In the early going on Sunday night at the UIC Pavilion, The Fury looked like it might hang more points on the overmatched Hell’s Belles than the Double Crossers did in January. The old coaching axiom proved out, however—a young team grows most between the first and second games. No doubt the Belles lost big, 162-65, but the Red Rookies are skating in the right direction heading toward the mid-point of the season.

The Belles spent the night trying to adjust to Orange speed. Fury ace Kola Loka, something like the Wayne Gretzky of roller derby, lapped the Belles three times on the first jam before Belle captain Shocka Conduit could threaten the back of the pack. The Belles started the third jam down 18-0, and when Hermione Danger was sent off for a cutting-the-track major, Conduit tried to slow things down. But rookie Belle blockers had trouble moving laterally at the slow pace, and Jackie Daniels quickly rang up another 15 for the Fury.

Down 33-0, at the start of the fourth, February poster girl Zombea Arthur, who was brutalized by the Crossers in January, shook loose on the first of her four lead jams to pick up the opening Belle points. The Belles rallied again near the middle of the first half, scoring 28 on four consecutive lead jams. In the tenth, a major penalty on Fury blocker Tori Adore and a fourth minor on her teammate Juana Rumbel gave Deb Autry an easy line to lead jammer status; Pominatrix and Mya Ssault pestered Red Zeppelin  into her fourth minor, and Conduit picked up her 14th point of the jam on a slick move that left Jackie Daniels blocking air. Autry pulled the Belles within 18 on a third consecutive power jam in the twelfth.

Enter Loka. The Belles had no answer for number 911, who would go on to put up 57 points on 12 jams that yielded just six Belle points. Interleague transfer players Daniels (44) and Ska Face (41) accounted for most of the Fury’s other points. Zeppelin, Go-Go Hatchet, and Tori Adore doled out the bruises for The Fury, with a noticeably improved Ivy Sedation pitching in on defense.

With the score 75-39, and Conduit looking capable of exploiting seams in the Fury defense, it still looked like a game at the start of the second half. The Fury went on a 37-0 run across the first five jams, however, and simply racked points, yeoman-like, to the final whistle. Each team gave fans reason to stick around; Daniels and Loka combined on a star pass in the thirteenth jam, the latter going on defense for perhaps the only time of the night to hold up Pominatrix. The feisty Belles never quit.  Danger bounced up after being leveled by Zeppelin to score two grand slams in the ninth jam. And Arthur—using nifty footwork, speed changes, and upper-body fakes to offset her diminutive stature—seemed to show measureable progress with each jam. Overall, the Belles demonstrated much better team play in the pack. Ssault, who is stepping into an anchor role on defense, registered 14 defensive actions, looking particularly strong when playing alongside Pominatrix and veteran Gotham transfer Dinah Party, who played just one jam in the second half before leaving with a sore back.

The winless Hell’s Belles line up in March against the Manic Attackers. Perennial doormats in the Cicero years before winning the Ivy King Cup in 2009, the Manics are 1-1 and searching their roster for a fourth jammer. The Belles are hanging loose and hanging together. Both teams want to take a win into the season’s second half.

If Round One of the 2010 Windy City Rollers home-league season featured speed on speed when the Manic Attackers lined up against the Fury, this past Sunday night, February 21, 2010, the Double Crossers kept their game against the Manics turning at 33 1/3. In a game with just one jam total over ten points, The Double Crossers  shut down the Manics 105-84 and blocker Sassy Squash grabbed Player of the Game.
The Double Crossers, who now at 2-0 sit atop the standings, took a page from the Denver playbook and slowed down the Manic attack. Able to sustain a thick, deliberate pack for much of the first half and the game’s last ten minutes, the Crossers repeatedly left the Manics looking flat. In the seventh jam, a low-block major on Beth Amphetamine created a power jam situation for the XXer’s IndyCent, who finished with 26 points.  The Black and Silver trapped Wreck N Shrew and added to the lead that they would maintain through most of the first 30 minutes.

With seven minutes left in the half, Zoe Trocious ignited the Manics with a pretty jam during which she burst past game MVP Sassy Squash and made Nina Millimeter whiff. The precocious Trocious led five of her eight jams. Amphetamine fought off wicked defense by Georgia on Yer Behind and Norma Lee Wright to pick up five on the next jam, and the Manics were within 4.  Di Richmond laid a trio of big hits on XXer captain Julia Rosenwinkel in the next jam, and with help from Rose Feratu, Ruth Enasia put the Manics ahead going into the last jam of the half, with the score 38-36 at halftime.

Enasia started the second half where she left off, putting up ten on the first jam. Wreck and pivot Ada Hatelace bottled up Indycent and forced a backblock major, setting up a Trocius power jam and five more points. With Indycent in the box, Amphetamine racked up two grand slams in the third; just three jams into the second half, up 63-46, the Manics looked like they’d figured out the Crossers. On the fifth and seventh jams, however, Manic penalties revealed the potential of the slow-down game. With just two Manic blockers on the track, XXer jammer Donna Party cut their lead to eight points.  When Enasia was sent off a few minutes later, Millimeter ran up a 20-point jam while her blockers rode the brakes. The Manics would briefly pull within five at the 12-minute mark, but Squash and Donna Party rolled wide and slow from there, creating a wall of black that Manic jammers couldn’t bust.

Squash, the big and increasingly nimble third-year veteran, wore the Denver boot well. Playing opposite a trio of the best defensive blockers in the league—Wreck, Di Richmond, and Amy Nonamey—Squash loomed large, both plugging holes and blowing them open. She registered 15 defensive and nine offensive actions, including seven jammer force-outs.

The March 27th bout shapes up like a Spring Halloween—Black on Orange. The Crossers-Fury match-up will pit the two deepest, if not best, teams in the league. In its two games so far, the Crossers have used six different jammers, and mostly sat their rookies; Riley Coyote, who added both muscle and speed last year, has yet to skate this season.  The Fury will blow in with a roster packed with travel-team aces, A-List transfers, and home-league veterans. Scary!

Questions answered.

On Saturday, January 30^th , a tighter, more focused Double Crossers team steamrolled Hell’s Bells 171-48 and the Manics tamped down The Fury 101-83. A crowd reported by Derby News Network at 3,977—the largest to watch modern roller derby in Chicago—began rising into the UIC Pavilion’s upper deck before the 6:00 p.m. start.

Double Crossers vs. Hell’s Belles

Perhaps not since the summer of 1998, when the six-time champion Chicago Bulls splintered in the off-season, has Chicago sports seen a red and black transition like Hell’s Belles are going through now. Just this past June 20^th, the Belles were tied with the Manic Attackers in the Ivy King Cup championship game with eleven minutes to play, scrapping for their second consecutive league crown. But gone now are a who’s who of  past stars—Megan Formor, Varla Vendetta, Belle Diablo and Athena DeCrime. On Saturday night, the Belles managed just 17 offensive blocks and 1.41 points per jam in the 123-point loss.

The Crossers broke out to an 18-0 lead, showing dominant blocking at the front of the pack that would hamper the Belles all night. In the bout’s fifth jam, Loco Chanel  held up Crosser jammer Reina Chaos, positioning Deb Autry to cruise when Georgia on Yer Behind was sent off with a major. Autry circled for 14 points, but the red and black would not be in it again. Two jams later, the Belles set up camp in the sin bin, where they would spend a remarkable 46 team minutes. Indycent rang up 15 point while Chanel circled the track waiting for a seat to open up in the box. Led by Chanel’s 20 total penalties and eight minutes in the box, HB repeatedly put itself at disadvantage with elbow and forearm play.

The first half ended with the Crossers up 86-28, both teams giving way to half-time favorite the Power of Cheer, who appear to have spent the off-season muscling up. Mattrick Swayze and crew ripped through its most dynamic and athletic set to date; more power, less cheer, but great fun as usual.

The second half picked up where the first left off. In the fourth jam, with the Crossers up by 61, jammer Nina Millimeter went on defense, picking at Belle rookie Zombea Arthur like a tiger barb right off the jam whistle. Two jams later, just seven minutes into the second half, the Crossers slipped over the century mark as Georgia on Yer Behind, Donna Party and crew repeatedly slammed the door on Belle jammers. The crowd stayed with the Belles, however, erupting into a roar when Autry and Shocka Conduit took lead in the seventh and twelfth jams. Down but not out, the Belles sent Gotham Girls Roller Derby (New York) transfer Dinah Party to the line in the final jam and its least experienced rookies into the pack. Party juked her way to lead jammer. She put zero points on the board but scored big with her struggling teammates by sucking pro-Belles cheers out of the crowd.

It was likely a career night for several Crossers. Five different silent assassins, led by Julia Rosenwinkel, Nina Millimeter and Indycent, racked up double-digit jams. Rosenwinkel, the Crosser captain, looks considerably faster and stronger than she did in 2009 and led all scorers with 50, a remarkable 8.33 points per jam.

One had to feel for Shocka Conduit, the league’s 2009 point champion and now the Belles' sole travel-team member. Conduit drew heavy attention all night from Crosser blocking; she had just 9 points and too few assists from a roster including seven skaters playing their first bout—Arthur, Brawla Poundstone, Payne D. Spencer, Pominatrix, Sue Perduper and Nancy Pagan, who made the most of her opportunity by blind-siding Crosser veteran Donna Party to the Skate Court late in the second half. Deb Autry, one of last year’s early draftees, appears to have made great strides during the off-season. Zombea Arthur, although she did not score in six attempts, skated opportunistically and will find holes as the Belles' blocking improves. The Belles' other heavy-rotation jammer, Hermione Danger, who has both burst and heart, must cut penalty minutes to help on offense. With the vastly improved Fury on the schedule in just three weeks, the young Belles will need to grow up fast.

Final score: Double Crossers 171, Hell's Belles 48

Manic Attackers vs. The Fury

In the off-season, roller girls take up a second sport—drafting players for the new season. How it works is all guess-work for the outsider, but there are clearly winners and losers. Just ask Hell’s Belles. And in a year like this one, when so many four-year players chose home-league retirement, the stakes were sky-high. The Fury came away from the draft season with two huge scores, increasing team speed exponentially with the return of Kola Loka and the acquisition of Grand Rapids transplant Jackie Daniels. On paper, their match-up with the Manic Attackers looked like it could be a preview of the 2010 Ivy King Cup. But the Manics, last year’s champs, equaled Fury speed, decisively won the penalty battle, and looked long on endurance in their 101-83 win.

The Fury’s Loka and game MVP Beth Amphetamine of the Manics put on a speed clinic, lining up against each other with some regularity throughout the night. Amphetamine scored just 19 points in the game, but played a crucial role in neutralizing Loka’s velocity. The two skated to a 0-0 draw on the first jam, but the Manics opened a 19-6 lead after the first ten minutes. Loka finally got loose in the game’s eighth jam and scored her first four points. With the score 19-11 and 17:50 left in the first half, the next jam ended with Jackie Daniels putting her shoulder just under Wreck N Shrew’s chin. The game stopped while Wreck thought about getting up, and though she went on to score the Manics’ final points, she could be seen after the game with an ice bag fashionably draped over her right collarbone.

The Manics opened up a 17-point lead, but The Fury began to chip away during a furious thirteenth set. Loka picked up lead jammer and then traded short penalty stints with Amphetamine, who shot out of the box and appeared to be headed for a scoring pass when Daniels and Go-Go Hatchet snagged her in a perfectly executed sandwich. Loka took advantage of a dispersed pack and cut the lead by four.  Daniels registered six on a pretty run with three minutes left, and in the half’s final jam, Loka burst past Fury blockers like they were moving backwards, taking lead jammer in turn two. The half ended with the Manics leading 39-33.

The Fury kept up the pressure as the second half began, and in the fourth jam, Daniels executed a deft cut to take advantage of a block on Amy Nonamey and momentarily take the lead away.  Mo Vengeance was able to hit her scoring pass, however, and end the jam with the Manics still in control, 46-43. Nonamey—who in just her second full season is emerging as one of the league’s most fearsome hitters—found redemption two jams later by crushing Ska Face, ending her ten-point jam. Loka would tie the score at 55, and then Hatchet later at 64, but The Fury would not lead again.

In the twelfth jam, Ruth Enasia, who led all scorers with 48, ducked under Sonya Mouthshut while Di Richmond and Wreck N Shrew tied up The Fury’s Shannanigan to open up a ten-point lead.

Discipline served the Manics well over the next ten minutes of play as Fury skaters were waved into the penalty box. Daniels and Loka were each sent off while jamming inside the eight-minute mark, and the Manics stretched their lead to 29. Loka, however, never looked spent, and if her year-long leave has had a negative impact, it will take interleague play to prove it. With 2:49 left in the game, she ran down the lead jammer, Enasia, forcing her to call it off. And then, albeit against the light end of the Manic bench, she put up 15 of her 31 points on the final jam, her 18^th of the night.

Final score: Manic Attackers 101, The Fury 83

The Manic Attackers will square off against the Double Crossers on February 21^st, while The Fury will face a scrappy Hell’s Belles squad with nothing to lose. Will that be a great time? Four thousand people can’t be wrong.

The Manic Attackers

The first team we will look at will be the 2009 defending champions, the Manic Attackers. This team, led by the driving force of team captain Beth Amphetamine, looks poised to contend for the Ivy King Cup once again this year. Returning with five members of the All-Star team still on their roster is impressive. They are: Beth Amphetamine, who led the Manics in points scored in 2009; co-captain Ruth Enasia, who had a break-out sophomore season as a jammer and won Most Improved Player 2009 honors; Rookie of the Year 2009 and power blocker, Amy Nonamey; six-year veteran, Mo Vengeance; and the wrecking ball Wreck 'N' Shrew. In addition to the All-Stars, the Manics have a pair of very solid veterans at work as well. Di Richmond is a very competent blocker, and Ada Hatelace has improved greatly over the last year. In their second seasons I will be paying close attention to promising sophomores Rose Feratu and Zoe Trocious. Other than fan favorite Val Capone starting the year on the disabled list, all signs point "go" for the 2010 Manic Attackers.

The Hells Belles

The Belles have been a power house within the league for years, making it to the championship game every year for the past four seasons and winning it in 2008. With only two skaters that have been on the team for more than one season, making it to the championship game this year will be an uphill climb. The Belles have clearly lost the most in this off-season, but are bonding quickly into a tight group. They are led by star jammer and captain, Shocka Conduit. Shocka, the lone all-star member on the Belles, led the entire league last year in points scored. I expect the pack to be lead by veteran Loco Chanel. She is an improving blocker that will have to step up her game even more if the Belles are going to contend. The three team sophomores will have to quickly become a veteran core. Deb Autry showed a great deal of promise as a jammer in her break-out rookie season. Captain Hermione Danger, and Mya Ssault are both progressed into solid players. The Belles get some much needed experience from transfer skater Dinah Party (not to be confused with her Double Crosser sister, Donna Party) from the Gotham Girls of New York. Typically a team in the Windy City Rollers league doesn’t rely a lot on rookies. The Belles will have to. I expect to see Pominatrix make an impact from the jammer line. Payne D. Spencer, Brig2Hell, and Nancy Pagan will have to make the pack presence known very quickly. The rest of the rookies will have to learn in the fire to make an impact. On paper, this team appears to be in a rebuilding year. However, I’ve seen them scrimmage and they show a lot of promise and potential. They are learning quickly, and may sneak up on a few teams.

The Double Crossers

Traditionally this is the hardest team in the league to predict, and I expect 2010 to be the same. They finished the 2009 season at 3-3, beating and losing to each and every team in the league. This is a very veteran team that prides itself on playing as a smart pack-oriented unit. The two captains of the Crossers will definitely have a good cop, bad cop feel. The knowledgeable six-year veteran skating under her real name, Julia Rosenwinkel, is known for being no-nonsense and intense in her coaching and training style. She will be offset by the very professional hard-hitting 2008 rookie of the year and All-Star Georgia On Yer Behind. Their pack will be anchored by two of the league’s All-Stars, Nina Millimeter and Donna Party, both looking as good as ever going into their fifth seasons. Norma Lee Wright, coming into her third season, is starting to make a name for herself as a very solid player. Multi-year veteran Karmageddon (going into her third season with WCR and having skated for two with the now -defunct Chicago Sirens) certainly knows her way around a pack. Opposing team jammers will also have to be very wary of being squashed by the imposing blocker who lives up to her name, Sassy Squash. The veteran blocking core is rounded out by the solid skating of Indy Cent , the tenacious Reina Chaos, and the improving Slammah Montana. The lone sophomore Myra Maines showed promise in her rookie season, and looks to make an impact in 2010. Traditionally the Double Crossers play a very short bench and rookies don’t get much playing time, however I expect to see a few big hits from Tina Flay, and the Crossers anxiously await the return of Tru Shove. With the offseason loss of Peg Legs, the position of jammer appears to be a little depleted this season. The rotation will be anchored by the quick and nimble veteran Riley Coyote coming into her fourth season. I expect to see captain Rosenwinkel to take the star into her own hands on many occasions. This is an area the Double Crossers will need to bolster this season if they want to contend. At this point my intelligence is limited as to how the Crossers will handle the jammer position. I’m sure captains Rosenwinkel and Georgia have plans.

The Fury

The Fury have not won a championship since 2006. They will attempt to be the second team in a row to go from worst to first, which would end the league’s longest championship drought. There seems to be a lot to get excited about for the loyal Fury fans in 2010. They are led by captains Go-Go Hatchet and Tori Adore, both WCR All-Stars. The veteran Tori Adore returns as a power-blocking staple in the Fury pack. Go-Go has really turned into a very well-rounded player, able to excel at every position. The 2008 league MVP, Kola Loka, returns to The Fury after a year off to have a baby. The Fury also add a pair of very skilled transfers to their roster. The first is a national superstar from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Jackie Daniels, and the other is Ska Face from the military roller derby league Rogue Rollergirls out of North Carolina. In addition to this, The Fury return with a very solid core of veteran skaters including; Ivy Sedation, Dee Monica, Red Zeppelin, Carnage Wilson, Sonya Mouthshut, and Juanna Rumble. Even their sophomores Sargentina and Mel Content are looking good. This team is looking very solid from top to bottom. Expect the Fury to make some waves this year.

The winner of the arm wrestling tournament will receive $100, and the runner up gets $40 in Reggies Bucks to drink your sorrow away after coming in second.... although second isn't so bad if you lost to one of the toughest women in Chicago! Our very own Val Capone will be MCing the event, be sure to say hi!

Tickets available at www.ticketmaster.com

It's roller derby season again in Chicago! The Windy City Rollers open their 2010 home season on January 30 at UIC Pavilion! Join us for a wild double-header between the four home teams at our home in beautiful UIC Pavilion in downtown Chicago.

Hell's Belles vs. Double Crossers at 6 p.m.
Manic Attackers vs. The Fury at 7:30 p.m.

Entertainment: Power of Cheer, co-ed cheerleading troupe