Toronto Roller Derby Championship

So last weekend, the inaugural season of the Toronto Roller Derby league came to a conclusion, with the first Championship match. The Gore-Gore Rollergirls and The Chicks Ahoy! - the two undefeated teams from the summer season - went at it on November 17 up at Rinx in North York. It had been a long time coming - the last public game had been in August - and part of the issue was that most rinks in the city went back to ice hockey use in September. The league was fortunate to get their hands on Rinx, a venue not designed for spectators so much; Rinx features ice rinks, bumper cars, bowling, and a roller rink. But the sweet bonus for all concerned was - provided you signed a waiver - we got to sit on the track, right in the thick of things.

The evening got off to an in auspicious start when the sound system kept crashing during the introductions. It appeared that the DJ's music board kept overwhelming the system, which was a shame seeing as the tunes are part of the whole experience. But they sorted it out, and by sitting on the track and not behind the glass, as it George Bell Arena in the summer, you could hear the announcements and play by play quite clearly. So for those of us who went through the whole summer with ToRD, we were well able to follow the action. I think the newbies who came - and there were plenty, which was very encouraging given the long lay-off - may have still had a hard time, especially when sitting on the rink surface, which of course makes it a bit harder to see things happening on the opposite side of the rink. But overall, I'd say that the crowd went home satisfied.

The match opened appearing to be a massive mis-match. While both squads went undefeated during the summer, the effects of a long lay-off seemed apparent when both sides skated a little slow off the top. This quickly changed as the Gore-Gores kept throwing numbers on the board, and the Chicks kept hitting the penalty box. By the end of the first period, the Gore-Gores had built up a seemingly insurmountable lead, in the neighborhood of 50 to 6. (I'm afraid I didn't write this down.) But the Chicks started to come back in the second, actually outscoring the Gore-Gores in the frame, and closing the gap - a bit. After 2, it was still about a 30 to 40 point lead for the Gore-Gores.

Sure enough, in the third, the hits started coming a bit harder, and while the Chicks made it respectable, they still couldn't get there, and the Gore-Gores wound up winning the first Toronto Championship Boot by a final score of 89 to 53. Led by their amazing jammers, including Bambi and Desmon Deck-Her who both fly through the pack like a hot knife through a baby's bottom, there was no way that the Gore-Gores were going be denied. The Chicks had nothing to be ashamed of, though, and both sides joined, along with the league referees, for a number of victory laps around the rink. Looking forward to next season - I'll keep you posted!

Sorry, my bad

So, I've been rather busy lately, and just haven't been blogging like I ought to. I'm not exactly doing much of anything at the moment, other than saying that and getting ready for bed. But just to show you that I am still committed to this, here's some of the things that I plan on telling ya'll about in the near future:

• I actually broke down and joined facebook. It's not as horrible I expected to be, however it is not nearly as wonderful as everyone else says, either. Once the novelty wears off, I'll be back more often.
• The last 3 roller derby matches have come and gone, and I haven't even commented on them. I've got buttloads of photos to deal with, thoughts - there was a particularly good one a couple of weeks back - and the pending championship bout coming up.
• Last weekend we went out to lovely Picton, Ontario for Alex and Meredith's wedding - it was without a doubt the best wedding I have ever attended. The above photo is not from the wedding.
• Paul Humphrey's new album A Rumour of Angels has been released. Check out tracks at his MySpace page, and buy it at Amazon. I have my copy already, and will post a review soon, and hopefully a little Q & A with the man himself.
• I'm quitting my job.

I'm not even going to post any music with this one, I'll let you hum or whatever. Better yet, scroll down to a previous post and press play on another track. Then come back up here and read that again:

• I'm quitting my job.

Wow, that does feel good. Well, to go with that, I do plan on posting some Quasi next time, as I have been re-discovering them this week. Until then,

A Smashing Time Was Had By All

Saturday was once again Roller Derby night in Toronto, this time the Gold Digger Grudge Match, in which the Chicks Ahoy! simply crushed the Bay Street Bruisers. (I really ought to start writing down the scores at the end of the matches - you can get the scores at Toronto Roller Derby.) Penny Whistler, as usual, was superb as a penalty ref. The game got a little sloppy later on, with plenty of wipeouts - but still nothing deliberate - and to everyone's great disappointment the manager of the Bruisers did not get thrown out for repeatedly arguing with referees about scoring and penalties. Most of us in the crowd were certain that the manager was performing some sort of theatrical bit to fire up his team, or was trying to get himself "thrown out" for fun. Penny assured me that no, he was pretty serious, and that Sir Refs-A-Lot came pretty close to tossing him.

We did a pretty good job of representing - between H and myself, we managed to bring 17 or 18 people, including my folks, as it turns out that the whole family thinks this is pretty cool. My father videotaped some stuff to show to Grandma, and even got himself quoted in a news article. (I guess I wasn't engaging enough as a boyfriend of a ref. Hmph.) Also in attendance was our friend, Paul the Feeder, from Diary of a Feeder. (I have feeling he will not be writing up the arena's French fries, which another friend described as the worst fries in the history of fries.) I have already had a couple of suggestions from friends that I sign up as a ref next season, supposing that H will move out of the ranks to become a competitor. Well, we'll see. Right now I'm very happy supporting her in this thing, which after all is her thing, not mine. But I'll keep it in mind. I will accept suggestions for derby names as well.





Here's Penny with our newest convert to the Derby crowd, Alex. The derby schedulers have very helpfully scheduled the next 2 matches on either Saturday that straddles Alex and Meredith's wedding, so we can all still go, and all still go to the next derby event!

The next match will be Saturday July 28th, again at 8 PM at George Bell Arena, featuring the Death Track Dolls versus the Smoke City Betties. I know Paul will be sporting his Dolls' shirt to support the team - I think he just liked the logo, but why not? Pick a team! Come one, come all, cum on feel the noize. Be there!

Heh-heh. Heh-heh.

Oh yeah. So, there was a roller derby event last weekend - I'm not kidding when I tell you that this was absolutely the coolest thing ever. Three hours of full-tilt skating, and wipe-outs, and screaming and yelling - it was a right blast. I know that the D-VAS defeated the Smoke City Betties, but I can't for the life of me recall the score, nor can I find it anywhere. I suppose I could just ask H, but that somehow seems too easy. In the above picture, she's more or less dead center about to start a round. I haven't used this camera for much more than taking pictures of the cats around the house, so I wasn't prepared for the complete inability to take action shots that are decipherable. I was hoping for some action shots, but what I kept getting was blurred all to hell. Next time I'll probably bring along the Pentax and do it the old-fashioned way.
Andrew from work came with me, and he's posted a couple of video clips from the night on You Tube. Have a look:


I'm hoping to organize a bit of a posse for the next event - July 14th at George Bell Arena, I believe between the Chicks Ahoy! and the Bay Street Bruisers. Tickets again appear to be $10 in advance - through Soundscapes or Rotate This. Other venues for tickets are on the Derby home site - there's also links to all 6 teams, so you can have a look and decide if one squad is more deserving of your support than another. Or let me know, and maybe Penny Whistler can hook you up. (No word on the intermission entertainment - this time around it was the Pillow Fight League, which is exactly what you think it is.)

I think as time goes on, you'll see more animosity creep in to the matches, as at this point I think many of them are still pretty friendly and haven't made their enemies yet. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely a competitiveness there and passions and tempers flare a bit. But you're not going to get the flat-out fist fights that no doubt 50% of the male audience is there to see - so if that's you, don't get your hopes up. And, as with Nascar, the main reason for some people to watch roller derby is for the accidents and injuries. Nothing too serious happened last week - I think one woman sprained an ankle.

I'm digging the rockabilly aesthetic with derby, and I'm still digging the Detroit Cobras.

Detroit Cobras - Bad Girl

Femme Fatality!

Hey. I don't make this shit up.

But this coming Saturday, the 16th, I'm going to see my first roller derby match. Does one cheer for referees? I'm gonna give it whirl. Full info is available over at ToRD. You can get tickets at Rotate This and Soundscapes, or from me - I've got a couple of H's, and the friends I thought would want to come are otherwise engaged - apparently the Ultimate Fighting match takes precedence, in one of those my-form-of-violence in better than your-form-of-violence sort of things. Anyway, it'll be a gas, and I will have full report next week some time. Apparently there was a feature on MTV Canada this week in which H (Penny Whistler) makes an appearance. I'll figure out a link for it at some point, too.

Here's yet another in my series of not-trying-hard-enough mp3 links:

Call and Response - Rollerskate



I have no idea how I came by this song. It's been in my collection for a few years, though. Anyone who knows anything is welcome to volunteer.

You do know how to whistle, don't ya?

Well, to my continual amazement and glee, H has followed through on her intention to get involved with roller derby. The skates she got don't look as I has hoped (see here) but they're pretty rockin' all the same. Toronto Roller Derby kicks off the summer 2007 season this coming weekend, and H has joined up as a referee for this season - I'm told that the referees pages will get put up eventually. It seems like this has come together pretty quickly, and given that it appears there was tremendous interest in the first place, I'm surprised it wasn't established sooner. By an odd coincidence, the rink the league secured is in my parents' neighborhood. Pretty much any kid I knew growing up who played minor hockey played out of George Bell Arena, not to be confused with this other George Bell:


One of the best outfielders The Toronto Blue Jays had in the 80's, George Bell is perhaps best remembered as:

a) the first (and so far only) Jay to be AL MVP

b) telling reporters that Jays fans could kiss his big, purple ass.

I can't say that I recall why he said this, but we do have a tradition of athletes in this city telling people to kiss their asses. Todd Stottlemyre - another Blue Jay, natch - once told the mayor of Philadelphia to kiss his ass in front of 50,000 people, at a victory rally after the 1993 World Series. I have no doubt whatsoever that the advent of roller derby will lead to additional requests for ass-kissing, although I suspect that the press coverage will be less significant. And I really have no idea about the George Bell for whom the arena is named, nor do I know anything about the color of his ass, purple or no.

But back to the matter at hand...

H has adopted the derby handle of "Penny Whistler". ('cause referees have whistles, don't cha know.) Seeing as all of my suggestions featured the words Boobs, Knockers, Hoo-Hah, or some combination thereof, it's probably just as well that she went her own way on this one. If next time around she joins a team, maybe I'll run a contest for the naming rights.

Here's a couple of tracks which for different reasons seemed appropriate to mark today's theme. See if you can guess why.

Detroit Cobras Hey Sailor

Bright Eyes Pull My Hair

Roller Derby Queen

Ahhh, the sweet solitude of a quiet day spent in boxers on the computer. I had expected to have a nice juicy rant about the neighbors for today - they had warned us (for a change) that not only were they having a party this weekend, it was to feature members of the local djimbe group - yes, really - but that they'd be done by nine, which of course I was anticipating would really be more like 1:30. So then we figured we'd head out to see Hot Fuzz that night, except H, it turns out, is actually serious about joining the flat-track roller derby league they're starting up here, and wanted to attend another scrimmage that night. Long, mundane story short, the neighbors wound up making absolutely no noise whatsoever that night, H had ordered her roller skates - which, sadly, will not look like these - and I spent my Saturday night with Meat Fest, a beef and bean dip thingee I tend to make whenever H is not around.

H gets home around 9:30 or so, and it's too late to go downtown for a movie at that point - *sigh* I am so old - so I spent the evening farting around on the web, and discovered that the resurgence of women's' roller derby has moved much faster and further than I had realized. H has been talking about starting out as a referee, but from looking at some of the images online, I have to say that if you're gonna do this, you really ought to go all the way, and after my original 48 hours of doubt ("Really? We should add that to the list of things we never tell Grandma.") I find myself wholeheartedly encouraging her to join as a skater. Throw on the fishnets, break some bones (hopefully someone else's) knock 'em dead. What do I do, you ask? I drink beer at the pub. Hell, I know I couldn't do this.

And if the wankers downstairs do decide to have their silly goatskin slapping party run late some night, HellKat or whatever she'll call herself (admit it, roller girls have the best names) can go down there and kick their asses.