Houston - What Happened: Wrap Up & On To The East

To wrap up discussing the Western Regionals, here are the stories not previously covered.

-  Record Efforts:  Two jammers scored record breaking jams during the weekend.  First Kamikaze Kim, of the Duke City Derby, had a 25-0 jam against the Pikes Peak Derby Dames in Friday mornings first bout.  This surpassed the previous tournament record of 19-0 by Snot Rocket of Kansas City.  Then Snot Rocket tied that effort in her final game before retiring.  This was in the bout against...Pikes Peak Derby Dames.  

Congratulations to Kamikaze Kim and Snot Rocket.

-  Upsets:  This was covered in best bouts but is still hard to believe.  The #9 seed Duke City Derby knocked the #1 seed Kansas City Roller Warriors out of National championship contention.  In a slightly less astounding result, but was probably the best bout of the weekend, the #3 Texas Rollergirls defeated the #3 Rat City Rollergirls paving their way to the Western Championship.

-  Major injuries:  Abhey Rogue of the Denver Roller Dolls suffered a broken collarbone in their first bout against Rose City.  I talked with Abhey that evening as I caught up to her and her boyfriend walking back to the Hilton.  Despite recommendations to take a cab back, Abhey was clear that a walk back suited her fine, and the thing that upset her most was not being able to play the rest of the weekend.  That's a Rollergirl.

DeRanged of the Pikes Peak Derby Dames suffered a major injury in the bout against the Kansas City Roller Warriors.  I don't know the extent.

Rapid healing wishes to all those with injuries, and that you're skating at 100% soonest.

-  Cutting The Track Penalties Have Major Effect

With the 3.1 rules, there are clarifications on penalties on cutting the track.  These changes clearly affected several, if not all, bouts to some extent.  Basically, the rules are to prevent a skater from gaining an advantage by re-entering the track in front of players that blocked them out.  This resulted in several cases where the blocker slowed down and forcing the re-entering player to slow to try to come in behind.  This resulted in a significant increase in penalties called and I believe every team had a period of time with a Jammer and 2 Blockers in the Box.  Whether is is something that the players just need more time to adjust, or whether some rules clarification is necessary will have to be decided by the WFTDA membership.  My initial impression is that it too easily results in Major calls due to errors that did not provide an advantage.  From my view, this affected Jammers a lot, leading to Jammerless Jams in almost (and maybe all) bouts.  I'll be curious to see if the same effect is had at the Eastern Regionals.

-  WFTDA Announced Region Changes

For the next season, WFTDA will be divide it's 61 member leagues into 4 regions.  They are the East, North Central, South Central, and West.  The new map is available at the WFTDA web site.  This will result in four regionals next year in September, and the Nationals will be in Philadelphia, PA, 6-8 November 2009

-  20 Bouts in 3 Days

Last item is the additional consolation bouts that resulted in every team playing at least 3 bouts and 4 teams playing 4 bouts.  This was done to prevent a one-and-done situation where a league goes to the expense of sending a team and they play only one bout.  Not cost effective, and maybe a bit demoralizing (after party consolation notwithstanding).  Houston Roller Derby showed it can be done, and resulted in a glorious amount of roller derby action.  While intense, I think it was an astounding success.  One thing to keep an eye on is whether is there is an increase in injuries for teams with that 4th bout.  While logistically challenging, you really get value on your derby dollar.

That's it for Western Regional stuff.  Every year the level of play gets better and more teams are playing at that level.  Can't wait to see who comes out of the East.  Here are the Eastern Seeds, and remember the top four teams have a bye:

1.  Gotham Girls

2.  Carolina

3. Windy City

4. Philly

5. Detroit

6. Charm City

7. Boston

8. Madison (Hosts)

9. Minnesota

10. Grand Raggidy

11. Cincinnati

12. Providence.

Hope to blog from Madison.  WiFi willing.  

Don Bombshelter