For Pride or Glory - Gotham Home Teams Visit Coney Island with Different Goals

By Thomas Gerbasi

With the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league’s regular home game season coming to an end at Abe Stark Arena in Coney Island on Saturday, it’s not a time to figure out who will be playing for the Golden Skate championship trophy on August 26 or who will battle it out for third place on August 5.

PHOTO SEAN HALE

Instead, those two post-season games will get regular season previews in the league’s annual visit to the boardwalk, and if anyone thinks that any of the four teams will mail it in or try to conserve themselves for the playoffs, they obviously haven’t been following this league.

And that’s the beauty of derby. There’s no resting of an all-star for the next big game or taking the foot off the gas to conserve energy or avoid injury. Every game is played like the seventh game of the World Series, and as soon as the Queens of Pain and Brooklyn Bombshells take the track for the opener, expect to see the kind of war these two teams always come prepared to wage.

With both Queens and Brooklyn unbeaten, and Manhattan and the Bronx winless in 2017, even a loss won’t keep Queens and Brooklyn from the championship game. But an undefeated record is important to every member of both squads, and maybe even more important to Queens, who suffered a crushing 179-152 defeat to the Bombshells that kept them from chasing their first league title since 2013. And given that they’ve been in the hunt for years, it’s clear that the ladies in black feel that this is their time to strike.

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The last time Brooklyn hoisted a championship banner was in 2015 and they were perilously close to a repeat last year. Some wondered if they would make it back to the title game after a huge turnover of players, but when those newbies are players like V-Diva, Donna Matrix, Sweets McBacon, Girl Friday and Bellatricks, that makes the transition much easier, and they’ve been firing on all cylinders since.

So will it be the new look Bombshells or the reliable Queens of Pain? Round one is Saturday. But don’t think the opener is the main event, as Manhattan and the Bronx are gutsy battlers with the talent and determination to be in next month’s championship game. But in a three-game home season, one bad night, one bad trip to the penalty box or one key injury can be the difference between winning and losing. In short, the Mayhem and Gridlock are a lot better than the 0-2 records they share, and derby fans will see that on Saturday.

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As far as the stakes involved for the teams who will play for third place next month, Manhattan has a lot of pride on the line as they look to salvage the season after their championship-winning one. So expect all-star blockers Violet Knockout and Roxy Dallas to deliver the hurt on jammers trying to break loose. But the Gridlock have been chasing a victory since their last one in May 2014, and if they can pull it off against the defending champs, expect Abe Stark Arena to erupt.

In short, don’t let the records fool you. All four Gotham teams have plenty to play for this weekend.

Tickets for Saturday available here.

Opposites Attack as Manhattan and Brooklyn Renew Rivalry on Saturday

By Thomas Gerbasi

It’s the broken record of all broken records in roller derby. If you’re going to watch one Gotham Girls Roller Derby game all year, it’s this Saturday’s bout between the defending champion Manhattan Mayhem and the Brooklyn Bombshells at John Jay College in NYC. To the uninitiated, that’s mere hyperbole. To those who have seen this rivalry play out, it’s an understatement. But as we do every year, a look at the numbers tell the tale.

 2013 – Brooklyn 178, Manhattan 171

2014 – Manhattan 170, Brooklyn 169

2015 – Brooklyn 153, Manhattan 148

2016 – Brooklyn 161, Manhattan 158

2016 – Manhattan 149, Brooklyn 146

Five games decided by a combined 19 points. For you mathematicians at home, that’s an average of 3.8 points. In derby, that’s unheard of. In fact, if one game ends with one team up by 19 points, that’s considered a nail biter.  So while the ladies of Manhattan and Brooklyn are friends off the track and league mates through and through, when the whistle blows, it’s always Ali vs. Frazier on skates.

“There’s a reason why we didn’t pass on a Memorial Day practice,” laughs Chugs Brewkowski of Manhattan. And after losing their opening bout to Queens in March, there’s even more on the line if they want a chance to repeat as champions in August.

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 “It’s a pivotal game, and it’s a championship game to us in the sense that however it goes affects how the rest of our season goes,” Chugs said. “So there’s no loss of weight to it, especially because of who we’re going up against. It completely affects our season and, in a lot of ways, the rest of the games for the entire league.”

A win for Brooklyn, who defeated the Bronx Gridlock in their season opener, will put them in the driver’s seat for a return to the championship game, with their likely opponent being the unbeaten Queens squad. But there’s sixty minutes of derby to be played before that possibility can even be discussed.

“For me, personally, I don’t even look at the championship game as a championship game,” said Brooklyn’s Miss Tea Maven. “For me, a game is just a game. If you put any additional weight behind it, I feel like it’s just giving yourself and your team extra, undue stress. We all feel it, we all know it, there’s no reason to call more attention to it. But as always with Manhattan games, we always know it’s going to be really physical and extremely tough. We know that going in, but we’re always prepared to just play Brooklyn’s game.”

PHOTO DAVID DYTE

The Brooklyn way of derby didn’t truly make an appearance until the second half of the Bronx game, a testament to the difficulty of bringing in a host of new skaters to the roster. Sure, some of these skaters are well known competitors like Donna Matrix, V-Diva, Sweets McBacon and Bellatricks, but the sport has shown that putting a bunch of all-stars on a team doesn’t make them a team.

“It’s a different team,” Maven said. “They’re veteran roller derby players, but they’re not veteran Brooklyn players, so this season has been very focused on trying to get everyone on the same Brooklyn page. It’s been a lot of retraining habits and strategies to fit within Brooklyn’s strategy.”

By the second half against the Gridlock, though, it was Brooklyn again, as they skated to a 167-148 victory. Now they’ll look to put a dent in the championship aspirations of the team that killed theirs in the final bout of 2016. And Manhattan knows the Bombshells will be coming at them hard.

“The pressure is always at 110,” Chugs said. “And any loss hurts just as much as a loss that keeps you in or out of it (the championship). We came into the season as returning champs and as a team that went through some big losses and retirees and a variety of injuries, but it’s a whole new season. There was an insane amount of pressure in the first game, and there’s definitely even more now.”

With the stakes higher than ever, the intensity should ramp up even more, and with so many GGRD All-Stars on the track and a packed house expected, the skaters are hoping it was Saturday night already.

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“One thing that I’ve experienced a lot is how much the fans affect the experience and why it feels so epic every time, every game,” Chugs said. “There’s always something about the boroughs, the teams and the fans that we both have that makes every moment full of oohs and aahs. The sound in the arena is overwhelming from the minute the game starts.”

 And is there anything like that sound?

“It’s phenomenal and empowering and devastating, all at the same time,” Chugs laughs. “It adds so much intensity to every feeling that you have about the game and what’s on the line, and how proud you are of your teammates. Everything you feel, you feel ten times more because the crowd is adding to it. It’s deafening sometimes because it’s hard to focus in and remember that everything you’re doing on that track, you’re doing for your teammates. But it’s a nice bonus to have a whole arena that cares about it too.”

So it all comes down to the same question asked every year. What is it about Brooklyn and Manhattan that makes for such compelling and dramatic derby? Maven believes it’s because of a clash of cultures, with the Mayhem bringing the intensity and the Bombshells being more laid-back.

“We’re very calm throughout the entire game,” she said. “I find that Manhattan brings all of their passion into the game, which sometimes brings them up to the next level and sometimes that passion leads to more penalties. Brooklyn is steady the entire game, and that can mean victory at the end or we come out just a little bit short.”

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Fire and Ice, then? Or maybe we can call this one “Opposites Attack.”

Tickets for Saturday available here.

Practice Makes Perfect for the Queens of Pain

By Thomas Gerbasi

The Queens of Pain’s Hyper Lynx wants to talk about practice.

Fifteen years after basketball hall of famer Allen Iverson created a stir by talking about practice with reporters, the GGRD All-Star veteran wants to do the same in the lead-up to Saturday’s bout at John Jay College against the Bronx Gridlock. And that’s cool with her.

“I still think Queens is the hardest working team,” she said. “We’re the ones who started up the extra hour for land drills. (Laughs) We’re always there every single team practice and win or lose, we always practice. We really felt like we should have been up there (last year). Obviously, every team feels that way, but we felt like we worked the hardest, so we want to show it this year.”

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Forget last year. Over the previous four years since they last won a GGRD home team title in 2013, Queens may have been the best team in the league night in and night out. But at key times, wins proved elusive, surprising their fans and the team itself.

“There’s an element of luck in derby,” Lynx said. “Sometimes things just don’t go your way. Maybe we just enjoy pain. (Laughs) But losing is never fun. You can’t win everything. It’s a game and anything can happen at any time. There are no guarantees.”

Well there is one, and that’s the reality that Queens will try to outwork their peers in the Crashpad practice space, garnering a reputation as the best conditioned team in the league. If a skater gets drafted and presented with a black jersey, they know that Suzy Hotrod and company will put them through hell before it’s time to hit the track on game night. But that’s a badge of honor Lynx and company wear with pride.

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“We work our asses off and it doesn’t matter if you’re a good or bad skater, we’ll build you up to be a good skater,” she said. “There’s a lot of skater development that goes on with Queens, and that’s our biggest strength. That and the intensity of our practices have remained consistent year after year.”

And if there was a wish for the derby gods to throw some good fortune their way, it was granted before the 2017 season even started, as the team revealed that they were taking the track with a roster intact from the previous year. That’s a rarity in Gotham, and Queens have taken full advantage of it, tearing out of the gate in March with a 176-130 win over the defending GGRD champion Manhattan Mayhem.

“I think it really helps because we’re basically continuing from the previous years,” Lynx said. “In the past years when we had new skaters, we always had time in the beginning when we had to get to know each other, if they were brand new they had to build their endurance up, and we had a harder time ramping it up. Whereas with us, at our first practice we said, ‘Let’s practice our plays again.’ And that really helps. I’m not saying we’re doing awesome every time, because we do lose scrimmages too, but our teamwork is great. Everybody knows what to do and everybody is much better at playing together. And a lot of that is from the sheer amount of practices that we do.”

Is Lynx talking about practice again? You bet she is.

Tickets for Saturday May 6 available here.

Bronx More Motivated Than Ever to Break Losing Streak on Saturday

By Thomas Gerbasi

The old saying is true that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, but in the sport of roller derby, you take whatever you can to help keep you on course. So if the Bronx Gridlock needed any motivation to help break a long losing streak this Saturday at John Jay College in NYC, they found it in last month’s season opener against the Brooklyn Bombshells.

“There’s a strength in being able to come back every single time and say this is a new game, this is a new jam, and letting yourself get hungrier instead of frustrated, even if it’s hard when it’s gone on as long as it has,” said the Gridlock’s Heronymus Boss. “But in the last game, and now, I really do think this team can pull it off this season.”

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If you want to discuss roster turnover, injuries, and plain ol’ bad luck, the cabbies have had more than their share. But as they prepare to face the Queens of Pain this weekend, they are in a better place than they’ve been in a long time, and it has a lot to do with the bout against the Bombshells, who fought from behind several times before emerging with a 167-148 win that was a lot closer than that score would indicate.

“It actually speaks to the strength of our defense that we had such a tight game and were ahead as much as we were given the penalties and the amount of box time we had compared to Brooklyn,” Boss said. “So it speaks to the strength of our defense, but we definitely want to cut down on the penalties because when we have all our skaters on the track, we’re really a force and keeping everyone on the track is the number one priority for this game.”

Remarkably, Brooklyn only had three penalty box trips from their jammers, which is a low number in these closely contested GGRD home games, and while it’s a testament to the discipline of the Bombshells, without such an effort, the Gridlock may have returned to the win column for the first time since May 2014. That’s okay, though, as they’re planning on getting the job done against Queens.

PHOTO DAVID DYTE

“They’re a smart and talented team and it’s an interesting matchup because Gridlock is a tall team and Queens is a short team,” Boss said. “There are obvious advantages to both, so we have to use what we have to our best advantage and we have to think about how to play with that shorter team. They can get through cracks easily, they’re fast, but we have big blockers and we just have to stick together. So we’re looking to come in really fired up and cohesive and we’re working really hard on staying together. That’s our path to victory in this game. We don’t want to give them any holes to get through.”

And despite making a quick turnaround from the last bout, Boss and her teammates are looking at that not as a negative, but a positive, as they get to keep the good vibes from the April bout going into what they hope will be a victorious May.

“We knew we had the two in a row, so we were prepared,” she said. “It’s been a really busy month. The Traitors had a game, Termies had a game, All-Stars had a game, so we’ve all been very busy, but we’ve also had this in our sights and we’ve been focused. I think it’s always nice to have a little extra time to keep working on strategy, especially since it was such a busy month. But that was such a close game with Brooklyn and everyone came out really wanting to clinch the win, so we do have that momentum coming out of the last game.”

Tickets for Saturday May 6 available here.

The New Look Bombshells Won't Get Caught Napping by the Gridlock

By Thomas Gerbasi

Roster turnover is an inevitable part of every Gotham Girls Roller Derby season. But few have been turned over like last year’s runners-up, the Bombshells from Brooklyn.

“I feel like this is the most turnover that we’ve had in a really, really long time,” said co-captain Raggedy Animal, who will begin her 12th year on the track when her squad faces the Bronx Gridlock this Saturday at John Jay College in NYC.

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So how different will the Bombshells look in 2017? Well, there will be five new skaters representing the team this year, the most of any GGRD home team. But that’s not why this is such a league-shattering news item. What makes this such a big story is that joining Girl Friday among the “newbies” will be former Bronx star Sweets McBacon, GGRD junior league phenom Bellatricks, current All-Star V-Diva, and another skater Gotham fans might remember, Donna Matrix.

Put those five on the track and it’s an all-star lineup in itself. Add them to a team that has won two championships in the last five years, and that’s a frightening prospect for the rest of the league. But as Animal points out, it takes more than talent to win in this league.

“We are super grateful and tickled that our turnover resulted in drafting huge, huge individual talent, and we have that excitement going into it,” she said. “But the challenge is knowing that individual talent can’t win games. It’s really been about making sure that we’re not just showing up with individual talent, but that all the draftees are enmeshed in the team culture and we’re on the same page with playing roller derby.”

Given this reality, Animal and the blue crew were very happy that their season opener was scheduled for this weekend and not on March 25.

“I’m so glad we didn’t play first,” she said. “The turnaround from a draft to the first game is tight. You’re basically dusting off the cobwebs from the off-season and it’s really intense. And while you always want more time, I definitely feel like we had the time that we needed. Because we drafted a lot of talent, our focus wasn’t necessarily on individual skill building. So Day One, we got right into how we play and our strategies and making sure that we were on the same page and had the same language and were doing the same things. So we’ve spent our time making sure that we’re skating together as a team.”

PHOTO MANISH GOSALIA

And if this group of skaters has come together as a team, it’s going to be quite a show this weekend. Yet regardless of the final score on Saturday, anticipation is at an all-time high to see what this group offers to the league.

“Because they come from such amazing backgrounds, to get to see them skate for the Bombshells is a whole new world of excitement, with Diva and Donna and Sweets, and even Bella coming from the junior league,” Animal said. “She (Bella) is incredible and did amazing things in the junior league. She’s unassuming and quietly effective, but she’s always in the right place at the right time. So it’s not that we drafted new skaters that have experience. We drafted some serious skaters with major accolades from what they were doing previous to becoming a Bombshell.”

Yet even though all eyes will be on Brooklyn in this opening matchup, the Gridlock aren’t showing up to make up the numbers. They’re coming to win, and with no victories on their ledger since May of 2014, the Bronx are hungrier than ever and more dangerous than they’ve been. But they won’t sneak up on Brooklyn, whose veteran skaters know just what it’s like to be in that position.

“I’ve been on the losing side and I’ve been on the winning side,” Animal said. “In 2014, we lost every single game and in 2015 we won every single game. They are very different motivating factors. Even in the early years of the Bombshells, when I first joined, we couldn’t win a game to save our lives. We kept being called the lovable underdogs, the Gotham darlings, and we couldn’t beat anybody. So I know how bonding it is to go into a season and be like, ‘Damn it, we want to win.’ And they have so much individual talent and they’re big and strong, so they’re absolutely a threat.”