Not Again...

I have some kind of flu-cold-ick thing going. I hatehatehate it when I get sick, as it's usually because I've been exposed to someone who refused to stay home and get over their sickness so they're spreading it to everyone else in the free frickin' world. So did I stay home when I started getting it last Friday? Oh hell no, I went to my last day of work and then drove up to Sacramento! Yes, I specialize in hypocrisy, why do you ask?

So I saw the Bay Area Derby Girls and the Sac City Rollers do their thing. It was really weird to be a spectator and not have any responsibility to do anything except say, "Hi, I'm from the LA league." and buy shirts from each league.

BAD girls: they debuted two new teams: the Treasure Island Goldiggers and the Alcatraz Escapees. I cheered for the Goldiggers, as they had cool uniforms and I was staying with one of their team members, Fighty Irish. Their games are split into three 20-minute periods. The skating goes by really fast, but the breaks in between the periods are as long as the periods themselves, so it really killed the flow of the game. It didn't help that the only entertainment they had was a magician/freak show guy who specialized in putting drill bits up his nose and laying down on a bed of nails. snore. By the start of the third period, a noticeable chunk of the crowd had left.

The pack was tight and moving at a good pace. The jammers were pretty good. Didn't see too much in strategy going on, and part of that is because the pack didn't look around to keep track of the jammers often enough. No one did any whips or jumps. One skater, Rolemite, landed on her face when she jammed. We feared that she was truly injured, but she recovered and came back in after sitting out a couple of jams. In the end, Fighty Irish from the Goldiggers and Motley Cruz from the Escapees really stood out as exceptional jammers. The Goldiggers won by a sizeable margin.


Sac City Rollers: this was their first exhibition bout. They had their new girls, the A-cups (I love that name! Better than the "Fresh Meat" term that the Dolls use) play a game of musical chairs to the tune of Black Sabbath's Sweet Leaf that was hilarious. The sister of one of my old friends from high school participated in that and she hung in there for a good long while. After a short band set, the league's two new teams, the Shakedown Syndicate and Operation Assassination played for one 20-minute period.

Their packs were slower and more spread out, which makes it easier for the jammers to find holes to skate through. They started playing pretty clean, but they ended up getting rather handsy with each other...I saw a little grabbing, which is highly illegal. It was still a fun match to watch, and the Shakedowns won. I was impressed with Loco Coco, Billie Club, and Mugshot Mary skate-wise. I was asked by manymany of the skaters after the bout what I thought of them. Wow! As if my opinion matters, but I must admit I was a bit tickled by it all. They're a great bunch of girls and I hope some of them make it down to LA to watch us play.

This is such a boring trip report, but it's hard to be entertaining when I'm dizzy. Feh.