Wow! WOW!! Were you at the Some Bunny’s Gonna Get Hurt event at the
Cincinnati Gardens last Saturday? If not, you missed a barnburner!
In the first bout, the
Cincinnati Rollergirls’ Silent Lambs took on the
Windy City Nadabees. In the second bout, the CRG Black Sheep battled the
Burning River All-Stars from Cleveland. It was quite the evening of see-saw battles. There seemed to be a good crowd for the event and there was a lot of cheering going on! The photo at right is a fisheye view of the gardens near the end of the first bout.
Before the bout, I got to talk with several folks that were tailgaiting. It was nice to meet some of the local fans, including many scooter folks and Leslie from
ClassX 88.9 radio, as well as
Al Naturel from Windy City.
In the Lambs vs. Nadabees bout, the Lambs started out strong and took an 8-1 lead after the first couple jams. However, the Nadabees adjusted quickly and went on a strong run that took the score to Lambs 12 and Nadabees 33 at the end of the first 20 minute period. The Nadabees have some talented skaters and some of them were pretty tall compared to the Lambs. That is illustrated in the photo at right that shows Ruth Enasia (in blue) lined up with Miss Print at the jammer line. In general the Nadabees did a great job controlling the pack with some solid blocking and good team coordination. I was particularly impressed by Windy City skater
Go-Go Hatchet, which I noticed from their website is on their all-star team.
The Lamb jammers were mostly the same as those in the
last home bout (mainly Dr. McDerby, Miss Print, Polly Rocket, Bex Pistol, and Cherry Choke). The photo to the right shows Polly Rocket trying to get around a couple Nadabee skaters. I have to give credit to all the Lambs that hung in there and gave it their all. Near the end of the second period Dr. McDerby had some good jams that helped give the Lambs some more points and the blockers were able to slow the Nadabee jammers a bit. The photo below shows McDerby coming out of the pack. When the clock ran out, the Lambs lost to the Nadabees with a score of 40 to 96.
For the second bout between the CRG Black Sheep (WFTDA North Central rank #3) and the Burning River All-Stars (rank #9) I expected CRG to control the bout the entire way. I know CRG was looking to
avenge the loss in the Black-Eyed Buckeyes bout that ended the 2007 season.
Initially they started out with a strong defense that shut down Burning River. The Black Sheep had an early lead of 33-0 that reminded me of the last home bout. The usual CRG jammers Sadistic Sadie, K. Lethal, Hannah Barbaric, and Candy KICKass all contributed. But kudos to Burning River. A couple of CRG jammer penalties and some adjustments by Burning River got them on the scoreboard. The jammers Ivanna Destroya, Eva Lucien, E. Gargiulo, and Stroker Ace worked hard with their team against the CRG blockers. I caught several photos of the blockers in action. At the right is a photo of Sk8R Kinney and Panterrorize blocking Burning River jammer E. Gargiulo. The photo below shows Ruff’n the Passer giving a block while Blu Bayou cuts off the escape on the inside. At the half, CRG was ahead with a score of 60 to 40.
Twenty points isn’t much with 30 more minutes of derby action. Burning River came out of the locker room looking tough! They started scoring and the Black Sheep scoring slowed a bit. At one point in the second period Burning River was up by at least 15! With a few minutes to go, you could tell both teams stepped it up a couple notches – CRG to come back and win it and Burning River to try and hold their lead.
That effort really got the crowd involved in the bout! The Gardens was rockin’ those last few minutes. All the blockers were working very hard and CRG jammers K. Lethal and Sadistic Sadie were zipping around the track to score. The photo at right shows Sadie doing a little trash talking at the line before a jam. The photo below shows K. Lethal during one of the final jams. The Black Sheep had an amazing, strong finish to take the bout by a score of 107 to 93. It was an exciting night (maybe a little too exciting ☺ ) and most of the crowd was hoarse after all that cheering during the last 10 minutes or so.
After the bout, Dianne got a photo of me with the CRG mascot – Little Bo Peep. Having a mascot to help get the fans fired up is a great idea. Now we just need to fill up The Flock section so Bo Peep has something to tend to.
I also had a chance to talk a bit with Bex Pistol, one of the CRG Silent Lambs. Dianne got a nice photo of us (below) as well as
a shot of Bex signing autographs. You can see all my photos from the bout in
my Flickr set. Also, be sure to check out great photo sets of the bout from
Jeff and
Jason on Flickr. Look for bout recaps on
Miss Print's blog and
Captain Painway's blog -- Like It Derby?
If that event didn’t get you hooked on derby, nothing will! Be sure to check out the next CRG home bout on May 9th when they host the
Mad Rollin’ Dolls from Madison.
The QST arranged for Mark Weber to attend the event and help coach the skaters. Mark was one of the X-men of the Nevada Hot Dice on RollerJam that was televised on TNN. He’s a heavy hitter as seen in this video and was a good instructor at the bootcamp. He got right in the pack and had the ladies hitting him for practice during the drills. Mark is shown in action in the photo at the right.
