2011-2012 Season Schedule
Get ready for a season eight with the Minnesota RollerGirls - Minnesota’s original roller derby league.The fall bouts will feature your favorite four home teams and the winter/spring months will feature the All-Star bouts.
Saturday, October 15
Saturday, November 19
Saturday, December 17
Saturday, January 21 (home team championship)
Saturday, February 4
Saturday, February 18 with Minnesota Swarm
Saturday, March 3
Saturday, March 31
Saturday, June 16
News
Bout Preview: Operation Uff-Da: the preview
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The Minnesota RollerGirls are back and skating at the Legendary Roy Wilkins Auditorium this Saturday night. This bout will be the second of our home team series, and the bouts are shaping up as some can’t-miss roller derby for fans of the MNRG.
For the Gardas and the Dolls, a win means a near-lock on a berth in January’s championship bout. The Rockits and the Atomic Bombshells also will play, but that game is for survival; no home team has ever entered the third game with no wins and yet gone on to play for the Golden Skate.
Garda Belts v Dagger Dolls – what to watch for:
Team USA v Team USA: Both MEDUSA and Juke Boxx are members of the MNRG’s All-Stars as well as Team USA for this December’s Blood and Thunder World Cup. As luck would have it, they’re also on opposite sides of this bout. MEDUSA of the Garda Belts monstered her way through Charm City’s pack this past Saturday at the WFTDA Championships, while the Dagger Dolls’ Juke Boxx spent her time sharpshooting for opposing scorers. Both players jam, both block, and both play well their teams. Watch these two. It may not be a rivalry, but this will be fun.
All the jammers you require: For years, the Garda Belts have had difficulty finding more than one or two jammers to place into heavy rotation. In this eighth year of the MNRG, the Gardas’ moment has come. Veteran Suzie Smashbox is showing her top pace again after a summer off, scoring eighteen points on only two jams against the Bombshells. Meanwhile, Garda captain Anita Spankston screamed through the pack for a game-winning 20 points in October’s bout. If one adds Moto Fluzzi, MEDUSA, and the as-of-yet untapped jamming potential of Tara Bichapart to the Gardas’ old guard…it looks like the Gardas have the speed and numbers to score big.
The Dagger Doll’s first half of Terror: If you need to understand what has made the Dagger Dolls so dominant in the past year, you need look no further than their first half performance. In their previous three bouts, they have either kept their opponents to less than twenty or have allowed them to score no more than twice in the first half. The Dolls are ready the moment they hit the track to deny the other team the lead jam.
Thugging: …and that Dagger Doll denial comes from the pack. The team has enough brawn to create several different ‘thug’ lines. The only question is what flavor you want. Want to hold off the jammer at the top of the pack? It’s Naughty Kitty and Olga in the front. Would you like to hold that inside line…the so-called “Path to Glory”? Drop Shiver Me Kimbers in there. Does a player need to go down at speed? Rely on Second Hand Smoke, Tiki, and Lydia Punch. Playing with Dolls can result in injury.
Past connections: Last month, Gardas Tara Bichapart, MEDUSA, Shiva Shankin’, and Betty LaRude came out for a line against the Bombshells (with a fifth player in the box)…and people who’ve watched roller derby for years had to smile. All four are ex-members of the NSRG, the MNRG’s sister league across the river. This keeps happening, and not just with in-state leagues. Our league has taken in some amazing talent over the past several years from migrating players across the nation. We’ve watched these four melt into the heart of Garda Belt action and, with the new season, we’re looking forward to what heights the talent of players from afar can take our league to.
Rockits v Atomic Bombshells – the lowdown:
From the Badger State…: Welcome to the MNRG, Buzz Tightrear! Buzz recently moved from Madison (our long-time Midwestern rivals AND original league of the Dolls’ Juke Boxx). She has just been drafted to the Rockits. Watch for Buzz in sparkly red soon.
Fission needs fuel: The Atomic Bombshells took on five rookies this year; that’s more than they’ve taken since Season 5 (a seven-rookie year for the ABS). You’ve seen Fannie Tanner and Messi Jigler veer their way through the pack as ABS jammers, but start watching as well for Stryper, Sand BlastHer, and EmmaLethal. The Bombshells train their new talent very well, and this is a fantastic class of rookies. The trick will be continuing to merge the fresh blood into the rotation of players as each bout’s stakes get higher. The ABS has never blinked at the challenge of balancing vets with rookies; we’ll see how co-captains Lizzy the Axe and Diamond Rough handle it this year.
Reds-shifting: The Rockits have had a different sort of challenge. It’s been years since the Rockits have taken more than a few new players, and this year, they went with a team full of veterans. The depth of talent is absolutely unbelievable. Of the Rockits available to skate this Saturday, half of them have played for five years or more. However, that didn’t stop the Dolls from soundly defeating them in October. The Rockits need to guard against power jams knocking them out of the game. They also must make good on-track decisions about where their blockers will be when jammers are racing one another. In the last bout, the Reds allowed the Dagger Dolls to claim the front of the pack when incoming jammers flashed through, and that cost them quite a few points.
Keeping up: There are going to be several good matchups in this bout. Two could be particularly fierce.
- Harmony Killerbruise v L’exi-Cuter: Both women are in heavy jammer rotation for the All-Stars. They’re fast, they absorb hits and stay on their skates. They are amidst the top jammers in the nation. But this weekend, they play for their hometeams against one another, and Harmony’s incredible confidence in cutting through the pack will be tested against L’exi’s tempered speed and agility.
- Hurtrude Stein v Vuedoo Prodigy: There are players who excel at jamming who would simply prefer hitting people. These two will almost certainly be called upon to jam in this bout, but Trudy and Vue are part of their respective teams’ blocking backbone. Watch for these two scrabbling in the pack all night long, dropping jammers every chance they get, and maybe – just maybe – some jammer-on-jammer blocking.
Half-time show by The Blind Shake.
After-party’s at Camp Bar.
Get your tickets, and we’ll see you at the Roy.
More News
The 2012 Wheelies
May 08, 2012
A season of surprises, kickass rookies, skaters going above and beyond…and the results are in!
Minnesota shotguns Brewskis, 173-104
April 11, 2012
The All-Stars go 10-0 on the Roy track, defeating Milwaukee’s best and finishing the MNRG’s 8th season on top.
New school defeats old in league-wide battle, 116-80
April 10, 2012
The Minnesota RollerGirls took to the track in a familiar bout on March 31st as the league’s veterans (playing as the “Mayo Clinicians”) attempted to go 2-0 against those newest to roller derby (the “State Fair Foodies”). After falling behind in the first half, the Foodies outscored the veterans 85 to 12 in the second to win the match 116-80.
The Northern Fights final scores
March 31, 2012
The younger skaters take one back on the Vets…and Minnesota makes it ten in a row on the Roy track.
The Northern Fights: the preview
March 29, 2012
The end of the season, the final mixer, and a match against the brilliant Brewcity Bruisers.
