Thursday, February 3, 2011

Roller Derby Season Tickets - High Country Hellcats - Sonora, CA

VIP seating at all five home bouts, early entrance for preferred seating, VIP parking and 10% off of Hellcats merchandise at bouts.

brownpapertickets.com



Saturday, April 24, 2010

Collected Bout Advice Dump

[When I started roller derby last year, as the time moved closer to the first scrimmage, I collected advice from where ever I could get it..and there it sits in a txt file on my desktop...Welp...somewhat obviously, I will not be needing this information so I thought I'd just dump it here...Not sure from whom I received this info. so take that into consideration....Feel free to add you own advice as well....maybe it will help some scared shitless new derby girl now or in the future...]

2 days before... drink lots of water up til bout time. get really hydrated.
eat small meals the day of bout.. so you don't throw up on the track.
apparently its been done a lot. ick.

drinking dehydrates you. so avoid it.

before you go out on the floor have a time in lockerroom where you all close eyes,focus and
and walk thru the game.. visualizing what you will do .. etc
positive stuff!!

when going out to the rink.. do not make eye contact with the crowd except when doing your warm up.
too much attention to the crowd messes with your head she said.

jitters are normal. she still has them every bout for the last 3 years, don't worry that you are losing your mind.
just focus on the game

when on the bench WATCH the other team to catch on to their behaviors

look behind you
talk to your pack
point out where the other jammer is
know when the other jammer is outta the pack and then help your jammer
be able to stop on the drop of a dime
then work on your sprinting to chase her down in 10 feet
bridging is fucking stupid
get your girls good at sprinting then & bring someone with you
gotta slow down the jammer with one then BAM w the other
do more hitting drills in practice groups of 4
line up in shape of cross girls front back on 1 team girls right/left on other team girl in the middle has to turn around & call out the number that the back girl is holding up while the girls on right/left are dive-bombing swooping in/coordinating when the girl has her head turned

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Boy Eats Drum Machine's "ABQ," featuring members of the Rose City Rollers

[Since my bullshit knee is still awaiting repair, I have jack shit to blog about here...Who wants to hear about the trials and tribulations of a derby girl turned NSO? Not me....but...]

Music video for Boy Eats Drum Machine's "ABQ," featuring members of the Rose City Rollers. Includes footage from "Brutal Beauty: Tales of the Rose City Rollers" where the song made its debut.  

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Phew...as my new NSO goddess Talon says: "Your welcome. now your bout cherry has been popped. funtimes- derby love. "

Where to begin on such a night as this...?

How about with the last thing I remember, which was Friday night trying to get to sleep and thinking how if I can't sleep, no one who is playing tomorrow can sleep...(Turns out, most people slept....some didn't but most did)...I woke up about 7:30am Saturday and proceeded to get the E-stuff done first as usual....Next, I had Husbot call the Inns of Sonora to find out about getting down there asap and start preparing for the day...I started printing the forms but not before being stuck on if they should be printed in color or not and asking the yahoo stats group about it..a debate ensued and I had left the house and lost my wireless connection at the hotel...which brings me back to where I started this sentence, the hotel...Inns of Sonora had no idea what we were saying with the reservation...So I called RevRa..hoping I wasn't going to wake her up at 8:30 and mess up her derby sleep...Ok so we called the wrong hotel...innocent mistake...it was actually Days Inn in Sonora that the reservations were held....which brings me back to my wireless connection...the connection that I did not have in my hotel room....Anyways...I could get it in the lobby and didn't really need it too desperately because of the Sweet-Booger slumber party....but I'm getting ahead of myself.... :)

There I was with three unfilled NSO positions, but thankfully Talon was able to come up and omg..I would have died without her...not to mention Buck N Krazy, All Nate Long, Graves, Tripp Hazard, Doc Sinister (who had the room next to ours with Mrs. Sinister), Hurtz O Good, Split Decision, Refer B, Mermad, Bill Boyd, Cody and Cody's girlfriend (she's kind of denying this girlfriend thing but whatever she was great),  Red Hot Ta Molli, Allison Blansit, Steve Harrigan, Shawa "Pirahna" Cavendar, Amanda Sexton from Atomic Assault, (oh did I mention the score? 162-59 Atomic won...), & Jayleen Bullock the Co-Head NSO...

Got to the room and dropped off my stuff and my husband and went to the arena to help setup. Sheeda Bomb was not only the MVP Pivot of the night, but also kicked ass making the Atomic Assault comfortable in the locker room. Nice decorations.Did some work here and went back to the room to figure out what to wear. 

Next I remember seeing Talon like a desert mirage and me and her getting our stuff together for the 7pm NSO meeting which coincided with the Refs meeting...it was cute when we came downstairs and the refs were just coming out of the Zebra Locker Room (Tripps term), and we met in the middle and marched out to work the bout. During my meeting I giggle now thinking of what I told my first group...Write legibly, Concentrate, Don't have any blank spots and clear any weirdness with the ref BEFORE the next jam starts, hmm what else did I say..let me look at my notes. Ah, a false start is not counted as a new jam, and above all DO NOT CHEER! :) I must have zinged off a thousand questions to Talon, each time my face more and more weighted with concern...(Ugh...the players must have been freaking out!)

Just before we got out on the floor though, I found out that the Jam Timer, the position I chose, is normally a Refs Crew position, and that I was also to START the jams. Well see that is not something I knew, planned for or learned how to do. So THANK THE DERBY STARS that Buck N Krazy was kind enough to start the jams, and as he did he taught me so many new things...Here's the deal with my jam timer position, not in the order I learned these facts: I need two stop watches, one for the 2 minute jam, and one for the 30 seconds that the teams have to line up on the track, When the 30 seconds starts at 20 seconds I am to raise my arm up like one of the hand turn signals for a car without lights, forget which turn now though, and say SKATERS READY, something like that ...and then at 30 seconds put my arm down and then Buck N Krazy, the Head Ref blows the jam starting whistle, but I guess I do that now, gotta clarify that with him. Also part of this position is the team time out timer, one minute. The team time out is different than an official time out, I stop the watches when that happens.

Ok so YES I admitted openly that I owe my team and Atomic Assault 2 minutes. The first jam an Atomic Assault player called off the jam, but then was sent to the penalty box..or so it seemed to me..I guess what happened was that she was sent to the box before she called off the jam and so the jam did not in fact end when I thought it had..there weren't four whistles blown and the jam continued...the Buck N Krazy came over and asked me if it was 2 minutes yet, first I said No, then it dawned on me what happened..THEN the ref blew the whistle and I had in fact blown my first timing... :) so I owe them....

The bout...might be a good time to mention that Atomic Assault has played 6 bouts and the High Country Hellcats  have played zero as of the start of this bout so in my own opinion now..that is not quite fair, but also must have shown the Hellcats that they are strong and can do more than they think because Talon tells me there have been way worse losses at first bouts...one she mentioned was like 100 something to 4.. That made me happy to hear even though I couldn't even tell the score from where I was so I thought they were doing spectacular..not winning I guess, but were playing like winners. 

I saw one of my co workers and her very nice son at the bout, another lady that I and a lot of people in town know was there..my friend Nick from the library and hmm....I think that's all I knew well or saw of people I knew in the crowd...knew by name anyway...that was nice to see them there. I didn't see Mark Truppner from KVML there tho, that worries me. Hope he didn't come and go or something worse. 

First thing after the bout ended and the place was emptying I went to get my first St. Stans beer of the day...I mean I even bought the Hellcats plastic cup and sticker so I could get the 7.00 St. Stans in it...not to mention I bought one of every shirt we were selling in the proshop...(Thanks Regina and Sirena! - And Sirena had to seal with the crowd outside and some people were hassling her..not cool. and neither was our door setup but we'll fix that next bout.) The beer tap was either empty or stopped working so no after bout beer for me until the after-party..which turned out to be held at Steve's Place down the street because Logger's power was out...The same person owns both places so it was like that Seinfeld episode where the lady owns Putamayo and Cinco De Mayo 

Here comes the track rope story....so I went to pick up the track rope behind Coach Quad Queen as she pulled up the tape....as I wound it around my arm I saw Buck N Krazy coming towards me with the other end of the rope wrapping up on his arm (and in much better order than my rope too I might add), and it was like the start or end of a derby romance I could write...how they met with the track rope ends in hand and fell in love (imagine the Disney 101 Dalmations is it? Where the dogs meet in the middle with the spaghetti in their mouth..), it was cute and cracked me up...thanks for that Buck N Krazy..funny.

Steve's was packed and awesome and fun and every other word I'd have to consult a thesaurus to find to describe how much fun that was there! Thanks to the bartenders, Monica and the lady from Loggers who came over because they were overwhelmed busy...

Then it was near last call and now we near the end of the bout and the start of everything else....I had thought that Nicki Spitts and other girls would get rooms but no....it was me and Husbot and a lot of the Atomic Assault...so Booger Dawson, me and H-bot went back to the room and had the best time yacking until like 4am....first we raided a gas station snack shop and me n Booger bought Husbot a cool hat... We took all the food and as I said..yacked the night away...great time...We went to sleep and of course had to be back at the arena by 9am to clean up, or we would not be participating in the next event. I guess the people who didn't show up to clean up know who they are....

We got up cleaned the arena, some of us went to breakfast, (Sheeda Bomb, AMMO, Mighty AFROdite and AMMO's family and Hurtz O Good, a way cool ref. Then we went to unload Mighty's truck full of chairs at the Sheriff's Posse (thank you to them) and we were all done by about 2pm I guess it was...

I'm sure I'm forgetting all the fun parts...oh like Booger this morning, autographing the trashy novel we brought to read in bed last night...but we couldn't stopped talking about the day, and the last year and everything else under the sun....

I'm done, but suppose I'll just apologize for rolling over so many times while sleeping with Booger Gerle...She had some serious track rash on her shoulder and oh man, her hip again...so sorry to her if I woke her up...As I mentioned this morning at breakfast, now that I've slept with Booger I guess she has to be my derby wife... ;) *HEH*!

XOXOX
-Sweet Alyce...a not so sad anymore retired derby girl turned NSO....


Don't forget to check out the pictures, taken by a lot of people, Russell Reno Limprecht, Jasper Boyd and Pierce Jensen (aka husbot) on facebook and the videos on the MDG youtube channel..





P.S. I realized another reason that makes me know that I made the correct decision about not playing roller derby for now, I needed to use Talon and the next time, Mermad's arms to get off my knee when we took a knee for downed skaters... :( *ouch*

Friday, February 19, 2010

Top ten roller derby nicknames in the U.S.A.

...
10. Demonica Lewinsky
, DC Rollergirls
9. Erin Dropabitch, River City Rollergirls
8. Teeny Mussolini, Dockyard Derby Dames
7. Gloria Hole, Brewcity Bruisers
6. Mazel Tov Cocktail, Blue Ridge Rollergirls
5. Joan Cougar Mentstrualcramp, Big Easy Rollergirls
4. Leave it to Cleavage, Sonoma County Roller Derby
3. Risky Bitchness, Syndicate Roller Girls
2. Slaybia Majora, Rose City Rollers

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Vegan Derby Skates!!

Vegan Derby Girl

I recently decided to go for it and join the local roller derby league, and I had no idea what I was in for when I did!

If you know me, you know that I try to incorporate my crafty nature into everything I do, so lets just say...keep your eyes open for some awesome derby related crafts in the near future!

So what do you do if you are vegan AND you want to be a kick butt derby dame? Well, you buy vegan roller skates, of course!





If you are just looking to go to an open skate here and there, or dont want to be left out when your friends go and rent those nasty leather skates...these skates would be a great option! They are also VERY affordable.


If you are looking to do roller derby and represent animals and vegans by rejececting the typical leather shoes, Riedell now makes a vegan roller derby skate! I researched online and these skates are pretty new to the market, but all of the reviews I have read have been excellent. They arent much more than most Riedell non-vegan skates, and a local skate shop gives a 10% discount to all roller derby people! It has been about 3 weeks now since I special ordered my vegan skates, a first for the shop I went to, and I am so excited that they will be in early next week! I got the exact ones in the photo, but I opted to upgrade to a metal plate instead of the nylon as I am a bigger woman.

Whether you plan to just go skate with friends, or you want to kick some butt on the track playing roller derby...you dont have to compromise your beliefs or sit it out becuase these days we have options! I have also started a blog and facebook fan page where I will chronicle my journey from uncoordinated bike riding vegan to vegan derby girl! Not interested in roller derby? That's cool, I will also be posting workout tips, pre workout recipes and general healthy living blog posts as well!

Go Vegan, Thrash The Derby Track With Your Veggie Powered Skates!

Posted by: Heather from