Day 92

Blurb: Hitting people while rolling skating, reminds me of my childhood.

Backstory: Tonight's trip to the Ohio Roller Girls was a success. My sister, her boy friend and myself actually got our stuff together and managed to get into the match. Last time we tried this we got there 15 minutes before the main match and were turned away because it was sold out.
It was well worth the money we paid to get it. I've been wanting to see roller derby for a long time and the ladies of OHRG didn't disappoint. The first match was with their "Gang Green" team, which is pretty much a cool name for their JV squad. It wasn't as interesting as the "All Star" game because there's not as much strategy. Also, for the first game I didn't really understand what was going on.
Here's what I was able to figure out: there are jammers who score the points and the players who work inside the pack and do the blocking. The pack stays together while the jammers skate around the track and try to pass the members of the other team to get points. This can sometimes be difficult because the jammers are smaller than the ladies who block.
As for the strategy, speed seemed to be a key component for controlling the game. There would be times when the pack would stay completely still and wait for the jammers to come to them. I got the impression they did this so the players could get a better, harder shot at the player speeding around the track. At times some of the ladies got seriously leveled. Luckily, only the EMTs only had to be called out twice; this is a pretty common thing, EMTs are on the scene for all games and practices.
I'm pretty sure I'll go to one more match this season, but next time I go I'll buy my ticket ahead of time and only come for the All Stars game. We were there for three and a half hours and that's a long time to sit on bleachers.