Los Angeles Derby Dolls. Sirens vs. Tough Cookies: 127-151

I missed all of last season.  I was out of town a lot.  I got disconnected from Los Angeles.  Considering all that, it was definitely time to get back to the roller derby.

Based on crowd noise, the crowd seemed to be just slightly tilted in favor of the Sirens.  I was cheering for the Tough Cookies.

If I am accurate here, the Tough Cookies led the whole way.  Other than the initial early scoring, I believe that the Sirens came with 5 points only once.  I found that rather interesting, because from my perspective I'd give the edge to the Sirens' blockers versus the Tough Cookies'.  (Of course, having better defense can also be driven by penalties, which results in power jams.  Once again, if I am accurate here, the Sirens lost 2 or 3 players to ejection while the Tough Cookies lost none.)  That observation is based strictly on team play as I think the most outstanding blocker was Tough Cookies' Hunnie Brasco (N2OP).  She does that hip check very effectively and seems to have an uncanny ability to predetermine a jammer's intent.  She might be my new favorite player (wait, let's check that as my favorite Tough Cookies are still on the team so maybe I need to play with my words better.)

Best go-to jammers:  Stefcon 1 (w00t) of the Tough Cookies and The Jeneral (#30) of the Sirens.  Put them out there and you know the score board is going to light up.

Note:  I initially thought that Stefcon 1 sat through all the 3rd quarter and close to the first 5 minutes of the 4th quarter.  I was corrected via Twitter that she had participated in one jam in the 3rd quarter.  She was out; however, for most of the 3rd due to penalty problems.  Just a random thought:  I wonder if the Roller Derby should do something similar to basketball telecasts?  In basketball, when a player reaches 3 fouls, this is often highlighted.  I wonder if on the roller derby score board, they should highlight individuals with 4 or more penalties.

Someday, I want to bring my DSLR to a match.  It would be fun.  The speed of the derby dolls would be an interesting challenged compared to fashion and band photography.  I generally don't shoot faster than 320 shutter speed and that's for outdoor concerts or bright light fashion shows.  I suspect I'd need to up that slightly for a derby.  And the whole focus thing could be a large hurdle.  On second thought, maybe bringing my camera to two matches would be fun as the first would be a practice run.