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downtimejesus posted:This is how it's being called at ECDX this weekend, but this isn't an official WFTDA rules clarification. I had a post here, but then I checked the rules and 7.2.3 allows it. 7.2.3 also allows the refs to whistle the jam dead if the unfair advantage gained through an IP is not immediately yielded. I'd kind of be in favor of this (give the major to the pivot, then whistle the jam dead) just because I hate loophole derby that much.
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Jun 22, 2011 06:06
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Mr. Powers posted:I had a post here, but then I checked the rules and 7.2.3 allows it. 7.2.3 also allows the refs to whistle the jam dead if the unfair advantage gained through an IP is not immediately yielded. I'd kind of be in favor of this (give the major to the pivot, then whistle the jam dead) just because I hate loophole derby that much.
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Jun 22, 2011 14:22
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downtimejesus posted:I don't think you would be able to blow the jam dead if the blockers just stood there, since by standing there and not moving they are yielding position. If they skated yeah, I guess you could whistle it dead, but only if the Black Jammer got Lead Jammer status. I think you could call it off before then and justify it under 7.2.3 and the ref discretion rule. I wouldn't actually do this unless I was head ref (which is who would be rear IPR when this happens anyway) and was in a really grumpy mood about loopholes. I guess I just get tired of the split between refs and skaters. The skaters make the rules and approve them, and the refs are only there to enforce. At the same time the skaters are making the rules, they're constantly trying to break them without breaking them. The two-year revision cycle doesn't help, and releasing clarifications in the form of Q&A without patching the rules or keeping an appendix of clarifications (there are more clarifications than the public Q&A, they're just not published outside of the WFTDA forums) is obnoxious, because there is no handy reference sheet for what are essentially rules updates.
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Jun 22, 2011 18:10
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Mr. Powers posted:I think you could call it off before then and justify it under 7.2.3 and the ref discretion rule. I wouldn't actually do this unless I was head ref (which is who would be rear IPR when this happens anyway) and was in a really grumpy mood about loopholes. Mr. Powers posted:I guess I just get tired of the split between refs and skaters. The skaters make the rules and approve them, and the refs are only there to enforce. At the same time the skaters are making the rules, they're constantly trying to break them without breaking them. The two-year revision cycle doesn't help, and releasing clarifications in the form of Q&A without patching the rules or keeping an appendix of clarifications (there are more clarifications than the public Q&A, they're just not published outside of the WFTDA forums) is obnoxious, because there is no handy reference sheet for what are essentially rules updates. Also, "if youre not cheating youre not trying hard enough" and "if it isnt caught it isnt cheating" comes into play, where top level teams find ridiculous loopholes to win games and then it trickles down into everyone doing that poo poo (e.g. no-pack starts, no-start starts, skating backwards to force a jammer to come back in-bounds behind you, pivot laying down on the pivot line, etc.) and since they're a top ranked team we should be like them and 
downtimejesus fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jun 22, 2011 |
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Jun 22, 2011 19:52
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Mr. Powers posted:I guess I just get tired of the split between refs and skaters. The skaters make the rules and approve them, and the refs are only there to enforce. At the same time the skaters are making the rules, they're constantly trying to break them without breaking them. This has been the number one thing I've been having a problem with social/drama-wise with the girls. They employ us as refs. They are part of a system that makes the rules. We use those rules and enforce them. We don't create them. But it's our fault when a rule sucks and is worded so that we don't really have any choice?  Maybe that's just a problem with WFTDA. Does OSDA have these kinds of issues?
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Jun 22, 2011 20:06
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I can't speak for all of OSDA, but in general the rules are much more clear cut so we don't really see it happen. Single-whistle starts help some of this, but I'm not clear onto what would happen if a skater started behind the Jammers. I'll ask our head referee tonight or tomorrow. As for a split between skaters and refs, it exists on a smaller level and things can get heated at some practices. In my new league we haven't run into that issue, as much as the last, but we're also not that big yet. I know in the the old league they have A LOT of new refs and in their last match I'm told they called almost nothing, including blatant fouls. I attribute this more to the league and those particular refs' experience than the OSDA rules.
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Jun 22, 2011 20:29
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Mr. Powers posted:I guess I just get tired of the split between refs and skaters. The skaters make the rules and approve them, and the refs are only there to enforce. At the same time the skaters are making the rules, they're constantly trying to break them without breaking them. The two-year revision cycle doesn't help, and releasing clarifications in the form of Q&A without patching the rules or keeping an appendix of clarifications (there are more clarifications than the public Q&A, they're just not published outside of the WFTDA forums) is obnoxious, because there is no handy reference sheet for what are essentially rules updates. This is ultimately why the rules can't be left in the hands of the skaters. Because they need to play the games, they decide what they like and they don't like (note that this is different than "what works and what doesn't work"), they need to vote on changes through their leagues, WFTDA needs to draft changes and have the leagues approve them, and then they need to be rolled out incrementally. So you get really, really slow movement in something that needs to be updated yearly, as in other sports leagues. Simple solution: Make a separate competition committee. downtimejesus posted:Also, "if youre not cheating youre not trying hard enough" and "if it isnt caught it isnt cheating" comes into play, where top level teams find ridiculous loopholes to win games and then it trickles down into everyone doing that poo poo (e.g. no-pack starts, no-start starts, skating backwards to force a jammer to come back in-bounds behind you, pivot laying down on the pivot line, etc.) and since they're a top ranked team we should be like them and This is one of the things I'm worried about. Good teams will figure out stuff, and then bad teams will try to emulate the good teams. With regular derby play, how successful they are comes down to how skillful the individual skaters are and how much they play to practice the tactics. But when it comes to rule exploitation, everyone can easily do the same poo poo. Something is going to happen that will dam-bust the rules (for instance) and it'll spread like a virus unless WFTDA stops it before it starts. They can only do it themselves, since the skaters aren't going to be proactive about it. Ria posted:This has been the number one thing I've been having a problem with social/drama-wise with the girls. They employ us as refs. They are part of a system that makes the rules. We use those rules and enforce them. We don't create them. But it's our fault when a rule sucks and is worded so that we don't really have any choice? Another problem with modern derby: It's centered around the girls and the skaters and the culture more than the sport. If the girls don't get it their way, then there's going to be drama. I've heard stories of men's teams and leagues wanting to get started much sooner than they did but the women wouldn't "allow" it, or stories where women were effectively discriminating against men. Although I'm sure situations like this happen in the minority, they still happen. Makes you wonder who is serving who's interests.
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Jun 22, 2011 20:41
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WindyMan posted:... One of the things that we've gotten the most good feedback on in our new co-ed league is our code of conduct. The four of us who formed / own the league worked for several weeks drafting what we thought was a good core document and one of the most important things we address is attitude. The way we are approaching the league is that skaters pay money to learn and/or get better at derby and with the possible goal that they may skate in games. We liken this to a gym. Our basic premise is that you pay us and we provide the coaching and practice space, you just need to bring a good attitude. If you don't, you can leave. If you don't quite a few times, you can leave forever. We have never had to ask anyone to leave because they all get it. Has it turned off a few people? Yes. They weren't going to be interested in us anyway. The majority of the people love it and we're a tight group. We are now starting to attract female skaters that are sick of the drama but also didn't want to skate with men. The last thing we're going to do is talk crap about other skaters or leagues and we ask the same of skaters that skate with us.
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Jun 22, 2011 20:54
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ODC posted:The way we are approaching the league is that skaters pay money to learn and/or get better at derby and with the possible goal that they may skate in games. We liken this to a gym. Our basic premise is that you pay us and we provide the coaching and practice space, you just need to bring a good attitude. If you don't, you can leave. If you don't quite a few times, you can leave forever. We have never had to ask anyone to leave because they all get it. Yeah, we share the same philosophy. We had to let a really good skater go because she felt it necessary to voice her displeasure about management in the open in our (private) league Facebook group with a selfish and very looooong post, instead of discussing it with them in person as league policy (and common sense) would dictate. Personally, I think a lot of drama problems have to do with the fact that women seem to want to socialize and gossip, which is how rumors get started, which is how situations get blown out of proportion. Men couldn't care less about that kind of poo poo. I mean, I just want to show up and skate and learn and play the game. My coach, Coach Blade (you may have heard of him) has a very simple coaching philosophy: Shut up and skate. The more I think about it, the more I wish the roller derby community would just stop complaining about every little thing that doesn't mesh with what they want it to be, and focus on skating and skills instead of socializing and afterparties.
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Jun 22, 2011 21:18
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WindyMan posted:focus on skating and skills instead of socializing and afterparties. Those don't need to be mutually exclusive.
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Jun 22, 2011 21:27
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Dominion posted:Those don't need to be mutually exclusive. They don't, but they do. I have a blog post coming up in the next few days that will illustrate how I feel about this.
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Jun 22, 2011 21:48
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WindyMan posted:They don't, but they do. I have a blog post coming up in the next few days that will illustrate how I feel about this. Please don't make it as long as the other one. I want to actually read the whole thing.
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Jun 22, 2011 23:02
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WindyMan posted:They don't, but they do. I have a blog post coming up in the next few days that will illustrate how I feel about this. I've read a lot of blog posts from a lot of people about a similar topic and I don't know exactly how you feel about it but I think a lot of the people who present a "the social aspect doesn't matter its a sport" view are really arguing from an unfair place. I'm biased about this because my of things that are going on within CCRG and how they affected my girlfriend. She was a pretty good player: contributed solidly to her home team, and would likely have been a travel team skater somewhere like DC, but was nowhere near good enough to be a travel team CCRG skater, and she was fine with that. She's not a fat girl, but she's bigger than the standard female athlete, and has never been good at most sports. She was drawn to derby because A) girls with different body types can succeed and thrive, and B) she liked the culture and the DIY attitude and the FUN that surrounded the sport then. That fun is almost completely gone from CCRG, and she's not the only one to have noticed. The league is geared almost totally towards the travel team gunning for a championship run. Home team activities are ignored, travel team skaters rarely skate for home teams anymore, and girls who aren't good enough to be on a top-ten national travel team are expendable. Every season, a new crop of girls shows up, 1 or two are immediately fast-tracked to the travel team, and the rest enter a holding pattern of practice, assessments, volunteering, and getting discouraged before they are chewed up and spit out after a year or two when they wise up and realize they are being used. I know girls who have been on the league a year or more and have never skated in a bout. More and more girls are leaving, and every one of them says the same thing: I miss when it was fun. They just want to play derby and have fun doing it, and there's no place for people like that in Baltimore right now. I don't think this model is sustainable, and I wonder if the people in charge even do, or whether they just think they can ride it out and win a trophy before it all falls apart and we have a Rocky/Denver style league split. These girls will never be good enough to compete on the level that our travel team is competing at. But that's a really, really high level, and to say that they can't enjoy the culture and the identity and the rollergirl atmosphere anyway because they aren't gifted enough to be the best in the country is, well, lovely. I know that's not what you're saying, but I have heard enough people say it that I get twitchy about the sports vs fun debate.
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Jun 22, 2011 23:39
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Dominion posted:These girls will never be good enough to compete on the level that our travel team is competing at. But that's a really, really high level, and to say that they can't enjoy the culture and the identity and the rollergirl atmosphere anyway because they aren't gifted enough to be the best in the country is, well, lovely. I know that's not what you're saying, but I have heard enough people say it that I get twitchy about the sports vs fun debate. But here's the thing: A lot of WFTDA leagues are trying to have it both ways. They want to have the athletic sport and the culture of fun wrapped up into one neat little package called roller derby. You can't have one without the other in sports, since only one team truly has fun: The team that wins. The thing I'm waiting to see is what happens when the roller derby community comes to this realization.
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Jun 23, 2011 00:17
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WindyMan posted:But here's the thing: A lot of WFTDA leagues are trying to have it both ways. They want to have the athletic sport and the culture of fun wrapped up into one neat little package called roller derby. You can't have one without the other in sports, since only one team truly has fun: The team that wins. They won't because it's not true at all. You can play a sport and love to compete and still have fun when you lose. Maybe not if you lose every single time, but not everyone is so obsessed with winning that it defines the entire game for them. That opinion, that you can't have competition and also fun, is the very root of what is rotting away at CCRG. It's ~15 girls who want to win so badly that they are sucking the fun away from ~80 other girls and basically killing the game for them. When I say these girls just want to skate and have fun, I don't mean that none of them care about winning and they just want to skate in circles and be nice to each other. They want to play the game they love and yes, of course trying to win and get better is part of that. They just don't care about being national champions or getting their asses kicked by national champion contenders in scrimmage practice. Your last sentence there is just so wrong-headed I don't even know where to begin. E: by last sentence i mean the "only the winners have fun" one, not your actual last sentence. JoshTheStampede fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jun 23, 2011 |
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Jun 23, 2011 00:23
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Dominion posted:They won't because it's not true at all. You can play a sport and love to compete and still have fun when you lose. Maybe not if you lose every single time, but not everyone is so obsessed with winning that it defines the entire game for them. That opinion, that you can't have competition and also fun, is the very root of what is rotting away at CCRG. It's ~15 girls who want to win so badly that they are sucking the fun away from ~80 other girls and basically killing the game for them. I'm more than willing to bet that a lot of the problem is the current incarnation of WFTDA. When you have scores like 180-5, you have the teams that care about nothing but getting the 180 and the other teams who don't want to score 5. The simple fact is that derby is not a cheap sport to be an athlete in. It requires lots of practice, equipment and dues. Unless you're an established team / league with a large fanbase, you can't afford large enough facilities to really support growth. That being said, we're working really hard to keep our league fun and we are organizing off skate activities to keep things up. I'm with you though Dominion you need a both, you need some wins and you need some time outside the rink.
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Jun 23, 2011 04:29
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WindyMan posted:But here's the thing: A lot of WFTDA leagues are trying to have it both ways. They want to have the athletic sport and the culture of fun wrapped up into one neat little package called roller derby. You can't have one without the other in sports, since only one team truly has fun: The team that wins. Wow dude, I can't speak on behalf of any US leagues, but here in Australia I haven't heard of or come across any leagues like that. True, the sport is much newer here so perhaps we haven't had the time to become all jaded and bitter, but in all honesty I don't see it heading that way. My league is super competitive and one of the most experienced in the country and we still have fun. When it's not fun anymore there's not much point, I don't know of anyone who would disagree with that.
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Jun 23, 2011 11:58
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huplescat posted:Wow dude, I can't speak on behalf of any US leagues, but here in Australia I haven't heard of or come across any leagues like that. True, the sport is much newer here so perhaps we haven't had the time to become all jaded and bitter, but in all honesty I don't see it heading that way. I too am in Australia and ahahahahahaha. I know a few leagues that are like this already. Something my league is starting is regular friends and family bouts for non-bout level skaters. So those skaters that don't make the travel team or one of the bouting teams still get to play regularily.
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Jun 23, 2011 12:20
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Spookydonut posted:I too am in Australia and ahahahahahaha. I know a few leagues that are like this already. Seriously? Well, I hope it doesn't catch on. What state are you in?
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Jun 23, 2011 12:25
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huplescat posted:Seriously? Well, I hope it doesn't catch on. What state are you in? Perth, WA. I'm not going to name the leagues though.
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Jun 23, 2011 14:51
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That's ok, I wouldn't expect you to  I've never met anyone derby related from that side of the country.
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Jun 23, 2011 16:07
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Dominion posted:E: by last sentence i mean the "only the winners have fun" one, not your actual last sentence. I know what you meant. But let me further clarify. As an athlete progresses up the ranks of a sport, having "fun" playing the game becomes secondary to winning. But the winners don't have "fun" in the strict sense of the word. They achieve a certain satisfaction, that feeling of "I did it" or "we did it" you can only get by winning. The loser, on the other hand, feels devastated that all of their hard work was for nothing. Winning above fun applies mostly in the pros and to a certain extent, college sports. Most high school sports and all youth sports are more about fun than winning. There's a noticeable difference between winners and losers as the best players funnel into the upper echelons of a sport. Now, consider some of your earlier comments: Dominion posted:The league is geared almost totally towards the travel team gunning for a championship run. Home team activities are ignored, travel team skaters rarely skate for home teams anymore, and girls who aren't good enough to be on a top-ten national travel team are expendable. Every season, a new crop of girls shows up, 1 or two are immediately fast-tracked to the travel team, and the rest enter a holding pattern of practice, assessments, volunteering, and getting discouraged before they are chewed up and spit out after a year or two when they wise up and realize they are being used. I know girls who have been on the league a year or more and have never skated in a bout. I hate to break it to you, but those bold parts? That's how sports work in the real world. The youth leagues let everyone play, because everyone just wants to have fun. But reality starts with high school sports. Not good enough to be a starter? We'll let in for a few plays, but you'll be on the bench for most of the game. If you're good enough to play in college, you're probably not going to get a scholarship. Even if you make the team, you'll be lucky to even see the field. If you're fortunate enough to be one of the 0.02% of high school seniors that make it to the pros, that's no guarantee you'll see playing time. In fact, if you show signs of faltering, you'll be cut and replaced by someone better. That's why I really meant by WFTDA trying to want to have "sport and fun" tied together. For the very reasons you explained, this is impossible, and we are in fact agreeing on the subject. Hell, you even said it yourself: Dominion posted:They want to play the game they love and yes, of course trying to win and get better is part of that. If trying to win and get better is a part of playing the game, then are the skaters who don't care about winning or getting better not part of the game? Like I said before, it can't be had both ways. If there's going to be another "split," as you suggested, it had better be the WFTDA to initiate it. They need to make an officially sanctioned "pro" league or something like that to let skaters know that there's another outlet for those few who want to take it to the next level. Otherwise, a vast majority of skaters are going to be left behind once everyone realizes a one-size-fits-all model really doesn't.
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Jun 23, 2011 17:00
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WindyMan posted:I hate to break it to you, but those bold parts? That's how sports work in the real world. Sure, but in other sports if you aren't good enough to play at the top level, you can play (actually play, not just practice), at a lower level. If I'm not good enough to play in the NFL, I can play in the CFL, or the UFL, or Arena League, or a dozen other semi-pro leagues, where I would get to play real honest to god football with people at near my own skill level, and play the sport I love. These girls can't do that. We have 100 girls who want to play roller derby and are safe to skate. 15 of them are world-class, and good for them, but there needs to be somewhere where the other 85 can do something too. I'm not saying they need to use a little league model and let everyone play together regardless of skill level. In fact, that's what the higher-tier people THINK people are saying, and the "This isn't Little League, ladies" response is about as cliche and snide as they get. But the rest of the girls, the ones who have proven they are safe to bout, should be bouting and practicing and having fun and having their parents come see them, and being supported in their endeavors, and instead the entire league is focused on the travel team and the home team skaters are used as volunteer labor and get treated like poo poo. Now, I know of plenty of other leagues with highly competitive travel teams that also support and have great home leagues that everyone enjoys and get good turnout (Gotham and Philly, to name a few), so this is not a problem that is unavoidable. It's just a trap CCRG has fallen into. When I say girls have been on the league a year and haven't skated a bout, this is not because they aren't good enough to be on a home team. It's because they keep making assessments harder and harder in order to use them as travel team pre-tryouts. There's plenty of girls who have been skating on home teams ofr a couple years, and doing just fine, who look at the assessments now and say "I don't know if I could have passed this". Basically I think your hypercompetitive outlook is everything that is wrong with roller derby right now. You seriously think that when you're at a certain level you have to give up fun to win and I think that is sad. quote:If there's going to be another "split," as you suggested, it had better be the WFTDA to initiate it. They need to make an officially sanctioned "pro" league or something like that to let skaters know that there's another outlet for those few who want to take it to the next level. Otherwise, a vast majority of skaters are going to be left behind once everyone realizes a one-size-fits-all model really doesn't. That's what the home league is supposed to be for. I don't have a problem with the travel team being world-class, and pushing for better and better results and trying to win a trophy. That's what they're supposed to do, they're the top level of the sport in the country right now. They're the CCRG All-Stars, which is sort of a misnomer now that they aren't playing on home teams but whatever. JoshTheStampede fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jun 23, 2011 |
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Jun 23, 2011 17:11
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WindyMan posted:I hate to break it to you, but those bold parts? That's how sports work in the real world. I would just like to say I hate this mentality. I'm not going to get sucked into this discussion but I'd like to say that I -do- miss when it was fun, when it was a camaraderie, a sisterhood. Where winning was awesome but at the end of the day, it was a mixture of skill levels, and no matter what happened on the track, everyone was great to each other afterwards. If it were "sports in the real world," then it wouldn't be DERBY.
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Jun 23, 2011 17:32
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Dominion posted:It's because they keep making assessments harder and harder in order to use them as travel team pre-tryouts. Also, yeah, I agree with WindyMan on moving up the chain and the transition from fun to satisfaction/achievement. It's pretty much inevitable to reach that conclusion as people get over the new car smell of playing derby and being new to it. It takes people longer to do so in some cases, but it will happen if the players' drive is to be the best they can be in an athletic sense rather than using derby as a way to get exercise and get out of the house and socialize with people. Yes, I know there should be both, but you can't balance both to be of equal priority. It doesn't happen.
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Jun 23, 2011 19:42
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downtimejesus posted:How do you make the assessments harder, I dont get it? By assessments I mean the system of ranks or stars that leagues give out to determine when a skater can skate, when they can scrimmage, when they are eligible to be on a team and bout, etc. In CCRG, there was originally the following steps: You tried out for the league, and the tryout tested basic skills like crossovers, skating a certain number of laps, some very basic blocking techniques, how to fall, etc. Then you progress through yellow, orange, and finally green "stars", with yellow meaning you could participate in full contact practices, orange meaning you could scrimmage, and green meaning you could be drafted onto a home team and were eligible to bout. They have since eliminated one star, I think yellow, but the concept is the same. Note that you can only assess when they hold an assessment practice, so you may be months between stars, depending on how many other girls need to assess as well. The fact that assessments magically get scheduled faster when there's an obvious rockstar waiting to assess is another issue. Basically, the goal of the green star was to ensure that the skater was safe to bout, that she was not a danger to herself or others on the track. It measured basic competency, not how good you were or how well you understood derby strategy. They have since changed it such that the baseline is not whether you are safe, but whether you can "contribute meaningfully to a home team". In short, you have to be good enough. There are separate travel team tryouts, and those are and have always been difficult, as they should be, since the travel team is ranked and competitive. But I don't think there should be such a barrier of entry to home team (again, HOME TEAM, not WFTDA sanctioned) bouts.
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Jun 23, 2011 19:50
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Dominion posted:But I don't think there should be such a barrier of entry to home team (again, HOME TEAM, not WFTDA sanctioned) bouts.
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Jun 23, 2011 19:59
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downtimejesus posted:Yeah, uh, that's pretty dumb, I agree. We(as dudes, for my league) basically have to pass the WFTDA minimum skills assessment and then we're good to go bout and get hosed up by the best teams in the nation. But then again, we're in a really small market (Rome/Utica NY, where's that?) and have 14-ish guys who play, so it's not like we can do any of that star stuff and come out with a travel team on the other side. poo poo, we don't even have a 14 person roster when we play, its usually like, 9-12 people. Yeah. I think CCRG really just grew too fast without a plan for it. The core of the travel team is girls who founded the league, have been skating together for 5+ years, and are damned good. They started out just like the new girls though, drawn by the fun and the culture, and they seem to have lost sight of that. I don't think they are consciously loving everyone over, but I don't think they ever planned to have 100 girls interested.
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Jun 23, 2011 20:06
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downtimejesus posted:Yeah, uh, that's pretty dumb, I agree. We(as dudes, for my league) basically have to pass the WFTDA minimum skills assessment and then we're good to go bout and get hosed up by the best teams in the nation. But then again, we're in a really small market (Rome/Utica NY, where's that?) and have 14-ish guys who play, so it's not like we can do any of that star stuff and come out with a travel team on the other side. poo poo, we don't even have a 14 person roster when we play, its usually like, 9-12 people. You're with Utica? The Quadfathers?
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Jun 23, 2011 20:07
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Mr. Powers posted:You're with Utica? The Quadfathers?
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Jun 23, 2011 20:15
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I think what WindyMan doesn't get is that there exist people who like to participate in a sport for reasons other than competitiveness. I play pickup ice hockey all the time. We don't keep score. One team usually outperforms the other, but I couldn't care less. I just want to be engaging in the team sport and doing my best. I have a blast whether I score or not. I coach one of the B-level teams for the SCDD. Pittsburgh abolished its home teams a couple years ago, and now has an A-level team (the team that plays the A-level teams from other leagues) and two B-level teams. While some girls on the B-level teams use them to improve their skills and hopefully make the A-level team, most of them are content to be on B-level teams because they like derby to be FUN and not "OH MY GOD WHAT IS OUR RANKING ARE WE GOING TO MAKE REGIONALS OH poo poo WE JUST CAN'T BEAT PHILADELPHIA RRRRRR MUST TRAIN ALL DAY GET SOME." My girls all want to win, but they are perfectly capable of having a good time losing as well, no matter what WindyMan says. We went to New York and played one of Gotham's B-teams, and got slaughtered, and every one of my skaters said that they felt it was one of their best played games of the season and felt GOOD about their performance. Our league is pretty good about not being completely A-team centric. The last two public bouts were both B-team double headers, and we just had a round robin private scrimmage with the A-team and both B-teams on Monday. Most of the A-team skaters are helpful and really want the league as a whole to succeed. Seeing anyone claim that A-team success can only come at the expense of fun for the rest of the league just seems...wrong. It might be that way in some leagues, but it isn't that way in our league, and while we're not top-10 nationwide, we are top-20, and fairly successful.
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Jun 23, 2011 22:35
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WindyMan posted:I hate to break it to you, but those bold parts? That's how sports work in the real world.
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Jun 23, 2011 22:53
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ECDX is happening now/this weekend, HD stream tonight, SD stream for the rest of the weekend. Now (7:30PM EST) - Rose City vs Gotham, should be fun to watch. http://www.phillyrollergirls.com/ecdx http://derbyaccess.com/ downtimejesus fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jun 25, 2011 |
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Jun 25, 2011 00:32
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What do you guys think of this? I'll just present it without comment.Derby News Network posted:[url=FEASTERVILLE, PA -- #5 Rose City gave #3 Gotham a good first-half battle to trail by just 16 points at 54-38 at the break, but the tough New Yorkers adjusted well for the second half and won it by a considerably larger margin (93-41) to win the first WFTDA-sanctioned bout of ECDX 2011 by a final 147-79.
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Jun 25, 2011 06:17
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WindyMan posted:What do you guys think of this? I'll just present it without comment. Business as usual; Tactically sound but boring as poo poo to watch(it got booed a few times too)
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Jun 25, 2011 06:26
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Leagues need to start setting realistic upper limits of how many teams they can run and throttle recruitment accordingly. I've seen this done with Adelaide Roller Derby in Australia. They capped themselves at 4 teams, and 2 other leagues are in the same city. I'm not sure when those two other leagues formed though. If they're feeling especially generous they can encourage and sport spin-off league formation. WindyMan posted:What do you guys think of this? I'll just present it without comment. If they both want to burn time, whats the problem? Not like it's a spectator sport or anything.
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Jun 25, 2011 06:50
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Spookydonut posted:If they both want to burn time, whats the problem? Not like it's a spectator sport or anything. How do you figure that leagues are able to afford to rent/lease dedicated practice spaces for their skaters? If the league wants to play a game in front of an audience, where is the money going to come from to pay for the place to play, the necessary insurance, the EMTs, the concessions, and so on? What if you have a team that wants to travel to play interleague? Something has to pay for all that travel. Here are some the regular sources of funding for derby leagues: -Skater dues -Fundraising -Ticket sales -Raffles/Merchandising -Sponsorships Skater dues and fundraising can only get you so much money. If you're a league that wants to play in front of a crowd, and do it regularly, you're going to need more income from the latter three, particularly the last one. Sponsorship only comes from a large enough audience to justify a sponsor ponying up money. An audience only comes if they like what they see on the track, leading to ticket sales and merch sales. Either way, without the audience, a league will miss out on supplemental income necessary to run a league. Do you think derby will have grown this fast without the help (and money) of its spectators? Isn't that the definition of a spectator sport, if people are willing to pay to spectate? To answer your question, the problem is that if the spectators aren't happy with what they see, maybe fewer of them will come to watch derby. So that could maybe lead to fewer ticket sales, fewer sponsors, and therefore, less money for leagues to operate. That could potentially lead to less opportunity for skaters to skate, wouldn't it? WindyMan fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Jun 25, 2011 |
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Jun 25, 2011 07:25
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WindyMan posted:What do you guys think of this? I'll just present it without comment. I don't understand why BOTH teams would want to burn time.
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Jun 25, 2011 17:54
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Mr. Powers posted:Speaking of loopholes, I was reading a hypothetical the other day. Required backstory for this is that a blocker starting behind the jammer line is considered to be very far ahead of the pack (and not behind them), so for the purposes of re-entry, they need to stay where they are until the pack catches them. Suppose an entire team lines up behind the jammer line and takes a knee. The blockers start, and immediately the jammers start. The whole team gets minor IPs for false starting. A skater is never compelled to skate clockwise, so to satisfy attempting to reform, the skaters behind the line just stand there. This gives a no pack scenario for a full lap of the blockers coming off the line. It's a total WTF scenario, but I imagine we might see this variation come up for power jams in the near future. This literally just now happened at the Windy/Charm game at ECE. Windy had a power jam had three blockers and lined them up behind the jammer line. Instant no-pack and a free pass and lead jammer by Charm's four blockers. But here's the kicker: Since this is a no-minors test game, only one penalty was issued to Windy's pivot, albeit a major IP. This is bullshit. WindyMan fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jun 26, 2011 |
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Jun 26, 2011 00:05
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WindyMan posted:This literally just now happened at the Windy/Charm game at ECE. Windy had a power jam had three blockers and lined them up behind the jammer line. Instant no-pack and a free pass and lead jammer by Charm's four blockers. So, maybe just removing minors without actually addressing the rest of the issues with the rules is a bad idea?
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Jun 26, 2011 07:02
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