Sunday, January 17, 2010

The 2010 Season Begins.

    Almost exactly a year ago I joined the Old Capitol City Roller Girls team in Iowa City, and 2009 with them was quite a year. Since then we have tripled size, went through a change of ownership, gained experience, and worked out most of the kinks of putting on a home bout. Last year was full of trial and error and I am feeling good about this new season and looking forward to really pushing myself as a skater. I would like to use my experience with derby as subject matter for my BFA project for my final year in college as well. This blog will hopefully bring the two together cohesively and may go through a few changes as I figure out exactly the route this project will take.

    To kick off the season we participated in the Four Rollers of the Apocalypse, a mixer hosted by the lovely Quad City Rollers. There were over 70 skaters participating from our team, QCR, Chicago Outfit, Muddy River Nightmares, Rockford Rage, Stateline Roller Derby Divas, and the Mad Rollin' Dolls. Everyone was split into four teams: Dames of Death (green), Women of War (red), Femmes of Famine (black) and the Queens of Conquest (white). The night was made up of three bouts, two half our bouts which decided the final two teams for a full length bout. 
    Round one, the Queens went up against the Femmes and won 70-35. I was a Dame of Death and we lost against the Women of War by ONE point (48-47). We had a slow start but Sweet Mary Pain skated her spunky little heart out to try and win it at the last minute, so it was a good fight. I wasn't feeling quite up to par, so when I about gave up mentally on jamming, I scored us four points. I was having a hard time getting past Gaygan, so I decided I needed to work hard on my endurance and agility to find holes and get through the pack quickly this season. As this pictures proves, I did get around her eventually..
    This put the Queens of Conquest against the Women of War for a pretty brutal final bout. It was fun to see our own girls mixed up and pitted against each other. Bat'R Up was rutheless against GLADi8HER, who took quite a beating in that last hour. The final score was the Queens on top with 105-84 (I think.. I need to double check).

   It was an awesome night, and we got to meet a bunch of awesome teams, and scour their merch tables, (Team Unicorn was a popular buy from our team, the name of Madison's travel team). Not to mention my sister, Sarah, and video inspiration John Pemble made the trek from Des Moines to see me play for the first time. This should become an annual thing so if you missed it this time around, be prepared to attend next year's apocalypse.
-Left4Deadwards