Cincinnati Versus Arch Rival

Last night we went to see two roller derby bouts at the Cincinnati Gardens where the Cincinnati Rollergirls hosted the Arch Rival Rollergirls from St. Louis. It was another great derby crowd that packed the Gardens – most of them cheering on Cincinnati, but a few St. Louis fans made the trip as well. In the first bout the CRG Silent Lambs lost to the Arch Rival St. Lunachix by a score of 39 to 89. In the second bout, the CRG Black Sheep took on the Arch Rival All Stars and beat them handily by a score of 134 to 68.

The Silent Lambs had a slow start against the Lunachix. The Lamb jammers struggled against the Lunachix blockers. The Lambs weren’t able to control the pack like they did in their first home bout. There was a lot of good blocking though – notably Mirderher and Celia Graves were on their game. Wheezy seemed to have the best luck jamming for CRG. However, she was no match for the Lunachix’s The Seige who posted quite a few points in the bout. The photo at right shows Pistol Whippin’ Wendy taking a hard block from one of the Lunachix. At the half, the Lambs were down with a score of 19 to 43. The battle continued the same way in the second period – each team scoring about the same. I really don’t think the final score reflected the effort put forth by the Lambs. The photo below shows Cherry Choke and Maime closing a hole to shut down the Lunachix jammer. Although a win would have been nice, all the Sheep have to be proud of their effort.



Things really came together for the Black Sheep in their bout against the Arch Rival All Stars. They seemed like a different team than the one that skated against San Diego a few weeks ago. They took control of the bout from the beginning and really focused on getting points on the board. Everyone was working together very well and the Black Sheep blocking was tough! Did the team just get back from blocking school? There were a lot of hard hits, especially in the second period. Even better, there were very few major penalties in the first period and not many in the second. The solid blocking made it very hard for the Arch Rival jammers and their scoring was minimal. The photo below this paragraph shows Karma Krash and Dr. McDerby sending the Arch Rival jammer to the concrete. The usual CRG jammer rotation was very effective. The photo at right shows K. Lethal getting a little help from Sk8 Crime to zip around the turn. At the half, the Sheep were ahead with a score of 90 to 17! In the second period, Arch Rival did adjust to pick up the scoring pace (51 points) and the CRG scoring slowed a bit (44). Still, CRG was generally in control of the bout and there was no way Arch Rival could have stopped the Black Sheep team skating on Saturday. It was a pleasure to watch – except when Hannah Ouchocinco took a tumble that resulted in an injured finger and three stitches on the chin. Now Hannah and June will be chin twins.



CRG continues their effort to keep the production quality of the bouts high too. Last Saturday the Queen City Rainbow Band was there to play during the bout and at the break. I enjoyed hearing them playing from the stands. This bout was also the debut of Wooly Bully – the CRG mascot. Dianne got a photo of me with Wooly Bully after the bout. Wooly was running around all night trying to perk up the crowd.

Dianne also got a photo of me with Celia Graves. Thanks to Celia for taking the time to chat and pose for a photo. You can see the rest of my bout photos in my Flickr pool here.

With the increase in attendance, there is also an increase in bout coverage. Besides the Roller Derby Diva Blog, check out the new CRG web site that has lots of news and blog type entries. Captain Painway, another CRG has a good blog called Like it Derby. Bob Schwartz was there and always has good entries about the CRG bouts. And don’t forget to check out Jason's and Jeff’s photos on Flickr. I know there are lots of others as my Google notifications for Cincinnati roller derby are prolific lately.

If you missed the bout (are you crazy?!?) you can catch it on ustream. Better yet, catch the next CRG home bout in person on May 8th. See you there!