Everything Matters When GGRD Hits Coney Island This Saturday

By Thomas Gerbasi

When it comes to the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league home season and the two teams that will play for the Golden Skate trophy next month, Coney Island is where all the fun happens this Saturday, and how appropriate is that? Next to the Cyclone, Wonder Wheel and all the other rides and attractions, the premier skaters in the sport will battle it out before what is expected to be a packed house at Abe Stark Arena in Brooklyn.

And while the annual doubleheader always delivers thrills and high-level derby, this time around, it’s a race between the four home teams that can produce any number of outcomes when it comes to the title picture.

The Queens of Pain have continued to be the juggernaut they’ve been for years, yet while they’ve been the bridesmaids several times recently, they are determined to be the bride and win their first GGRD title in five years in 2018. At 2-0, they’ve secured their spot in the August 25th title game at John Jay College, because even with a loss to Brooklyn and a win by the Bronx, their June win over the Gridlock breaks that three-way tie.

PHOTO SEAN HALE

But that’s where things get interesting among the other three squads.

The resurgent Gridlock sit at 1-1 heading into their matchup with Manhattan, and a win over the Mayhem, coupled with a loss by Brooklyn, will set up a championship rematch with Queens next month.

And though the Mayhem have struggled thus far this season, the winless squad could salvage everything should they defeat the Gridlock and watch Brooklyn fall to Queens. That would produce a three-way tie for the final spot in the championship game, with the other half of the title bout matchup being determined by overall point differential.

PHOTO SEAN HALE

As for the defending champions getting a home game in Brooklyn, the Bombshells bounced back from a season opening loss to the Bronx in March to win a nail biter over Manhattan in May. And while defeating Queens is a big task, in their last meeting in 2017, Brooklyn earned their third league title with a 162-158 victory.

In short, all bets are off in Coney Island this weekend, and each game matters. So when the dust settles, we’ll have two teams in the championship game, two in August 4th’s third-place contest, and a lot of happy derby fans on the boardwalk.

Tickets for tomorrow's double header are available here.  

Queens and Bronx Go Back to the Future This Saturday

By Thomas Gerbasi

Once upon a time in the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league, there were two teams and everybody else.

PHOTO MANISH GOSALIA

From the first league title bout in 2005 until 2010, six champions were crowned. Three Golden Skate trophies went to the Bronx Gridlock and three went to the Queens of Pain.

Queens was a juggernaut with a brutally effective pack that opened lanes for Suzy Hotrod and Hyper Lynx while also shutting down opposing jammers. The Bronx were like a well-oiled machine, rarely making mistakes on the track as Bonnie Thunders piled up the points.

Brooklyn and Manhattan wouldn’t get into the act until 2011 and 2012, respectively, and in the last five years, those squads have won four of the five GGRD league titles.

PHOTO DAVID DYTE

But on Saturday at John Jay College in NYC, it may be a case of the league going back to the future, as Queens and the Bronx put their unbeaten 2018 records on the line in a bout that may very well be a championship game preview.

Having the ladies in black in the title race is never a surprise, as they are perennial contenders to be the last team standing, with their consistency and well-rounded attack always something to pay attention to.

But seeing the Gridlock in this spot has been a surprise considering the hard times they’ve gone through in previous seasons. Remember, this is a team that went through a three-year losing streak before snapping that last season, yet in their first bout of 2018, a 185-136 win over the defending champion Bombshells, was an eye opener and perhaps the start of their first championship season since 2010.

Eight years is a long time, but Queens’ five-year wait for a championship may feel even longer considering that they’ve come so close so many times over the last few years. But with the core from the glory years (Suzy, Lynx, Ana Bollocks) still delivering the goods and setting the stage for the newer members of the roster to do their thing on the track, Queens is still a top contender, which was evident in their one-sided 191-98 win over Manhattan in April.

So is it Queens’ experience and consistency or the Bronx’ size and hunger that gets it done in NYC this weekend? They’ve got 60 minutes to figure it out. Just like the good ‘ol days.

Tickets for tomorrow’s game are available here.  

Championship Intensity in May, as Brooklyn and Manhattan Look to Keep Title Dreams Alive

By Thomas Gerbasi

The names change, as they do every year, but when the Brooklyn Bombshells and Manhattan Mayhem take the track, the result is almost always something special, and those expectations are still there for Saturday’s matchup at John Jay College in NYC.

Yet while both teams have always delivered on bout night, this year, the two squads enter with a little more urgency after losing their season openers. The defending champion Bombshells were on the wrong end of a 185-136 score against the Bronx Gridlock on March 17, and Mayhem dropped a 191-98 nod to the Queens of Pain.

PHOTO DAVID DYTE

In most sports, we could call that an easily rectifiable slow start to 2018. In the Gotham Roller Derby league home season, in which each team only gets three games to earn a spot in the championship bout, one loss makes the next game a must win. Two losses and you’re thinking about next year.

So there should be championship game-level intensity on the track this weekend, with the winner staying in the hunt for the Golden Skate trophy, and the atmosphere at John Jay should match that intensity.

But who wins?

Penalties are always a vicious determinant of which team emerges victorious when the whistle blows, and that goes for all roller derby games. Mayhem were particularly hurt by ten jammer box trips against Queens, with a reasonable 30-point halftime deficit turning into an insurmountable one thanks to a 57-0 run by Queens to kick off the second half.

Manhattan is also still getting used to the loss of veteran Em Dash and the defensive 1-2 punch of Roxy Dallas and Violet Knockout.But with five GGRD All-Stars on the track (Bonita Apple Bomb, Giles, Brawleen Lidz, Cork Rebel, Lumiknoxity, Spork Chop), including the team’s co-captain Bonita, as well as Cork and Giles, both of whom had excellent performances in the opener, their ability to get back in championship form should come sooner rather than later.

That should also be the case for Brooklyn, a team that has always found a way to fight back from adversity, thanks to a veteran core of Papierschnitt, Raggedy Animal and Lady Fingers, all of whom have battled together for the Bombshells for several years. And when you add one of the game’s greatest blockers – Donna Matrix – and one of its premier jammers – All-Star Miss Tea Maven – as well as two more All-Stars in D.A.R.Y.L. and Space Invader, this once again becomes one of the most evenly matched bouts you will find in a league that has celebrated its parity.

But if you need a little more proof for how close Saturday’s bout between the two teams who have each won three GGRD league titles will be, consider the history, where Brooklyn has won four of six bouts since 2013, with the total margin of victory being 32 points. Total. That’s an average winning advantage of 5.3 points.

Sure, numbers don’t always tell the whole story, but when it comes to Brooklyn and Manhattan they say all that needs to be said. In other words, find a ticket and get to John Jay on Saturday night. 

Tickets for Saturday available here.

Queens and Manhattan Get a Fresh Start on Saturday

By Thomas Gerbasi

It’s a safe bet that no two teams want to turn the page on the 2017 season and move on to their 2018 opener at John Jay College on Saturday more than the Queens of Pain and Manhattan Mayhem.

PHOTO SEAN HALE

Last year, Queens romped over the rest of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league, putting together one of the most dominant regular seasons in recent memory. But what seemed to be a done deal and a fifth league title came crashing down in heartbreaking fashion when they lost in overtime to the Brooklyn Bombshells in the GGRD title game.

As for Manhattan, their quest to retain their league title and repeat as champs hit the skids early, with only a win over the Bronx Gridlock in the 2017 third-place game keeping them from a winless season.

“For me, personally, it was a big shock because I was injured for a lot of it, and I think for the team as well, it was a bit of a blow,” said Mayhem veteran Maddog. “Also, we weren’t at full strength for a lot of last season. So I think that (the 2017 season) was just us trying to make the best of not having full numbers.”

It’s what can happen over the course of a three-game home season, and while it’s great for the fans, knowing that every game has the intensity of a championship bout, for the players, it’s a situation where one bad night can affect the entire season. But Maddog embraces that pressure.

“I think it’s a blessing because that ‘what if’ that anything can happen is part of the mental edge of being an athlete and rolling with those punches and adjusting to the unknown that you can’t predict,” she said.

PHOTO MANISH GOSALIA

That unknown is just around the corner, with fans waiting to see what each team will bring to the track. The teams don’t know what will happen on bout night either, but they have gotten a feel for each other in practice, where scrimmages are often as intense as the games.

“There’s a lot of respect for Queens and how hard they work and the game that they play,” Maddog said. “But I also think that there’s a lot of competition between Mayhem and Queens. There’s a lot of love – I love a lot of people on Queens, but you always want to beat your friends and you don’t want them to beat you. It’s part of what makes it fun. There’s mutual respect, but at the same time we really want to beat them.”

Only one will get that win and start the season off the right way. The team that doesn’t leave the track with the win will then have an uphill battle the rest of the way. Again, it’s the beauty of the Gotham home season, and Maddog believes this one will be something to see.

“I think this season in particular, just with the way people are playing in scrimmages and the strategies that teams are incorporating, you’re gonna see a different style of derby, especially when it comes to jam starts,” she said. “There’s a different vibe now. Having footage accessible to the teams has been super great and an important tool for us to try and figure out what they’re thinking. It’s going to be a really interesting game.”

PHOTO JEAN SCHWARZWALDER

But who’s going to win and make a run for the title?

“We like even numbers,” said Maddog, whose Mayhem squad has won titles in 2012, 2014 and 2016. It’s 2018.

She laughs.

“Even numbers are our jam.”

Tickets available for tomorrow's game here.  

Queens Plans to Go Out with a "Bang Bang Bang" in Title Bout on Saturday

By Thomas Gerbasi

This is what captains do. It was a July 15 game that had no bearing on whether the Queens of Pain were going to get into this Saturday’s Gotham Girls Roller Derby league championship game or not, as they were already in the bout at John Jay College in NYC. But Puss ‘N Glutes hopped on a plane from Loveland, Colorado to New York to lead her squad to a victory over the Brooklyn Bombshells before heading back on a red eye flight to continue coaching the GGRD juniors.

The trip back and forth lasted 14 hours.

“We committed as a team to doing our best to make this an undefeated season and we’ve been preparing and working hard to make sure every game shows,” said Puss, who will be a lot more rested as she takes the track to battle Brooklyn once more this weekend, this time for the Golden Skate trophy.

PHOTO SEAN HALE

It’s the culmination of another season for GGRD, and one that has seen Queens dominate like few teams have in recent memory. Winning their three regular season bouts by an average of 73 points (for comparison, Brooklyn’s two wins have come by an average of 16 points), the ladies in black go into Saturday’s bout as a heavy favorite, and Puss would even go as far to say that in all her years with the team, this may be the best yet.

“I think that this is probably the strongest team that I’ve played on,” she said.“I think that Queens is an unstoppable force this year.”

The proof of that statement has been shown on the track, but the reason for the team’s dominance may come from an unlikely source.

“At the start of 2016, we had a lot of draft picks andwe decided that we weren’t going to pick the people that were ranked the highest,” Puss explains.“We decided that we were going to pick the right skaters for our team and pick the skaters that were going to be there every practice, busting their butts to get better. And so, coming into 2017, we had zero retirements, we are two years strong, and we’re a tiny team, size wise, but we have worked to be the fittest and the fastest and to make our gameplay really strategic. We are going to show no mercy this Saturday.”

To have the same team intact for two years in a row isn’t just a luxury; it’s the rarest of rarities in a league where titles are often won and lost by the teams that were able to weather the storms of team turnover the best. With Queens’ commitment to putting the right skaters on their team, a new blueprint may have been set for teams in future drafts.

“It’s a team preference and I think some teams will go into the draft feeling desperate for a jammer or a high level pivot / track leader type,” Puss said.“And we looked at last year as an opportunity to take skaters that we knew would grow and add to the culture of our team, which is all about hard work.We feltreally strong, really connected, and we were able to start working on new strategies from the first practice instead of getting people comfortable in our walls. We were fully ready and hit the ground running for 2017.”

PHOTO SEAN HALE

Three big wins have followed, with Queens refusing to rest on leads or their laurels. It’s a kill, kill, kill mentality for 60 minutes, and in July, they sent a message to Brooklyn with a 167-118 victory.

“We’re never a team that underestimates our opponents, and the upper hand that we’ve had is that we’ve known our team intimately for two years now,” Puss said. “We didn’t have to know each other; we just had to start practicing how to take down the other teams. So we’ve been focusing our practices on the strategies of each team that’s coming up and I think it’s shown on game day. We know that Brooklyn is strong, we know that they’ll have even more of their skaters skating at championships and that they’ll come out pissed about the loss and even stronger, but they should know that we’ve prepared twice as hard.”

And with a few Queens veterans calling it quits at the end of the season, there’s even more incentive for the juggernaut to kick it into an even higher gear tomorrow night.

“Queens has made this the year of K-Pop, and so, as one of our favorite songs says, we’re planning on going out with a ‘Bang, bang, bang’ this year,” laughs Puss.“The ones that are taking the track for the last time are going to leave it all out there.”