Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

In the first match they have ever lost, the Furious Truckstop Waitresses were narrowly defeated by the Vice Squad in the Tucson Roller Derby championship match yesterday.

Vice Squad's jammers, expecially Aja Consent, were just too darned fast. Not only did this help them pile on points, it put the Waitresses on constant defense. The times when the Waitresses had the lead jammer, they often had to cut the jams short to prevent Vice Squad from stealing the lead jam postiton and piling on yet more points. This made it near impossible for the Waitresses to get a decent scoring run, which was necessary even though the scoring deficit was never more than eight points.


I'm still an FTW fan. I like Vice Squad though, they are a fun team to watch, plus their captain and founder, Whiskey Mick, was a study partner of mine in an English class I took last year.

All of these women are incredibly hard working and are also really appreciative that people actually want to come out and see them do this crazy thing. The picture at the right is of Fisti Cuffs, who is one of the ones who really enjoys being around the fans. She once stopped my car on the street because I had an FTW sticker in the window.

Fisti is a jammer, so its her job to skate real darned fast and not lose speed on the turns. She's also small, so she can be pretty vulnerable to the errant elbow. Not as vulnerable as she looks though. Also, she's got a team of tough women protecting her. Think of Fisti as Wayne Gretzky, and Jezebelle as Marty McSorley.

(Never can do this without mentioning Jezebelle)


Fisti also told me that there will be a full "off season" planned against teams from Phoenix and Austin. Be on the lookout for that.


Goddammed Revs. I haven't had to say that in a while. Goddammed Revs.

The New England Revolution are all but assured of a first place seed in the playoffs, all they need to do is win one game. Just one.

With cellar dwelling teams left on the schedule as the MetroStars and the Columbus Crew left on their schedule, how hard can it be?

Harder than it looks, apparently. The Revs had an uneven first half, and the second half they played much better. But, the RotMasters managed to sneak in two goals, one from French veteran Youri Djourkaeff and the other from Honduran cybaby Amado Guevara. At that point the MetroStars had the momentum, then the defenses of both teams seemed to totally fall apart.

Over the next half an hour, five goals were scored. Most of them can be attributed to bizarre defensive mistakes. MetroStar 'keeper Tony Meola was particularly miffed at his defense after poor marking allowed Clint Dempsey a free shot on goal. Of course, a surer save by him on the previous shot would have made the marking unnecessary. Tubby returns to his old team, and he returns to his primadonna ways.


In all, nine goals were scored, most of them absolute junk. Here is your summary:

MET -- Mike Magee 3 (Youri Djorkaeff 6, Michael Bradley 3) 7
NE -- Shalrie Joseph 5 (Joe Franchino 3) 29
MET -- Youri Djorkaeff 8 (Amado Guevara 8, Ante Razov 5) 51
MET -- Amado Guevara 10 (Tim Ward 3, Ante Razov 6) 59
NE -- Shalrie Joseph 6 (Steve Ralston 6) 61
NE -- Clint Dempsey 9 (Taylor Twellman 7) 71
NE -- Taylor Twellman 15 (Shalrie Joseph 5) 74
MET -- Mike Magee 4 (Michael Bradley 4, Ante Razov 7) 76
MET -- Youri Djorkaeff 9 (Amado Guevara 9) 86

Any game like this ends up with a lot of yellow cards. Even the normally quiet and stayed Pat Noonan was cautioned for "Bringing Disrepute to the Game" after coming after RotMaster Tim Ward for a dirty tackle.


The final goal was particularly grating. Not because it was a late goal, the Revs have become notorious for game winning goals in the final seconds. The trouble was it resulted from a judgement error by Matt Reis.

Djorkaeff was running at down the sideline, and seemed to be too close to the end line to make any kind of decent shot. Reis set himself up to block a cross, but Djorkaeff took as shot. Reis leaped at the ball, but unfortunately was a few feet inside the post and appeared to carry the ball into the net. I guess the game officials didn't see what I did, since they gave Djorkaeff the goal rather than count it as an own goal.

It was a mistake, but totally understandable given the way games actually work. Of course, Shep Messing thought that this was an unfogiveable error. Messing was 'keeper for the New York Cosmos back in the late 1970s and now is a color commentator on MetroStars matches. Messing claimed that he never would have done this, that he would have stayed a yard outside the post. What, when you are expecting a cross?

Messing does this sort of thing all the time. This and his reflexive habit of thinking that any infraction by the other team should earn a yellow card are the most irritating sort of "homerism." Color commentators can bring an interesting perspective, but when they start pulling this "In my day, I was better than all of these guys" thing, it's really obnoxious. I know you are an experienced goalkeeper, Shep, but I would look like a fantastic in goal if Franz Beckenbauer was playing sweeper in front of me.


The loss is also annoying because the MetroStars are so darned easy to hate. They have the whiny Amado Guevara and they just traded a hard working player (John Wolyniec) for vapid hack Ante Razov. Their fans loathsomeness is only rivaled by DC United supporters. They have had "big name" national team stars (Tony Meola, Tab Ramos) who couldn't be bothered to put in a good performance for a mere "club side." They have showered by the league with all sorts of big international allocations (the oft-carded Brazillian Branco, Youri Djorkaeff, and the by then lazy German star Lothar Matthaus) but have still never been to an MLS cup. Most unforgiveable, they are from New York. They suck. I hate them and their children.

S'ok. The Revs play division cellar dwellers Columbus next week. What could possibly go wrong?


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.