Let me tell you, if you are going on a long drive and need to carpool, choose your passengers carefully. Smokers, nonsmokers, potty breakers, iron bladders. Make sure it's a harmonious fit. In my lovely vehicle it was myself, Lola Freaknasty, Dagger, and Vera. It was a friggin blast. My poor car was packed to the gills. Refer to Exhibit A:
Not to mention all the crap that was crammed inside, including but not limited to Nadia cupcakes :D
Another important piece of advice to keep in mind when traveling is music....Road Trip music. Fortunately, I told my sister (Lola) to bring her iPod and she had the top 250 songs from the 90's. Road Trip=made. It was pretty spectacular.
Finally, take this time to get to know skaters that you normally don't get it to in practice. Lola and myself are (obviously) close and Dagger and Vera are equally as close. So it was definitely nice to mix it up a bit and I think the other girls felt the same way.
The drive up was pretty ridiculous, we were pretty exhausted when we arrived at the hotel, but we had to stay up for our other roommates to arrive so we can get sleeping arrangements made. It was a King suite, with a king bed and a pullout couch. There were 7 of us in cramped quarters. Buster, Eva, and Lucy shared the bed, Lola had a blow up, Dagger and Vera shared the pullout and then I, yes I, used the couch cushions to fashion and mattress for on the floor in the hallway to the bathroom. Talk about girl scout sleepover. Cramped and happy. Lots of laughs were shared. I would do it again, and get to next weekend :) 3 1/2 hour drive with no WiFi this is what ensued about 2.2 seconds after we checked in....
The next day was the bout and there were 4 teams. All were pretty much on the same caliber. Our first bout was a bye, then we played the Grand Forks sugar beaters. It was a great match. I LOVE watching our team....even if it is warm ups. I would kill to be out there with them, but I am just as happy to be there cheering them on..and of course take pictures. :) This first bout we played was pretty amazing. Both teams did some great things. SCAR ended up prevailing, I thought I had the score, but apparently I do not :(
Our next bout was against the NSRG (north star roller girls) out of Minneapolis. They are a WFTDA sanctioned team and it is their "B" team, the Northern Lights. Now entering my rant session:
Rant/
First, this is supposed to be their B team and they sent veterened players. enough about that, life isn't fair and we deal with it.
The thing that frustrated me is their strategy. Don't get me wrong it was a HIGHLY effective strategy but incredibly boring to watch. I think they call it "lil smokies" the would stop on the track, stop, not skating, I'm talking stand still. 2 on either side of the track. Every time our girls would try to skate behind them, they would skate backwards, then if we would try to block their jammer, thus creating a no pack situation. SO FRUSTRATING....not because it crippled us. But that's not roller derby!!! Or at the very least not any derby that I'm interested in watching.
/end Rant
RAVE/
Even though we got spanked by that team. There was some amazing team work done by the SCAR Dolls. The NSRG team was good at causing cuts on our jammers, but when they had a power jam we did an EXCELLENT job and stopping the bleeding of the points. It was fantastic defense played by our ladies. It was awesome....
Then there was Suzy. I fricking love Ms. Suzy Contusion. She is definition of Bad ass. It was the last jam, she was jamming and we had a power jam. Everything was good, she was riling up the crowd. Then she grabs her shoulder. Suzy constantly has her shoulder being popped out of socket. Well that was what just happened. Did she request medics? Nope. Did she call off the jam? Hell No! She made her initial pass, then I saw here approaching the pack, with a look of total trepidation. I'm at the edge of my seat thinking "OMG, OMG, OMG,..." and like Moses parting the red sea our girls made a clean shot for Suzy. She makes it through the pack unscathed. Un. Fricking. Believable. That was amazing. Of course, before she popped her shoulder back into place she had members of the FMRD take a picture of proof. :)
The travel team ended up taking 2nd place of the tournament and Lucy got Most Valuable player award (go figure, she's a beast) Next it was on to the ever important after party, which the SCAR Dolls have been known to win every time. We went to a dive bar, mainly because we had 2 for 1 coupons. Dive bars usually end up being the best. The drinks were strong and cheap. The unsuspecting locals didn't seem to mind too much that we took over. no karaoke? No problem-Jukebox. no dance floor? A little rearranging we got it handled. So much derby love. And a drunk Canadian. OH!!! and leg wrestling...This is Lola w/ our coach Buster :)
Maybe I'm ignorant but I had no idea we were about 30 miles from the Canadian border. It really set in that following morning, before making the trek home...I saw a border patrol officer in the gas station. And I thought to myself "why do they care so much about North Dakotans coming into Minnesota?" Yup, sometimes I'm not too bright.
I hope you enjoyed this tournament shenanigans recount. Until next time....
Slayer
