Holy crap, I'm in pain!

Saturday night was painful.

Fun, but painful.

We had our bout in City of Industry. Quite a few people showed up, which was great. Different from our usual downtown LA/hipster crowd, but very enthusiastic.

The game against the Sirens was brutal. Tough, close game all the way through. Unfortunately, my team didn't win...the final score was Sirens 40, Fight Crew 36. However, everyone who saw the game loved it, and the crowd was going apesh!t the entire way through.

AND, as an added bonus, I GOT THROWN OUT OF THE GAME.

AND THEN, I WAS BROUGHT BACK INTO THE GAME.

Aaaaaaand, I got a lot of cheering for both!

How the hell did that happen?! you might be asking yourself. Well, it's like this: a skater can accrue up to four penalties during the course of a game. If she gets a fifth penalty, she gets kicked out of the game. Someone miscounted the penalties I accrued. During the last quarter of the game I was thrown out. So I left to much cheering by the fans while Fight Crew's team manager, Fighty, screamed at me, "F*** YOU, TARA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" as I stepped out of the infield of the track. I imagine she was expressing how the rest of the team was feeling at the moment, since I was in every other jam of the game.

I skated back to the dressing room area and started taking off my skates so that I could put my shoes on and sneak back to watch the rest of the game. Oh, another thing about getting kicked out...if that happens to a skater, she's supposed to go back to the dressing room area and STAY there. No going back to watch the game, or being with her team, or anything. It's supposed to be a punishment, fer crissakes. Next thing I hear is one of the announcers saying, "TARA ARMOV, REPORT BACK TO THE TRACK. YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES!" The husband is already running back to the dressing room, screaming at me to get my gear together. I already had my helmet, mouthguard, and one skate off. The husband grabbed my helmet and mouthguard, I grabbed my other skate, and I scooted back to the track on one skate while the husband jogged behind me. The crowd continued to go nuts.

I get back to the track and am promptly seated in the penalty box. Fighty informs me to get my goddam skates on as I go back into the game in one minute. Those last three jams I was in were the best I skated in the game. Apparently, I do my best skating when my team is losing. Goddam competitive nature, I guess. I know that I fell a lot. Usually due to my own attempts at blocking. I guess that's a good thing...the Sirens didn't get to wipe me out much...I did it myself!

Here's some photo highlights:

Crystal Deth and I waiting for the star jammer of the Sirens, Mila Minute:















PS--it's a bad, bad idea to wait for Mila. She's really fast, and when one waits too long, they get passed.


Oh looky, here I am trying to block out Roxy Cotten. She stayed upright. I trained her well!




















Here I am blocking out Kung Pow Tina. She looks bored.




















Here I am falling. This was after making a block with such force that I took myself up to the railing and bounced off. On the rebound, I hit my own jammer, Leia Mout. Who you see in the white helmet in the process of going down. She told me after the game that she got three big hits, and mine was one of them. Good going, sport!













And here's a Triumphant Return to the Track photo:












You can see that I'm still in only one skate.

Unfortunately, none of these photos show off the Scooby Doo I drew on my chest for the game. Yes, I'm a big idiot. A sore, bruised idiot.