As any regular reader here will/should know, my wife is a member of our local roller derby league, Hard Knox Rollergirls, who are members of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association. These girls have been working hard to get themselves in shape, strengthen their bodies, better their skating abilities, and they've been working at this for several months now. It's really gratifying, even to me as an (what I'll call) associated observer to see the amount of work these girls are doing. It is work, and it is hard, and I can see so much improvement in their abilities. I know there are some new and strong friendships growing, and I would even wager that many of these girls have developed strength other than physical.
By the way, roller derby is in fact a sport, and I suggest that anyone who disagrees should lace up their skates, put on their pads and try any one of these girls on the rink. Even the smallest of these girls will happily point out the error in the idea that this isn't a real sport.
The Tragic City Rollers put together an amazing team. One of their jammers in particular seemed to have rockets installed in her skates as she zipped around. I do not want to detract at all from the work they've done to prepare themselves or from the spirit they showed, and I respect their efforts no less than the effort of our own local league. They fought just as hard as our girls.
Before I'm completely done I want to reiterate the pride I have for the Hard Knox Rollergirls. There is so much dedication in our league. These girls push themselves so hard at every practice, and I know that every match they play is going to be good. Regardless of the score, they can all hold their heads high. They fought hard. They fought beautifully. They kick motherfucking ass, hard as hell!
Updated to add: I have removed some content from this post. The Tragic City Rollers were gracious hosts and were tough competitors. I regret having made any suggestion that they were unfair in the match described above, which is the content I removed. Both cities were well represented in this bout, and all the girls and staff should be proud of themselves. To all Tragic City Rollers, I am sorry I posted what I did. Thank you to those who commented, and if you'd like, see this post to see some explanation for my change of heart.
4 comments:
Hey guy....
Just to comment on this issue you have with TCR... I hope you were actually watching the game and not just hearing some stuff second hand... Because of the refs that were there, 1/2 of them were from Knox. to keep it fair, and a few of them were asking B'ham refs what a lot of the rules were.. You also had some of the knox. refs who didn't know that just because you have a false start doesn't mean you call off the jam...it just means you can't be lead jammer...it's in the rules look it up...and as for calling penalties, based on official stats TCR acrued more penalties, and had more people in the box, and whenever scores were taken away, it was ALWAYS against TCR.... the afore mentioned false start issue cost TCR 5 pts. in the first Period, but when the same thing happened in a jam in the 3rd, and when Knox scored 4 to TCR's 0, we kept the points...so does that mean you only call the jam null and void only when TCR is ahead? There were tons of mistakes made, but the refs from both teams did the best they could... There were a ton of illegal things both TCR and Knox did unbeknownst to the refs...it is the nature of the sport. I'm sorry you feel that what happened was somehow a fix, but the B'ham refs intentionally tried to make it as fair as possible given the bout TCR had with Huntsville the first time when B'ham wasn't even allowed a ref in the game, and they lost by 1 point....Now that is a time to bitch about it, but you know what, TCR didn't bitch about it at all. TCR wants to play games, not get caught up in catty bullshit..which is exactly why 1/2 of the refs were from Knox. How do you make it any more fair than that?
Sir: I totally agree with your derby girls kicking ass! They totally did! They were a hard bunch to tackle and to win over... Next time might not be so easy for the next lot of skaters or for the grudge match they should most definitely schedule with the TCR
Our first match with huntsville was 67/14! they fricken murdered us! And we figured out the game and kept playing after such a fantastic loss. It only made up work harder at improving EVERYTHING we could think of....I'm sure we missed some things, little and big....Throw us a bone. I love roller derby and I want to keep playing PLAYING
winning is cool and losing is only what the t-shirt says that you have to wear for the rest of the evening.... But we ALL learn...
After life has moved past the weekend or week .. practice some more and ENJOY! That's the hole point! Your Knoxville girlies were
the shit! They put on a GREAT FIGHT! Most fights are supposed to be lost if its the first time and no one knows completely what's going on... IT OK.... matter of fact.... -ITS COOL!- The Tcr's were kinda (well totally anihalated) bye the DDg's .. it hurt.. stung but we busted ass, elbows, shoulder, ribs and many ankles to get our asses together. And wow, we did a darn good job!
But its not over... come on ladies
You're gonna go through a little something we had to go through,too.
Let's swap ideas on moves, drills, and alcohol abuse. Keep practicing
And my personal advice would be not
to let your selves get burned out!!!! we pract.for 2 hrs
3 times a week... and at home /down the street, etc all to improve
You LADIES DID AWESOME!!!
i'VE NEVER SEEN A 'FIRST' BOUT
GO SO WELL ! ! ! ! !
set it up
oh
yah
and
bye
schnotty
the one with the rocketts :)
I hope that none of what I said was seen as detracting from what the girls on the track did. Tragic City did put together a great team, and they certainly have a lot to be proud of.
I hesitated to even write this post originally as I generally detest the person crying foul. Cries of foul are certainly most often just sour grapes from the losing side, and perhaps that's all my rant was. I did in fact attend the match, and what I claim is based on what I saw. It's also my opinion and not an indictment of TCR or their refs. Again, just one person's opinion.
I know that everyone here looks forward to welcoming Tragic City as soon as we can. Based on the first match, I know that your side and our side are going to put up one hell of a fight.
Thanks for the comments and hope you keep reading.
I (and I am not on the team.. yet!) am persoanlly not in it to win. As a current spectator, I'm thrilled when we do. I think the fac of the matter is that, yeah, rules are broken. But it's by accident (usually). I mean, you get out there, try to block with the flat of you arm, and see if you don't accidentally jab someone with an elbow! You try falling into a baseball slide and being able to get your leg out of the way!
We're BOTH beginning teams (if I understand correctly.)
We'll BOTH grow and learn. It's not like we are winning cash prizes for winning-- why are we so pissy about who won? It was a damned good game, and I hope we have many more. Maybe even with me in one!
(can't we all just get along?)
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