Seeing Red.

Bat'r had a dream. In that dream she saw a wall of red in the front, red on the line and red all over their jammer. On Friday that dream came true. We played the Quad City Rollers in Davenport, IA and it was the best game of derby we have played to date. We worked together, we built walls, and kept the penalties to a minimum. We even had two fresh meat play their first bout and they played beautifully. (Unfortunately they played at the expense of injuries.)

 Wall of red in the front.. (note freshie Fanny holding the line like a champ)

 Red on the line. (freshie psycHO in the plaid skirt)

Red all over their jammer.

  
I could not be more proud of my ladies. Last year in June we played Quad Cities in our first ever bout. That time we lost, but it was a close game. (we actually thought we won at  first... but all the points hadn't been put up yet.) Last October they came to our turf to play our first home bout ever, and we were victorious. It's exciting to see such wonderful progress in your own team, in less than a year.

Dog piles then and now..

The Quad City girls have been amazing as well. This was our third bout against them in what was called a "Grudge Match" all night, but was really far from. We may have hated each other on the track, but skating off between jams I felt a love tap or two from Sugar &Slice. We only got angry because we were both playing so well, but at the end of the night it's all love. I'm not sure if it's a phenomenon that only happens in female sports, but it's an fanstastic thing to be apart of.

This Saturday is our Malice In Derbyland bout against the Des Moines Derby Dames in their very first bout ever. It's kind of like the cycle of derby life, I'll go into it with fond memories of our first bout, but ready to crush some Dames..

-L4D

We lost the bout.. but won the after party...

Bout weekend is officially over. I feel like I got hit by a truck, have tons of footage to go through, and am ready for the next one. As Fonda Cuffs said, I still kinda have a post-bout glow, and am very happy with how we did. We lost to the Flying Squirrels (from Appleton, WI) ..by like 70 points? I guess I don't even remember what the score was, but it doesn't really matter because we all learned a lot and it was fun.

They liked to hit, and hit a lot. They put up awesome walls and had fast jammers. We didn't give up, hit back, worked on breaking their walls and our jammers had some big scoring jams. (I personally had a 13 point jam.) I was happy to see that when we were getting a beating, we didn't just get frustrated and mad, we fought to improve and work around our shortcomings. (like continuously having 1 or 2 people in the box. oops)

I don't think my nerves really started to tremble until it was time for intros. I was too busy running around setting up video equipment, forgetting my skirt at home, helping John Pemble put together a 12second video in 5 minutes, and picking out people I knew as the doors opened. I was glad I donned a pair of shades for my intro because I could have just crumpled to the ground by the time I exited the curtain. Because we drew a HUGE crowd! I think Iowa City has finally understood that derby is here and it's amazing. The crowd was definitely more than in October, which is saying a lot since the team we were playing came from 5 hours away, I doubt much of it was their fans!

The after party was an even more success. Boozin', scmoozin', and girls dancing on the bar. Let's just say it was a good end to the night...

Cut to next morning.. ughhhhhhhhh. Didn't want to move. (and actually my booze hangover wasn't so bad, my body had its own derby hangover). But I had to drag my ass out of bed because Furyis and I had planned on a photo shoot for our next bout poster that needs to get to the printers this week since our bout, "Malice In Derbyland" against the Des Moines Derby Dames is in 3 short weeks!

So already I can tell this season is going to be nonostop work, skating, hitting, fundraising, videoing, and editing. I'm logging footage from the bout as we speak. I'm excited to go through it. I've already checked out some of the helmet camera footage, a little shakey, and was angled too high, but there's some good stuff there.

This time it's Spring Work for me, no breaks!

-L4D

We're kind of a big deal...

Our first home bout of the season is Saturday and I'm pretty excited... At least I think so. I've been so busy and stressed out I've barely had time to even think about Saturday. (besides planning camera angles..) We've been working hard leading up to this bout, last week we had two fundraisers, and we've been PR-ing like crazy. I just unloaded all ten pre-sale tix I've had on me, so I know I've at least drawn more of a crowd this time, so I think overall this bout with be a huge success.

Oh, and in three weeks we do it all over again. Our next home bout is April 3rd! (Malice in Derbyland vs the Des Moines Derby Dames, their FIRST bout!!) It's exciting to have a real season this year. We've progressed so far as a team, I was shocked to see how many people attended the last practice, we've got a lot of fresh meat! And they're all wonderful, hardworking ladies.

All of these things are why I'm making my derby documentary, people still don't know roller derby is out there. I want to get the word out, and I want people to realize we are strong, hardworking ladies who don't take ourselves too seriously, but take derby as a SPORT, seriously.

So, I hope you're coming out this Saturday to see us kick some Flying Squirrel tail, and if not, we have plenty more scheduled! (check out our calendar at oldcapitolcityrollergirls.com)

If you see me, remind me to eat something.. I seem to always forget that bout day. I'll be scrambling around all day trying to do two things at once, and then it'll finally hit me. I'll wanna puke a little, tremble my first time on the jam line, but then it'll be CLOBBERIN' TIME!

-L4D