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.”

Brooklyn Shakes Off July Loss, Expects Redemption in Rematch with Queens

By Thomas Gerbasi

The task of beating the rolling thunder that is the Queens of Pain will be a daunting one for any team in the Gotham Girls Roller Derby League, all of which have come up short thus far in 2017. But if any squad is up for the challenge, it’s the one that will face Queens for the GGRD home team championship, the Brooklyn Bombshells.

“The team is excited for the game,” said veteran D.A.R.Y.L., who has never NOT been in a championship game during her time in the league with the Manhattan Mayhem and now Brooklyn.“We’ve been progressing a lot as a team this year, so I think a lot of our strategies are finally coming together, so hopefully we can bring all of that on Saturday.”

PHOTO SEAN HALE

Saturday’s bout at John Jay College is a clash of opposites in many ways, not the least of which is the roster composition of each team. Queens has had the same roster intact for two seasons now, while Brooklyn was hit hard by turnover after last season. That could have been a disaster for the Bombshells, but when the draft produced the likes of V-Diva, Donna Matrix, Sweets McBacon, Bellatricks and Girl Friday for the team, that can ease the pain somewhat.

Or not, as putting a bunch of talent on a team isn’t always the recipe for success. But in Brooklyn’s case, the newcomers transitioned nicely into the team’s system, and the result has been a chance to win their first title since 2015.

“We were fortunate to have a split with the new team members this season in terms of jammers and blockers, and they’ve been really great at jumping in and learning our strategies and asking questions and really contributing to how our team is developing,” D.A.R.Y.L. said.“So in terms of fitting in and meshing well with the team, it takes hard work and being there and working together day in and day out, and our new skaters have been able to do that.”

The Bombshells got off to a fast start with wins over Manhattan and the Bronx that earned them a spot in Saturday’s championship game, but there would be an initial battle with Queens in Coney Island last month. Queens drew first blood with a 167-118 victory, but it wasn’t a loss without some lessons for the blue-clad Bombshells.

PHOTO SEAN HALE

 “We learned a lot from that game in terms of what we could improve upon and tightening up our game so that we can beat Queens,” D.A.R.Y.L. said.“I think a lot of our strategies are actually very similar, so it’s just a matter of who’s executing them the best. Luckily we’re gonna have Diva and Punk back for the next game, and while there’s always something to learn from playing the same team consecutively, ultimately, I think it will be a very different game from the one in July.”

Different enough that Brooklyn expects to raise a third championship banner on Saturday night.

“We have so many games under our belts that we can now take what we’ve learned and the team leadership can be like, hey, we’ve done this in the past, we can take what we’ve done and move forward with it. We don’t need to be nervous, we can build off the great things that we’ve already been able to do and know that we can do that and then some. It’s a matter of having the confidence in ourselves, confidence in leadership to be able to lead by example so everybody else then has the confidence to say, ‘Yeah, we can do this.’”

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.

PHOTO SEAN HALE

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.

PHOTO SEAN HALE

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.

PHOTO DAVID DYTE

 “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.

PHOTO SEAN HALE

“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.”

PHOTO SEAN HALE

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

Tickets for Saturday available here.