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Roller Derby: Belmont Wins First Bout In Thrilling Fashion
Posted June 4, 2011 By ryan
Gazettes - 6/04/2011
by Ryan Thies
Photos by Stacy Thies
There was only one minute left, just enough time for one more jam. The Terminal Island Tootsies were clinging to a 97-95 lead over the Belmont Hot Broads. Each team’s jammer took her place, and the whistle blew.
Friday night marked the third bout of the season for the Long Beach Roller Derby, and it was the debut of the league’s newest team: the Belmont Hot Broads. I have been to all three bouts this season, the only three Roller Derby events I have ever attended, and every time I attend one I come home with the same question: was that a show or was it a sport?
The fire-dancers before the match, the suggestive team names, the halftime musicians, the individual “stage” names; it all seems to suggest a show. But then I see the women on the track and they are unmistakably athletes, the skating is real and impressive, the physicality is daunting.
With exactly one jam left, Belmont’s player/coach Pigeon decided to call her own number. She lined up, looked at the sky, and knew that this is what she came to LBRD for.
Last season Long Beach Roller Derby had three teams and skated on a flat track (essentially a hard surface with tape marking the track). This offseason LBRD decided to expand to a 4th team and to make the huge leap to a real, full-size, banked-track (this jump cannot be overstated, this is like going from a sandlot to Dodger Stadium). They also changed the rules to allow coaches to also play. Pigeon was in another league but got the call, if she wanted she could have her own team. To coach and to star.
Terminal Island just had to stall, if they could keep Pigeon from getting through, it would just be a matter of letting the seconds tick off and they would have their first win of the season.
Roller Derby may seem confusing or chaotic but at its heart it’s very simple: it’s a full contact race. A pack of players- made up of 4 women from each team- start skating, lined up behind them are each team’s jammer. That jammer is the only offensive player on the track. The jammers have to break through the pack, skate around and catch up with them in order to break through the pack again. Each person in the pack they pass that second time around is worth a point. Each “jam” lasts one minute.
Pigeon had her work cut out for her: she would have to break through, skate around and break through again, and she would have to pass at least 2 more than Terminal Island’s jammer passed.
Friday night’s bout was a remarkably clean one. There was only one ejection (from an accumulation of fouls) and only eight Power jams (when one team’s jammer gets penalized, allowing the other team’s jammer to be the only one out there, like a power play in hockey). Both of those numbers were mere fractions of what last month’s bout (between Bixby and 4th St) had. Coach Pigeon prides herself on her team’s clean play.
Pigeon went up high on the banked track, a strategy that carries its risks (being knocked down, or out of the track completely) but also its rewards. Two Terminal Island players cut off her path, she drops down to the bottom of the track and is past the pack before any Tootsie player can react.
Friday’s was also a remarkably close bout (both of this season’s previous matches were nothing short of blow-outs.) Coming into the game it was hard to know what to expect from Belmont, they were after all an expansion team, but the entire first-half Belmont held their own before taking a four-point lead, 47-43, into halftime. The second half Belmont started out well, at one point going up 63-51, but Terminal Island’s experience began to show through. The Tootsie’s Kelly Skater turned her team’s 12-point deficit into a one-point lead on one jam (again- since you can only get five points each time you pass the entire other team, to score 13 points on one jam is incredible and was the highest total of the night.) Terminal Island would stretch their lead out to as many as thirteen, 92-79, before Belmont started to claw their way back.
Belmont’s comeback was propelled by Pigeon- who called her own number often down the stretch. On a rare Power jam with just over two minutes to go Pigeon doubled-up the pack, scoring ten points and bringing the Hot Broads to within four points with enough time for two jams left. Belmont would get two more points on the next jam, setting up the climatic final battle.
Pigeon broke through the first pack and began skating around the track to catch up for her point-scoring attempt. Her teammates did a fantastic job keeping Terminal Island’s jammer behind the pack never allowing her to even get into a position to score. The clock was winding down. 15. 14. 13. Pigeon caught up, and made her move. She was flying despite the fact that she Jammed in four of the final six. 9. 8. 7. She cut through the Tootsies. 5. 4. 3. Passing every single one of them. Time expires. End of the jam, end of the bout, Tootsies 97, Belmont 100.
LBRD has wanted to show off their new track so desperately. The new track was supposed to put on a better show. But so far this season every match has slightly disappointed. One team got it, they learned how to use it, while the other team didn’t. The show was interesting at first, but by the end, with the match a foregone conclusion, the sport didn’t carry it through. But not Friday night. Not with Pigeon and the new Belmont Hot Broads out there.
Asked after the game about the “show” aspect of Roller Derby, Pigeon said: “I couldn’t care less about ‘the show’. I am here to win.” Amazingly, that attitude- that Roller Derby is a sport- made Friday night a pretty great show.
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