Friday, May 28, 2010

Life Experiences: Roller Derby pt. 2

Stage Match

The opening bout was an exhibition between two Boston teams; the Cosmonaughties and the Wicked Pissahs. The team names were perhaps the least silly thing about the event.

My girlfriend and I arrived late, to a standing room only situation and a circus-like vibe, but instead of circus animals a guy in a rat mask and diaper tried futilely to get a wave going, while a lady in hot pants shattered a clipboard on the concrete floor. The announcers gave their all to try and excite the crowd, though they would have had a better chance if they didn't pronounce the team The "Pissers." It's a sport that thrives on puns, you'd think the color commentators could get it right.

The Pissahs took an early lead, but found them selves trailing late in the second half. In fact, the Cosmos took command in a very odd way, dominating like they hadn't been for the entire game. The jam before last, they had a 20 point lead.

To put that in perspective, a skater managing to lap an entire group, and the other skater going all out to do the same, scores you 5. Each jam is a max of 2 minutes. To overcome a 20 point deficit in one jam, the jammer would need to lap the entire group 4 times, once every 30 seconds, and then score an additional point. And the other team is allowed to slam into you.

And the Pissahs pulled it off.

Well Holy suspicious ending Batman, looks like we've just taken for a ride!

At this point you're all probably thinking, "hey, Rahhal, there's a guy in a gorilla suit priming the t-shirt cannon while the team managers are dressed in everything from 3-piece suits to leather chaps. The audience is a mix of Nascar enthusiasts and teenagers who obviously don't have anything better to do. And the whole damn thing looks like the depressing scenes from Academy Award nominated film The Wrestler. You're watching a staged game!"

Well I had higher hopes, okay? I allowed myself the naivety of believing that roller derby was all hard hits and competitive play. If someone told me I was going to see a choreographed series of events I would have adjusted my expectations accordingly. Well, P.T. Barnum wasn't there, but announcer Kevin-Up gave it his best.

Besides, the second bout, one between Boston's traveling team the Boston Massacre and Olympia WA's Oly Rollers was a bona-fide match. Because how entertaining is a beat-down in your own city, really?

Boston: Massacred
By now you see where I'm going with this. Boston got its ass KICKED. Feel free to read the lengthy recap of both these matches, but the long and short of it is, Boston got dominated. And honestly, I didn't mind. At least I knew I was watching a real bout. And to their credit, the Oly Rollers aren't 2009 defending champions for nothing. Their jammers can move, man!

All in all, I had a great time. I'm also fairly certain I won't attend another game, unless I'm A) with a large group of friends and B) boozed up something fierce. Because that's how it's meant to be seen.


Whip It: good?
Sure, if you liked Juno. Seriously. It was Juno on skates, complete with Indy soundtrack.

I won't get into a lengthy movie review here, because I've taken enough of your time. But I will say, when I left the Shriners Auditorium with plans to see the movie, I told my girlfriend, "I bet you $5 we hear at least 3 of the songs we heard tonight on this movie. At least one will be Thunderstruck by AC/DC.

I wasn't even close.

Jimmy Fallon filled the announcer role perfectly though.

Conclusion
I went into this expecting something wholly different from what I got. I've been self-sabotaged by my own high expectations before, and I'm not saying the whole thing was bad, but it was, among other things, a stark realization that my child-like perception of this once-distant and taboo activity is, in fact, just another excuse to get out of the house.

I wonder if curling is going to have the same feel?

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Life Experiences: Roller Derby

The Ones With the Hats

"The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, commonly known as Shriners and abbreviated A.A.O.N.M.S., established in 1870 is an appendant body to Freemasonry, based in the United States. The organization is best-known for the Shriners Hospitals for Children they administer and the red fezzes that members wear. The organization is headquartered in Tampa Florida."(Wiki Intro)

For what it's worth, I only saw one gentleman wearing a fez. It was very brief, and when I looked again he was gone. He could've been a ghost; he certainly seemed old and regal enough to play the part.

The Shriners Auditorium is a large pavilion in the middle of nowhere in Wilmington, MA (if Bumblefuck was a town, it would have a Shriners Pavilion). It is staffed by the oldest people imaginable, and exudes a county fair vibe at all times. I have to assume the only reason I didn't see cotton candy or corn dogs is because they're out of season. Carnies, it would seem, are never out of season.

Rules of the Road

For all things Roller Derby, click here. For a not-so-brief rules explanation, stay here.

The game is played on an oval track. Sometimes it's an angled wooden track (like a NASCAR track, only wood), and sometimes it's a flat smooth concrete slab (like a street brawl, only on wheels).

Two teams of 5 are on the track together. The front 8, 4 on each team, comprise the "pack." They skate at a constant pace, and must keep together under guidelines defined by the pack referee. Two players behind them, 1 from each team, are the "jammers." They skate at their own pace, usually much faster than the pack.

The game is broken into 2-minute sessions called "jams." At the start of a jam, the pack begins to skate. A few seconds later the jammers start, and attempt to pass the pack. Whichever one gets through first is the "lead jammer." They are allowed to end the jam at any time before the two minutes. The other jammer can score points, but cannot end the jam prematurely. Generally the lead jammer will end before allowing the other team to score.

Jammers score points by racing around the track and passing opposing players in the pack. They can make 4 points for passing every opponent in the pack, and another point if they lap the other jammer. These 5 points are known as a "grand slam." A jammer can race around and pass the pack as many times as time and their endurance allows. The game goes for 2 halves of roughly 30 minutes each. Most points wins.

Skate Expectations

When I first thought of going to a roller derby game I had a certain vision of the whole thing: A grand arena with hundreds of screaming fans; chicken wings and beer flowing freely; trash-talking and brutal hits between whom could only loosely be called "ladies"; a grand celebration of a growing sport that everyone in the room was adamantly supporting.

It was in fact, to put it succinctly, not.

The bleachers that were there were in fact full. My best guess would put it around 200-300 people, plus standing room. A good turnout certainly, but the vibe was not that of a 300 person crowd. It was a hard to describe feeling that I feel I can only do through analogy:

Say you and a bunch of your friends hear about a great new board game. It's expensive, in fact pricier than any game you've ever bought. But you've heard such great things you all decide to pool your cash to get it. You plan the day, read the thick rulebook, set up the massive board, and settle in to play, all the while talking about how much fun it will be. The game starts slow, and in fact has a few tedious sticking points, but you all agree that the game really picks up after the first few rounds, even though none of you have actually played. So you play, and sit, and occasionally talk about how neat this or that thing is, when in reality you find that the whole experience is something of a let-down. Now, you dropped some serious coin into this, as did the others sitting around you. And they're all talking about how great the game is, though not with the same exuberance they did that morning. So you play along, and feign excitement so as not to be the downer of the party. Eventually it dawns on you that everyone else is feeling the same thing; they're underwhelmed, but unwilling to voice their concerns. So collectively, silently, you agree to maintain the fabrication that this over-hyped monstrosity is totally worth the significant time and money you sank into it.

Multiply that by 300 people, and you have the initial feel of this outing.


The excitement did pick up, and next post I'll describe the games themselves.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Life Experiences: Roller Derby Prelude

Back In the Day
I have vivid memories of watching Roller Derby on television many years ago. The teams had funny names, themes, and a great deal of trash-talking and hitting was going on. The show was on TNT, or whatever Spike was before it became Spike, and was on a late hour on an unfavorable day.
I've always had a love of the off-kilter sports. I'd love cricket if it wasn't so quintessentially British and impenetrable to the average Uh-Mericun mind. So I wanted this new exciting thing to succeed.
Then I paid attention to the game. I noticed how some runs were crazily improbable. A team gaining a 10 point lead, only to lose 10 points in a single run? And that elaborate bit of skating-gymnastics seems so improbable! How did it work? Then it dawned on me; the bouts were staged. Maybe not all of them, but enough to taint the experience. Like WWF years ago, and dodge-ball years later, off-kilter sports in their early iterations must go through a deal of pomp and circumstance before they come into their own. To pull viewers, high drama must replace solid fundamentals. American Gladiators did the same thing.
This sort of betrayal of gamesmanship breaks my heart. Professional wrestling is one thing (and I'm not condemning it; it's a fine bit of theatrics and athletic demonstration, but not what I'd call a sport), but you can't present something you're calling a legitimate sport and a dramatic piece with a known outcome in the same gesture. Give me one or the other, don't tart up one to look like something it's not.

Where The Wind Comes Sweepin'
I'm from Oklahoma. Roller Derby is pretty popular in Oklahoma, as popular as it is anywhere I think. And yet, 24 years living there, I never did go to a match. My friends went a couple times, but I never did go with them. It was a time of my life where sitting in and moping seemed more reasonable than drinking cheap beer and watching ladies hit other ladies at high speed. Christ, to be young again!

Cut To the Chase

I'm 27, I'm living on my own in Boston, I have a car, a job, and the power to make my own decisions. And Roller Derby is "The fastest growing sport around," and even though "Around" technically means the 50 ft. circle around the Shriners Auditorium, it is still accessible to a guy like me. So finally, after a long time coming, I went to see a 2 bout lineup of Roller Derby. And it was absolutely nothing like I envisioned all those years ago.