Roller Derby tournaments are a ton of fun. You go to these events and get to see teams and skaters you don’t get to see hardly ever (if ever) along with seeing teams you’re familiar with. I mean, how many opportunities will I get to see teams from places like Great Falls, Saskatoon and Regina? Not many, I can tell you that. But on weekends like this, you get to see what they got. And, at least for me, that’s the best thing about gatherings such as Spokarnage.

Spokane is about a 4:15 drive for me from north Seattle. And riding all alone, I get a lot of time with my thoughts. So I figured in a rare occurrence (especially these days), I’d share some of those thoughts I had during that drive back home. They go something like this…

Best Line of the Weekend

I can’t remember who said it (I have a lot of conversations during the weekend), but after being asked where someone was from, the person replied “if you have never heard of them, they’re probably from Canada.”

Montana

The teams I really wanted to pay some special attention to were Electric City, Flathead and Hellgate. All three are from Montana. Why you may ask? It’s simple; as much of a chore that all the all-star stuff is for me, one of the few joys I get out of slapping all of it together is how awesome Montana does in it. With all the comments, sharing of the articles and genuine enthusiasm they seem to have for it, they definitely make their part of it worthwhile to me. Sadly, I didn’t get to see Hellgate play on Friday (a little more on that later). But I did get to see Electric City and Flathead Valley play on Saturday morning.

They may be in the sparsely populated state of Montana, but that doesn’t mean they don’t put just as much heart and soul into the game as anyone else out there. And that’s why I like doing the all-star stuff for Montana; to let some of that hard work be recognized by others in the derby community around the northwest (and even the world). So it was really cool for me to finally see some of those skaters that the people of Montana speak so proudly of play the game live.

You can say the same thing about the Canadian teams who participated.

My timeless love for the Sockit Wenches

In my almost 8 years of being in and around the sport, there are really only three teams I’ve ever openly rooted for; the Sockit Wenches (the first derby team of any sort I rooted for), the Rat City all-stars (circa 2007) and the Dockyard all-star team (from my hometown of Tacoma). But as I got more and more into writing about the game, in fairness to how I covered the sport, I pretty much detached myself from being a traditional fan and rooting for any one team. I guess you could say I was still a fan in the strictest of definitions, but I’m more of a fan of the overall sport than having an emotional stake in one team or the other.

It really wasn’t a conscious decision, but later on Saturday, I realized that I was watching a lot more of the Sockit Wenches bouts than anyone else there. There were plenty of other teams there with skaters that I personally know to one degree or the other…most of those teams with more skaters I personally know than current Sockit Wenches I currently know (Sister Slaughter, Devilynne Syde, Kitty Kabooty and coach X-Khan, mainly). Yet, as they kept playing, I kept watching. And even though I wasn’t vocal at all about it, I found myself rooting for them and feeling that joy fans have when their teams do well as they kept advancing through the tournament. Which was an odd feeling for me after so many years of not giving a damn how one team or the other did.

I highly doubt it’s going to become a habit with teams I root for popping up left and right. In fact, I can pretty much tell you it’s not gonna happen at all. Still, it was pretty awesome rooting for a team again after a good 7 years or so…even if it was just for a weekend. And I’m also pretty sure that, no matter who is playing for them at any given time, there will still be a small part of me that hopes the Wenches win.

Spokarnage is awesome as it is, but……..

…….if it was up to me, I’d change the format quite a bit.

I’ve been to enough double-elimination tournaments to know that, as the time goes on during the weekend, the tournament itself turns into more of a contest of attrition rather than a contest of skill and strategy. And I think that kind of proved itself today when the Sockit Wenches decided (quite wisely, in my opinion) to forfeit the championship bout to OPP.

And I’m not just saying this after my Wenches take above (lol). I’m actually saying this since it’s what they went through. Here is what the Wenches basically did this weekend…

Friday: They had one 30 minute bout

Saturday: They had two 30 minute bouts and two 60 minute bouts.

Sunday: Two 60 minute bouts and forfeited a third and possibly fourth 60 minute bout.

Overall, the Wenches played 330 minutes worth of roller derby over three days. And that includes 240 minutes worth over a period of about 16 hours. And in order to win the championship, they would have had to play 120 more minutes worth of roller derby. Which would have given them a grand total of a whopping 450 minutes worth of roller derby over a 72 hour period had they played it all out.

For the Sockit Wenches or anyone else, that’s way too much. And I mean WAYYYYY too much.

As the 9:00am bouts got underway, it seemed to me that all four teams competing at that time were starting to show signs of fatigue. Especially in the Wenches/Antagonist bout, it seemed like skaters were hitting the floor at a much higher rate than skaters of that caliber normally do. And when they were hitting the floor, they weren’t popping up nearly as quickly as they normally do, either. While watching it, I commented to someone that “both teams gotta find a Shell station because they’re running out of gas.”

The Wenches won that bout and also went on to defeat the Pile O’ Bones Sugar Skulls after a half hour break. Their next opponent was the undefeated (and very fresh looking) OPP, who, up to that point, had played two 30 minute bouts and two 60 minute bouts for a grand total of 180 minutes worth of derby over the three days…basically 1/2 of the time the Wenches had played up to that point. So after suffering two major injuries in their bout against the Sugar Skulls and, no doubt, ample amounts of soreness and flat-out physical fatigue from all the skating and beatings they both had given out and taken over the weekend, the Wenches decided to not play with more fire and get out of there without anything else happening that could be potentially devastating to someone personally. And I didn’t blame them one bit. Derby is already a sport where there is physical risk involved. But after what all they had done over the weekend, the game had been elevated from “risky” to “dangerous” for the remaining Wenches. And there is a huge difference between “risky” and “dangerous.”

But on the other side of it, there were also three teams who entered the tournament that I didn’t get to see at all; Hellgate, Walla Walla and SS Rodeo. They were all eliminated on Friday. And that kinda sucks for people like me who would like to have seen them play, but didn’t get the chance since I wasn’t there on Friday. Not to mention it probably spoiled the weekend for those three teams since they were one day and done in Spokane.

So while driving home, I concocted this formula that would ensure each team got to play in at least three 30 minute bouts over two days, while making it so that the eventual champions would play as little as 210 minutes and no more (barring an extremely rare overtime jam) than 270 minutes worth of roller derby over the entire weekend, yet still have three nice, full days of roller derby for all to enjoy. Here are the steps to that formula:

1. Once all 24 teams have registered, rank them 1-24. I personally know how difficult that is to do when so many of the entrants don’t have any common opponents to compare each other too (there might be a couple here and there, but not many) since they asked me to seed the 2013 tournament. I even asked several other experts around the northwestern U.S. and British Columbia to help with that process, But I think the most I got out of anyone was 6 teams that they had seen ever (not recently…EVER). So even though it’s like throwing darts at a rather large board and still missing the considerably sized bulls-eye, it still has to be done.

2. Once they’re ranked, separate the teams into 4 different groups based on their ranking: 1-6, 7-12, 13-18 and 19-24. Then create 6 different division groups and label them A-F. Then what you do is start with group “A” and draw one team each out of team group 1-6, 7-12, 13-18 and 19-24. Continue doing this until division group “F” is done and you have your round-robin groups set up. (Hopefully that all makes sense…lol).

3. Within the group/round robin stage, each team will play the other three teams within their group once in 30 minute bouts.

4. On day 1 of the tournament (Friday), teams in groups A-C will play two games within their group, while teams in groups D-F will play one each. That equals 18 bouts that Friday (which was the total they had this Friday)

5. On day 2 of the tournament (Saturday), groups A-C will play one 30 minute bout while groups D-F will play two 30 minute bouts.

6. Once the round robin portion of the tournament is over, the team with the best record within their group will advance to the playoff bouts which will be 60 minutes each. If there is a tie within the group (say two teams each with a 2-1 record), the tie-breaker is easy; whoever won the bout between the two teams during the round robin is the one who advances to the playoffs. Also at this point, the teams will be seeded 1-6 according to their pre-tournament rankings.

7. To finish day 2, the quarterfinals will feature full 60 minute games between teams 3 & 6 and 4 & 5. The teams seeded 1-2 will get a first round “bye.” The winners of those two bouts will advance to the semi-finals on Sunday. Overall on day 2 (Saturday), there would be 20 bouts played (there were 22 bouts played this Saturday)

8. On Sunday, both the semi-final and championship bouts will be played.

Again, hopefully the way I described that all makes sense. But once it’s set up, it all makes perfect sense. Not only that, but it’s simple for fans to follow; no more winner/loser brackets and mysteries surrounding who plays who next. Just some simple win/loss columns to start the weekend off and a simple winner moves on bracket to find a champion.

Not only that, but it guarantees all teams involved get at least 90 minutes worth of play over two days, with the eventual champion playing no more than 270 minutes total over the three days (and that max total over three days is only 30 more minutes than the Wenches played in a day and a half Saturday and Sunday this year) along with a far safer atmosphere for everyone to play in (especially later Saturday and all day Sunday). And that’s really what I’m basing this entire concept off of; player safety. Again, it’s derby and injury risk is inherent at all times. But that level can be somewhat controlled and kept out of the truly dangerous range by lessening basic human fatigue while keeping the excitement and intrigue of the overall tournament intact.

Again, this is not a demand or anything. If things stay the way they already are, I’m fine with that. Just chiming-in with my two cents for your consideration.

So yeah…a pretty awesome weekend in Spokane overall. So awesome that it’s actually inspired me to write something original about derby for the first time since December (lol). And I’m definitely looking forward to next years tournament!