Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

Last night, the three Tucson Roller Derby teams played the three Arizona Roller Derby teams in half hour bouts. I still would like to see full blown matches between these teams scattered throughout the season, but hey, I don't run the league.


The first match was between Iron Curtain and the Surly Gurlies. Neither is regarded as the best team in the league, but they are the only two teams that have flag bearers. Surly Gurlies had an early lead and managed to kill the game. Their tactics to some of us fans seemed to cross that line between defensive play and bad roller derby. The final portion of the match resulted in few points from either side.

There were also problems with the refereeing, with the crew being a combined Tucson-Phoenix crew that rarely works together. The communication problems resulted in numerous false starts, strange penalties and confusion over lead jammers. The false start and penalty problem was worked through by the second game, but the problem of lead jammer being declared and then recinded plagued the other bouts and led to confusion on the part of players.

The "anti-derby" style on the part of the Surly Gurlies was tactically smart, but it made for a boring match to watch. Iron Curtain players regarded it as unsporting and their frustration came through with a couple of strong hits from the normally measured Bolshe Vixen near the end of the game. I hate to give the Phoenicians credit for anything, but they used the clock to their advantage. I doubt that such a thing could have been carried out for a full hour without wearing a team's own players down. Iron Curtain could have won a full length match.


VICE Squad had a solution to this, they simply never gave the Bad News Beaters a chance to have a lead. To give you an indication about how different the game was, I looked up at the scoreboard halfway through and realized that VICE Squad's lead alone was greater than the combined scores of the two teams in the first bout. The Bad News Beaters went for seven and eight minute chunks without scoring a point. Near the end, VICE Squad put Barbicide in as a jammer, she's usually a blocker, and the fans knew that it was over. Barb never got lead jammer status, (confusion among the refs, it seems) but piled on more points for the team. Final score, 111-8. My memory may be a bit off there, but it was that bad, or good, depending on which side of the Gila you are on.


The last match was going to be the best, the TRD champion Furious Truckstop Waitresses versus the Bruisers. The Bruisers form the core of the AzRD travel squad, Tent City Terrors, who came in third place in the last Dust Devil tournament. This was going to be good.

Well, they didn't manage to break into double digits either, only scoring 9 points. Their defense was able to keep FTW from piling on the ridiculous margin that VICE Squad was able to, however.


One player that impressed was Peaches Rodriguez, who despite her size can give and take hits as well as the larger players do. She also has great speed, which she used on a jam or two where she was assigned to be jammer. She can be a little rusty (it is her first season), such as the jam where she managed to run head long into two Bruisers blockers when she neglected to lift her head while accelerating through a turn. This gal turns the whole "best defense is a good offense" thing on its head, when she's a jammer, her motto is "the best offense is knocking the other woman on her ass." I've think I've seen few jammers who are as agressive towards the opposing team as she is. She's Wayne Gretzky and Marty McSorley at once.


This was the last match for Fisti Cuffs, at least in a FTW uniform. We gave each other a big hug afterward.


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.