in jam 10 of the 2nd half, even though the penalty tracking sheet only recorded six trips to the box for her (so something didn’t get written down).
Statistics
The Jawbreakers’ scoring was led by Lost and Found, scoring 37 points while jamming 8 times, getting lead jammer 50% of the time, and with 6 grand slams. She also led all jammers in the game with a jammer plus/minus rating of +22, meaning her team scored 22 more points than the opposition when Lost and Found was jamming. Miss Bea Haven did a nice job jamming with 21 points in 7 jams, getting 6 leads and 3 slams (with a jammer +12 rating). Other scorers for the ‘breakers were: Crushendo (19 points, 8 jams, 3 leads, 1 slam); Asian Zing (8 pts, 5 jams, 3 leads); Calamitous Intent (7 pts, 3 jams, 1 lead, 1 slam); and Dewey Decimauler (4 pts, 1 jam, 1 lead).
The Red Hots Woody WouldDeck-Her scored 16 points in 7 jams with 4 leads and 1 grand slam, with a jammer plus/minus of +2. Her sister-in-skates, Distemperment, also had 16 points, in 8 jams with 2 leads and 2 slams, but was a -20 in the jammer plus/minus department. alterKATEshun tallied 15 points in 8 jams with 4 leads. Other Red Hots scorers were: B.A.B.S. the Bruiser (4 pts, 2 jams); De’vil (4 pts, 3 jams, 1 lead); CarolDactyl (4 pts, 4 jams, 1 lead).
The Jawbreakers’ Murder City Mistress was really on fire in the 2nd half (more than in the 1st half), dishing out 23 actions to end with a game-high total of 35 total actions for the game, including 4 jammer knockdowns. Her teammates LoveTap (22 actions) and Slammy Con Paine (19 actions) were also dishing out the pain in a fine manner. Luck B. Alady also chipped in 12 actions, amongst a team total of 122 total actions and 16 knockdowns.
The Red Hots had a very strong defensive effort put in by captain Vincent Van Ho with 33 total actions and an outstanding 10 knockdowns. Other fine Red Hots blocking efforts were by SteF-BOMB (23 actions), AfterParty (18 actions), B.A.B.S. the Bruiser (14 actions), and Ana Matronique (10 actions). The Red Hots totaled 118 total actions.
Afterthoughts
It appeared the two teams were fairly evenly matched. As I was helping with action tracking, it was hard not to notice that Murder City Mistress (JB) and Vincent Van Ho (RH) were dominating the blocking stats as they both seemed to delight in hitting the opposing skaters. Both teams were also working hard to build resilient blocking walls, and working at ways to attack the other team’s walls. It seemed most of the packs were fairly slow and controlled, and jammers had to really work to get through the blockers. There were a total of 30 jammer knockdowns between the two teams, plus another 52 hits on the jammers, plus another 42 jammer force-outs (where jammers were blocked out of bounds), so the jammers took a lot of punishment in this game. As I mentioned above, though, the difference in the game was the Red Hots not being able to stay out of the penalty box, particularly their jammers.
The Brighton Roller Dollz have another derby coming up on March 17, this time with their travel team hosting the Traverse City Toxic Cherries. As I mentioned before, get there early so you can sit in the “suicide seats”! That’s the best place to watch a game, up close to the action. If you’re lucky, you may have a derby girl land in your lap; however, unlike a baseball game, you don’t get to take the souvenir home–you have to throw her back on the track!
