WOJ at Western Regionals (Oct 2 - 4, Denver)

RCR page on this here,

Tourney page here,

and bracket here.

I wouldn't be surprised to see one or two of the more analytical bloggers here step up with a top-line preview post.

Until then, amuse yourself and the rest of us in the comments section.

Texas Takes South Central Regional Championships, 150 - 72 over KC

A looky here.

Heather Sighting: Knotty Larue at the Black Cat Cafe!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The Draft

Salute to SK on FB for these notes on the latest RCR draft:

Heathers -
Frenchie
Fbomb
Monocle
Skin

Betties -
Lethal
Slim Sheety

High Rollers -
Minnie

Guns n Rollers -
Evilia
Hockey honey

Windy City wins North Central Regional)s

Dang and teh awesome.

150-56 over Mad Rollin' Dolls from Madison, Wisconsin (another long lost home town of mine!).

Congrats Windy City! See you again at Nationals!

Men's Derby: Masonite Burn's photos are up

Good stuff here.

Caution: Derby Overload this Weekend.

So here is your gentle reminder. Tonight kicks off three big days of Derby happenings here in the lovely Rose City. According to an announcement from Executive Director Mean, all of these events are covered by Season Tickets. Ya just gotta bring'em wit ya.

Dangler at the Hangar:Tonight 8pm

This Merby (aka Roller Boys) event is a scrimmage with a $5 cover for non Season Ticket Holders

That crafty Skating with Scissors event is tomorrow 10am to 7pm at the Hangar.

A freebie event that is loaded with cool tangible goods to buy, thus tangibly supporting your local skaters and their supporters with your support.

The late add to the event schedule is the RCR appearance at the Alberta Street Fair on Saturday. Come out this Saturday to see it all you Last Thursday fans...

Sugar High Showdown with our Jr. Derby Rosebuds taking on Rat's Brats. Doors at Noon, bout starts at 1pm. There is a $5 cover for Non Season Ticket Holders or Season ticket holders that spaced bringing their Season Tickets. Come out and see your Derby Future.

There are some other bouts about, Emerald City closes their season with a City Championship and I hear Rainy City has a bout on the books. So there's plenty to do...

But wait, there's more...

The Brawl of America starts today from the heart of the sprawl of America. 10 teams enter, 3 team leave...sounds ominous. The tournament starts at 9:30 PST and complete bout schedule can be found at www.brawlofamerica.com.

A curious twist for me is coverage. As I set up my Mission Command Station this morning, it looks like DNN will only be providing Textcast through their site. Video feed has been contracted to another and that link is www.b2cabletv.com.

The first bout of the day has the North Starts (MN) matching up again Milwaukie's Brewcity. My heart goes out to the North Star team as they are dealing with some emotional challanges having lost one of their leagues own just yesterday. It's a tough story to read but you can check that out on the Derby Helper Blog.

Life is short, so get your Roller Derby while you can...

WOJ Autumn 2009 Roster

Via Facebook, this impressive line-up:

Angry Wrench (captain)
Megahurtz (captain)
Axl Blows
Blood Clottia
Cadillac
Firecrotch
Hurricane Skatrina
J.K. Rolling *
Layla Smackdown
Leet Speaking Missle
Licker 'n' Split
Madame Bumps A Lot
MaRollin' Monroe
Mick U Cry
Mobi-wan-kanobi
Rhea Derange
Scratcher in the Eye
Sol Train
Sully Skullkicker*
White Flight

*roster additions

Dang! Everyone's time permitting, we'll be talking to some of these folks prior to Western Regionals.

Philly 90, Gotham 89

H/T JeLLyPiG for screencap:

Eastern Regional Championship Webcast, 9/13/09, 5 Pacific Time

Here.

Not sure if that's a vidcast or the normal text thing.

Have fun!

More Skatember Roller Derby Fun.

If you are a derby addict like me, you noticed an open weekend in the September derby action. Oh sure, after the Rosebuds Sugar High Showdown on the 20th, there's online derby viewing with South Central Smackdown on DNN the following weekend, but nothing beats sitting on the track where the action is.

On September 26th the action is on the track at the Linn County Fairgrounds. The Sicktown Derby Dames will be playing host to the Lava City Roller Dolls at the SkatemberFest in Albany, doors open at 5pm and tickets are only $10 (Advance). It's a single bout event, which means you can "get your derby on" and still make it back to the city in time for some more evening fun or "hop'n bars". If you missed the open scrimmage at the Oregon State Fair last weekend, here is a chance to redeem yourself.

Of course this weekend kicks off the first of four consecutive weekends of high powered roller derby fun. The WFTDA Regional Tournaments begin this weekend with Wicked Wheels of the East in Carolina, the top ranked team in the Eastern Divisions playing for a slot at Nationals. Thanks to a pledge drive of sorts, DNN will be providing online coverage of all the tournaments beginning tomorrow at 8:15am (noted times are PST) with 9th ranked DC Rollergirls facing off against the 8th ranked CT Rollergirls. The big name bouts of the day are 6th ranked Providence taking on #1 Gotham at 11:45am. #2 Philly taking on the winner of the days second bout (#7Steel City Derby Demons vs #10 Dominion Derby Girls) around 3:15pm. They did save the best "rematch" for last, with #4 Carolina trying to prove to #5 Boston that the last time they met it wasn't just last jam luck. That potential nail bitter starts around 5:00pm. All of which narrows the field for Saturday's Final Four bouts which start up around 3:15pm. .

Check out all the brackets at WFTDA's fancy new website and find the boutcasts at DNN's fancy new website. Damn, did all of derby get a website face lift in the last week? Even our Rose City Rollers rolled out a new interweb look. Maybe I should talk to Ye'Ole Coroner about keeping up with the rest of the derby world...

New Captains, 2009 Retirees

Congratulations to new captains Mick U Cry and Mobi-wan-kanobi. We look forward to 2010 with you at the helm.

And thanks and praise to Ringer and Slay for their leadership these past two years. An amazing tenure.

We also salute these 2009 retirees, and thank them for their great service, amazing skating, and terrific play:

Apocalipstick
NoNamey
Rhoda Killer
Slaybia Majora
Sump Pump
TeqKillya
Vominatrix
X2Z

Heathers por vida!

You lookin for Derby?

We wouldn't want the blog to get old, stale and crusty, would we George? So here are some derby-centric ways to spend your free time and hard earned cash. I always assume everyone gets all the emails and tweets from the RCR league, but just in case you don't here's some groovy roller derby happenings, seasoned with my usual sputum.

Rose City at State Fair Scrimmages

Monday, Sept. 7th 1pm & 6pm in Salem, OR

The Cherry City Derby Girls have invited RCR down to the fair for TWO multi-league scrimmages during theOregon State Fair

This should be a fun one and a great glimpse at some of the talent pool coming out of what I lovingly call the Oregon section of the I-5 Derby Highway. Cherry City of Salem is the hosting league and they are a month away from their first bout (Oct 10th?) You'll also get to see some Sicktown skaters from Albany/Corvallis, Emerald City from Eugene should have a fierce bunch there and who knows how many Rose City regulars you"ll get to see. But wait, there's more! Go check it out for yourself, even if they aren't ALL from the I-5 corridor. The scrimmages are always a fun time and add in the joy of a State Fair Corndog and livestock...I think this qualifies as a "Hoot"!

Mens Roller Derby

Friday, Sept. 18th 8pm at Oaks Hangar

The Rose City Rollers (RCR) will be hosting an open scrimmage to all men of the Northwest Region. Spectators, come experience the excitement as Merby debuts on the RCR track Sept 18th in the Hangar at Oaks Park.

MERBY? Seriously? Here? Yes, Rose City is hosting a dangler event. Being an opinionated a-hole, I will limit my comments in the best interest of the common derby good. "They say" if you're a true derby fan, you'll want to go see this, if only to point and laugh at the silly boys with all the derby girls in the stands.

Skating with Scissors

Saturday, Sept. 19th from 10am - 7pm atOaks Hangar

The Rose City Rollers are excited to host a spectacular arts & crafts bazaar, "Skating with Scissors". It's open to the public and includes free admission. Derby girls, friends, and fans can shop for skate-themed/rock 'n' roll/alternative handmade jewelry, fashion, and other unique items, many made by RCR derby girls. The Rose CityRollers Cookbook is also making its debut. With recipe titles like Protein Punch(kin), Bettie Spaghetti, and Vegan Whack N Chz, these are dishes worth hitting for.

At first I thought this was some sort of "FUTURE DERBY" but now that I read about it, it sounds almost as fun.

Rosebuds Sugar High Showdown

Sunday, Sept. 20th 1pm at Oaks Hangar

Be there to watch these young athletic 'buds in action. They will be hitting, skating, and knocking girls around!

If you have not seen the Buds play you owe it to yourself. They are great to watch, it's fun and they are our future. As usual the bout info I have thus far is a little sketch, but the bouts always end up being a hella good derby time.

And all this leads us to....

Wheels of Justice at Western Regionals

Sun - Fri, Oct. 2nd - 4th in Denver, CO

The Rose City Rollers'Wheels of Justice All-Star travel team has been invited to the 2009 WFTDA Western Regional tournament - Derby on the Rocks! WOJ will compete for the top spot in the 10-team tournament in order to advance to the 2009 WFTDA National Championships. For more information regarding regionals/nationals visitwww.wftda.com.

And speaking of WoJ...here's some blah, blah, blah about their last outing... (I'm working on my segways)

As you might imagine, any recap of the stellar WoJ victory over Duke City would've been extra rambly (given the long day of sun, fun and double derby love'n I had that Saturday). It was a great match up, though not a tight scoring bout. WoJ took an early and commanding lead, and with the exception of a few short bursts of cunning on Duke City's part, it was easy to sit back, cheer, kill beers and talk shit with your neighbors in the stands.

Based on the Carolina and Duke City bouts, I think that the Wheels of Justice should be renamed the "Wall of Justice". Having seen both those bouts, the concise game plan of playing tough defense seems to not only work, but work very well. In both of those bouts the WoJ pack didn't just limit the productivity of the opposing Jammer, but shut them down completely, consistently. Combine that with a plathora of Jammer talent on the WoJ bench and you have quite the derby force. Of course as I told my neighboring derby fan at the Duke City bout "it would mean a hell of a lot more if they were doing this on the road".

We also talked about the Duke City bout having no real ramification on WFTDA rankings in the stands that night. Since tournament seeding is completed and yes, WoJ has the best seed of the bunch with the number three position, whether they won or lost to Duke City, their seed was sown.

And what about our Heartless All Stars you ask?

Scratcher...well she makes me laugh. She's hammering it out in regular Jammer rotation on a WoJ team that has great depth in the Jammer spot. Against Duke City she was definitely productive and playing that heads up, tough, scrapping style you expect to see from her. Much like the Heathers of the recent past, she is tough but having fun out there and you can see it in her eyes. It's a joy to watch.

Sol Train is Sol Train and she does that Sol Train thing she does. To quote my daughter "The most feared thing on the Rose City track is Sol Train's ass", out of the mouths of babes or teenagers as the case may be. Honestly, Sol plays so smart, is seasoned and has an even keeled perseverance that she really is an icon in the RCR league.

Then there's our Mick U Cry. If you have not seen her play on WoJ, then you've missed some of the best bouts she's skated in her career here. Seriously. I was completely impressed by the level of her play against Carolina, but even more so watching her skate against Duke City. She just seems to be getting better and better which I hope translates into a Heathers pack that is damn near impossible to get through next year.

And Mobi-wan-kanobi...sweet, sweet Mōbs. She also turned in an awesome bout. Tough and hard hitting, she laid some traps then laid out the opposition. There was one block that the derby afficionados seated next me thought might have been a late hit. They invited me into the conversation and my response was "She engaged before the whistle and a girl gots to finish her blocks". Frankly it was a beautiful "Not in My House" dominance move on Mōb's part and I didn't see a foul called.

Seeing them all skate on WoJ, working in a clockwork like fashion, communicating and honing their skills further will only help the Heathers cause come 2010 season.

Now this is a Heartless Heathers blog, so I am in no way trying to slight the play of:Angry Wrench, Megahurtz, Axl Blows, Blood Clottia, Cadillac, D. Konstructor, Firecrotch <---?, Gwen'nich Mean Time, Hurricane Skatrina, Layla Smackdown, Leet Speaking Missle, Licker 'n' Split, Madame Bumps A Lot, MaRollin' Monroe, Rhea Derange, White Flight (Yes, I did the roster copy and paste so not to miss anyone. ?=Sorry FC,I know who you play for I swear.)

These are "Who's Who" of players in the Rose City league and collectively, because it is a team sport, they have played fabulously at home and most importantly won a tough one, as a "team", on the road. This could be the best WoJ team assembled to date, add some derby voo doo with Rob Lobster on the bench you have one tough team going into Regionals.

So next is Denver and what we hope will lead to a National spot. I would hate to be sitting in my Rose City Rollers shirt in Philly, looking all drunk and heartbroken while rooting for Windy City again.

Speaking of my love for Windy City...I'll save that for after Regionals.

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