Four new leagues have just been accepted to the WFTDA:

The Arch Rival Rollergirls from St. Louis, MO
The Denver Roller Dolls from Denver, CO

Green Country Rollergirls from Tulsa, OK

Maine Roller Derby from Portland, ME

Congratulations to all leagues! I also want to add a personal note to the acceptance of the Denver Roller Dolls since there are now two member leagues from Denver - congrats ladies, it’s been great meeting some of you and skating together. For those that aren’t in the Denver area, my league, the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls, is the other roller derby league in our city, and both RMRG and DRD worked together to make having two WFTDA leagues in such a small area something possible.

The Denver Roller Dolls’ Mile High Club hosted the No Coast Derby Girls’ Mad Maxines from Lincoln on the 24th. No Coast is a WFTDA member league who is not yet ranked, while the DRD are in the process of applying for membership. Without either league in the rankings as of now it was difficult to determine which way the game may go, but the Mile High Club has played some impressive bouts recently, such as a match against one of Rat City’s home teams with an extremely close score. While the Maxines dominated the first jam of the period and scored the night’s first points, the Mile High Club immediately put a stop to that and gained a significant lead - 35 to the Maxines’ 18.

On the Mile High Club’s side, Friction VixXxen played a strong pivot and did a great job of either holding the Maxines back or knocking them to the ground, while Angela Death managed to snag a number of points. Rockett, who seems to usually play as a jammer, got some great blocks in, and Ro Chambeau proved to be a heavy contender in the point-scoring department on such a jammer-heavy league. The Mile High Club continued their strong lead through the second period - MHC 71, MM 38.

The Mad Maxines appeared to be a newer team, and their jammers looked to have a difficult time making it out of the pack, especially with some of Mile High Club’s stronger blockers up front. Busty St. Claire was a major point-scorer who was equipped with some good speed, and Sylvia Bullet was an extremely impressive blocker, going after Mile High jammers by herself a number of times and managing to knock them repeatedly to the floor. Sylvia isn’t your normal power blocker with her skinnier build, but her timing and her agility allowed her to get in some shattering hits on otherwise extremely stable skaters. The final score was Mile High Club 113, Mad Maxines 47.

No Coasts’ Mad Maxines are coming back to Denver to take on the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls on September 8th at the Bladium, and the Dolls’ next bout is later in the month on the 21st between their two home teams.

I’ve been back from rollercon for a couple of days, and like every rollergirl knows when they aren’t around a computer for a little while I have had some catching up to do. Vegas was great, and while I unfortunately didn’t get to do as many rollercon-type things as I wanted (I brought someone non-derby related with me and I didn’t want to leave them in the dust), what I did go to was a lot of fun. Next year I would like to get more involved with the planning process, and I would recommend that to anyone else - I had an attitude this year that I didn’t know what to expect and I wanted to just show up and do my own thing, but I think volunteering would have put me more in the know and let me meet some more skaters.

The pickup scrimmages where awesome, and seeing skaters of so many skill levels representing so many leagues was both humbling and encouraging. The workshops covered a great deal of topics and gave some great ideas (I’m going to be honest, I only made it to one - bad rollergirl I know. but it did give me some ideas I hadn’t thought of before and I heard good things about the ones I didn’t make it to).

I spent Saturday planning my outfit for the wedding as well as skating on a banked track for the first time. The track was definitely a neat experience - I spent my time on it just trying to get used to skating, which was much more different than I would have imagined. I was grateful for the chance to try it and I definitely gained a new respect for those that do it regularly (or did in the past), but it also made me happy to skate flat track. Both seem to have a separate set of challenges and advantages.

My derby wife and I missed our wedding because we got lost, and we ended up eating pizza in some strip mall in our ridiculous outfits. We vowed to bring the outfits out next year and try again however, so I’m not going to go into details about how we both looked.

Now I’m off to practice and to scrimmage with the Denver Roller Dolls. I’m actually really excited about this - it’s always fun to skate with new players and I’m looking forward to meeting some of them since I have been to a few of their games and watched them play before.

Before I go - I heard that the Danger Dolls beat the Candy Snipers this weekend for the first time in CO Springs - I’d love to hear some details!

Friday, July 20th was the season opener for the Denver Roller Dolls, with home teams the Bad Apples and Green Barrettes facing off against one another. The first season for the Dolls ended with these two teams bouting in April, with the score staying close right up until the end where the Bad Apples took the victory. Both teams proved once again that they are an even match for one another - the end of the first period saw the Apples at 32, the Barrettes 31.

The Dolls as a league appear to be full of quite a number of agile and fast skaters, and they seem to have many good jammers. The Barrettes’ Angela Death proves to be incredibly fast and difficult to block, thanks to her quick moves and her wise decisions as to which way to go while in the pack. Disco-A-Gogo was also a major point scorer for the team. On the Apples, Jersey Trouble and Rockett both seemed to give the Barrettes a run for their money as jammers. By the second period, the Apples had racked up 61 points while the Barrettes barely grabbed the lead with 64.

With so many good jammers on both teams, it seemed that the blockers had a difficult task throughout the entirety of the bout. Friction Vixxxen proved to be one of the skaters most effective at holding back the opposing team’s jammers, and with so many point scorers on the roster a number of the speedier girls had to take to blocking for some of the jams. The Barrettes were able to hold onto their lead for the rest of the third period, ending the game with the Apples at 81, Barrettes 91.

DRD’s two home teams will face off once again in September, and it will be interesting to watch such an even-matched game once again.