A chat with Brim Stone

When I was given the assignment to speak to Brim Stone I was so excited. But I knew I had to suppress my inner fangirl to take care of the job at hand. However, I couldn’t help but gush a little bit.

Brim, known to her intimates as Kayla Wilkins, skated as part of Team Canada during the 2011 World Cup and also skates for CN Power, the Toronto Roller Derby travel team, and Gore-Gore Rollergirls, Toronto’s home team.

Just starting her sixth year in derby, Brim admitted that she had “never understood the appeal of team sports” before giving roller derby a chance, although she did take part in horseback riding when she was younger.

On track, her favoured position is Pivot, and aside from concussion, she has managed to avoid any serious injuries.

Asking someone who has come so far and achieved so much for a list of their derby idols might seem a bit ridiculous, but everyone looks up to someone and Brim was no exception. “Bonnie Thunders and Joy Collision are at the top of my list right now, but I have so many!  There are so many great skaters out there.”

Making the cut for Team Canada was no easy task. Brim explained that multiple tryouts were held across the country.

“There was a fitness component (push ups, sit ups, agility test, beep test, etc.), a derby skills component, and a mark given for scrimmaging.  Coach Pauly made a long-list at each tryout, and then chose a team of 20 from that list.”

After surviving the gruelling “audition” process, Brim said she was “shocked” to make the team. “I wanted to make the team so badly, and I was so honoured to be put on the roster to represent my country.”

She added: “It [making Team Canada] wasn’t always a goal – I wasn’t very competitive when I started derby – so it was something that developed over time.  I had thought about what an amazing opportunity that would be before the World Cup though, so when it became a possibility I wanted to put everything I had into the tryouts.”

And once at the World Cup, Brim Stone was keen to get stuck in, although she didn’t get to play against everyone.

“I wanted to play against all of the teams!  I really didn’t have a lot of knowledge of what the other teams would be like, so I was looking forward to that challenge.  I have to admit that I did really want to play against the USA, but I wasn’t chosen for that particular roster.  That was ok though, in a team sport the team always has to come first to be successful, and sometimes the best thing you can do as a player is to be the best cheerleader for your team!  And now I’ve got a better idea of what skills I need to work on to be a better skater in the future.”

Despite her preference for playing Pivot, Brim found herself on track jamming a lot during the competition.

“So, my personal best moment was a jamming moment for sure – I took hip off of my team mate Windigo’s shirt, and swung into the inside track, on one leg, and managed to save it and skate out of the front of the pack!  It was so fun!”

And cheering her all the way into the final was her support system, which included her parents, who travelled from their home two and a half hours north of Toronto, an aunt and uncle who flew in from Alberta, Brim’s derby-playing partner, and some of her team-mates from Toronto Roller Derby.

And what did Brim think that first time she heard the Canadian national anthem played?

“It was great – after 5 years of playing derby, I now associate the national anthem with ‘go’ time!  It was especially important hearing it at an international event.”

Following the World Cup, Brim left with a lot of lessons learned, but cites one as the top of the list.

“The most significant was the importance of bringing the international derby community together in one place.  Incredible!  Every country can learn so much from Team USA – how they operate on and off the track – and I think that will push us all to move the sport forward much faster.”

But the competition wasn’t just all business, and Brim shared her favourite part of the experience, off-skates.

“For me it was all of the support and encouragement I received from my ToRD league mates.  That was what was driving me to do the best that I could do on the track because I wanted to make them proud.”

And Brim told me when I asked if she was aiming for total victory at the next World Cup: “Iam always aiming for total victory!!”

* Photo used with kind permission of Sean Murphy. For more of his images, visit his website at www.womenofderby.com.

A European Cup : Some considerations.

There were 7 European National Teams participating in the first ever Roller Derby World Cup this weekend.

With some momentum building for more interaction within Europe even before the start of the Cup, the mixing of teams over the last few days has really begun to start a ball rolling within European derby. It therefore looks increasingly likely that there will be a European Cup of some kind (I currently favour an X Nations label) within the next two years.

So, what would such a tournament look like?

Well, one of the constraints for the World Cup was that the lack of any established rankings meant that a large number of bouts needed to be played initially to establish rough seedings for the tournament proper. (Single-elimination tournaments are basically useless if you don’t order the initial round matchups properly.) Ironically, the number of bouts needed in total (including consolation round bouts for each round in the tournament) was greater than that needed for other tournament types (double-elimination, or even triple-elimination, brackets) which wouldn’t have needed as good seeding in the first place.

Now that we have rough rankings for all of the teams in Europe, a European Cup could run with those rankings as seeds for its own tournament structure. With the caveats on the accuracy of rankings derived from single-elimination tournaments, a double-elimination structure would seem sensible, and would require only 13 bouts if only the 7 World Cup participants were present.

For example, based on the rankings from the world cup:

Double Elimination Euro Cup Bracket (cf TournamentDesign.org) Not all of the brackets are always played - a maximum of 13 bouts are needed.

The advantage of a double (or triple) elimination tournament is that it would scale to additional teams from Europe (Norway, for example, or Wales, amongst others), with only a small increase in the number of required bouts – twice the number of participants minus 1 for double-, and thrice minus 1 for triple-elimination.

With only 7 or 8 participants, however, the advantages of double-elimination don’t necessarily outweigh those of round-robin tournaments (where everyone plays everyone else). Round-robin tournaments necessitate more bouts overall (X*(X-1)/2 for X participants, so 28 bouts for 8 teams, or 21 for 7), but everyone does get to play the same number of bouts as each other, and the rankings produced are close to definitive as a result. This is how, for example, the 6 Nations Rugby Championship works, with the large number of contests spread out over several weekends hosted by each of the competing nations. The disadvantage of this kind of contest is, of course, that there is no “final” contest – the ranking is a result of performance over the entire tournament, not progression through elimination; this can be problematic for spectators, who have no “big” game to focus on.

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In either case, the best way to integrate such tournaments into the already fairly busy derby schedules may be to have the initial rounds distributed geographically, with the final core brackets (for elimination tournament structures) held at a central venue. This would limit the time pressure on such an event (one of the teething problems with the World Cup being the time and scheduling pressure from having to host so many bouts in just a four day period), although a 13 game double-elimination tournament would fit into a (busy) weekend with a little squeezing, with the 20 game triple or 21 game round-robin probably needing 3 or 4 days to give it room to breathe.

Whatever the structure, a European Cup would be good not just for European Derby, but also for the individual teams’ experience (and that of their home leagues). One of the advantages of roller derby leagues in the USA (other than the sheer depth of experience they’ve had the time to accrue since the revival) is the vast number of potential competitors they have available, giving them a tremendous breadth of styles to incorporate. In order to replicate this effect outside of the world’s largest Western economy, the only reasonable approach is to play more with our European neighbours – with the links forged in this past World Cup, perhaps this is the right time to take the next step towards a full European Derby culture, and a regular tournament is just the right excuse.

World Cup Day 4: One big upset (no, the USA still won…)

With Team Scotland cheering from the stands, Scottish roller derby was still represented on track on this final day of the tournament. Both of our Scottish referees, Ella Bella Bang Bang and Cherry Fury, were officiating at many of the jams today; Cherry Fury refereeing the semi-final in particular.

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First up in the day’s schedule were the semi-finals. With the dominant USA facing a strong Australia, no-one expected the latter team to win; including, apparently, Australia themselves. Playing a roster which didn’t include some of their better players, in order to save them for the 3rd place play-offs, Australia couldn’t compete with a hard fighting USA, losing 532:4; at least partly due to giving away a few too many power-jams.

The second semi-final was always expected to be close, England and Canada both sporting members from teams ranked in the WFTDA Eastern Regionals. Both teams have truly exceptional jammers (Iron Wench,Georgia W Tush,Luludemon for Canada, Stefanie Mainey, Jack Attack and Kamikaze Kitten for England), and the defence in the packs was somewhat heated because of it. With the first period closing at 78-51, with England closing in on Canada for most of the second half of that (team coach Ballistic Whistle has a habit of watching his team for the first third of a period, and then calling a time-out to adjust their strategies for victory), it seemed entirely possible for England to pull out a win. After a tight first 10 minutes, ending with Georgia W Tush leaving the track with what turned out to be a broken clavicle, the second period did seem to be narrowing Canada’s lead once more; only for an unfortunate set of penalty issues for England, culminating in a last-second track cut major for Kamikaze Kitten, handing Canada the perfect chance to pull their lead ahead. While Stef Mainey did take the final jam of the bout, even she couldn’t turn the tide; Canada won, 161:90, proceeding to the final.

In the playoffs for 5th/6th place, favorites Sweden found Finland a surprisingly tough rematch; both teams picking up a significant numbers of penalties. While Finland managed to maintain a small continuous lead, Sweden never really let them extend it, Ankefar and Mad Malooney taking just as many lead jammer calls as the Finns’ Udre and Kata Strofi. Unfortunately, with Sweden’s captain Swede Hurt having to work extra hard in the pack, she fouled out for the final quarter of the second period, and Finland took advantage, slightly extending their lead to a final victory 126:100. So, with the biggest upset of the tournament, the #10 seed took #5th place in the tournament proper, Sweden settling for an almost as impressive #6th place ranking.

The playoff for 7th/8th place was almost as close, France playing New Zealand in a very tight first half that saw the scores even at 46:46 around a quarter of the way through the bout (Axl-Slash-Her and Miss Metal Militia pulling the NZ score up after an initially strong French play). Thanks to some great jamming from Francey Pants and Dual Hitizen (on a power jam), France managed to pull ahead by the end of the first period, 88:62, despite a last minute resurgence by NZ again. In the second period, NZ continued their fight back, almost erasing France’s lead in the first 10 minutes, before a complex power-jam with Axl-Slash-Her and Francey Pants trading places in the penalty area removed their momentum. The second half of the period saw some excellent French pack work and jamming pull their lead ahead again, capping it with a 20-point power jam just outside the final 5 minutes. While NZ never stopped fighting, they couldn’t recover from that disadvantage, losing the game 180:129. So, France ended the tournament ranked 7th, NZ settling for a solid 8th place.

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With a pause in proceedings to rearrange the venue, opening up the partition between the two tracks to allow maximum spectating space for the 3rd place playoffs and final, the crowd was entertained by Mens Roller Derby legend Quadzilla demonstrating his famous jumps, managing to leap over 9 prone volunteers in an impressive display of athleticism.

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With the track rearranged, it was time for the 3rd place playoffs, England vs Australia. As is usual, England started the first period poorly, Australia managing to score 44pts to England’s 15 before Ballistic Whistle pulled his traditional first time-out restrategising. Armed with a tuned tactical plan, England returned to the track dominant, improved blocking strategies letting Stef Mainey and Kamikaze Kitten take lead jammer almost instantly in their next bouts, while keeping Australia’s ShortStop locked up (and in the sin-bin). All of the English jammers managed to pick up points over the rest of the first period, bringing the score at the end of the first period to a strong 116-62 (even if Vagablond managed to get herself ejected from the bout for gross misconduct). While Australia fought hard in the second half, especially when England started feeling their traditional high penalty rate bite, great work, especially by Kamikaze Kitten, kept their lead intact. England closed out the bout 198:85 to take a well deserved 3rd place spot, Australia taking 4th.

Of course, the big event of the day was the final, with the local crowd hoping that #2 seed Canada might be the one team capable of causing the USA pause. As it was, the USA opened the bout in their typically dominant fashion, Atomatrix taking a 15point jam while Canada desperately tried to break their own jammer through the pack. With Canada feeling the loss of star jammer Georgia W Tush, it was left to Luludemon and Iron Wench to crack the solid US defence; Luludemon finally pulling out Canada’s first score of the bout during a power-jam from Suzie Hotrod – such was the strength of the opposition that she had to fight the entire way just to pick up 5 points. With the demonstration that it was possible, Iron Wench repeated the performance without the assistance of a power-jam; with no more scores from Canada in that period, it ended 178:9 (still the strongest performance against the US from any team in the tournament).

With a second power-jam for Luludemon in the second period allowing the Canadian jammer to show what she’d learned the first time, the Canadian score doubled to 19 points in a single jam, with Iron Wench and Luludemon continuing to pick up points throughout the period. Of course, there was no stopping the USA either, with Suzy Hotrod, Tannibal Lector and a host of other Derby Names pulling out big scores for their team. With the score ending 336:33 to the #1 seed, it was an unambigious win for the home of Roller Derby; but a notable success for Canada too, scoring more points against the US in that one bout than had been scored in the entirety of the World Cup to that point.

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So, the final rankings were:

1 USA

2 Canada

3 England

4 Australia

5 Finland

6 Sweden

7 France

8 New Zealand

9 Germany

10 Ireland

11 Scotland

12 Brazil

13 Argentina.

The colour coding of the list is intended to represent the general grouping of ability, based on the closeness of bouts between teams. Within a colour group, if we replayed the World Cup right this moment, I would expect at least some of the teams to change their ranking by one or two.

If a World Cup was held in two to four years’ time, I think the entire field below 4th place would be open to complete rearrangement (Brazil and Argentina’s main issue being their lack of experience, rather than anything else). Within the top 4, I could see the ordering of 2nd,3rd,4th change as Canada, England and Australia all improve over time. I suspect the USA would still win 1st place, but with a significantly reduced majority.

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All that remained was the handing out of the medals; Australia obtaining the “Down Under Cup” for best performance in the southern hemisphere, the top three ranked teams all getting their relevant medals. And, of course, the medals for the Team MVPs for the tournament:

Sargentina (Argentina), ShortStop (Australia), Nanda (Brazil), Iron Wench (Canada), Kamikaze Kitten (England), Kata Strofi (Finland), Francey Pants (France), Heavy Rotation (Germany), Zola Blood (Ireland, also not present to pick it up!), Skate the Muss (New Zealand), Marla Mayhem (Scotland, after some exceptional jamming), Swede Hurt (Sweden), Joy Collision (USA)

Tournament MVP went to Canada’s Smack Daddy.

World Cup Day Three: Great news… for Scandinavia.

With Scotland relegated to the round 1 consolation pool after facing the Cup’s dark horse, Australia, in their last bout of the day on Friday, the highest potential ranking they could attain would be 9th, requiring an unbroken streak of 3 wins against the other teams dropping out in the first round.

(As an aside, this is one issue with single elimination tournaments with consolation pools; the actual “true” rank of a team losing in the first round could actually be as high as #2, if the seeding was poor; in this case, actually the realistic cap would be #5, given the byes for USA, Canada and England.)

Facing off against Argentina first, Team Scotland managed a a close win, after an uncomfortable period with precisely level scores, Scotland ended the first period ahead by 33 points, thanks to a 23 point jam by Clinically Wasted. The second period was similarly irregular, trailing an dominant first quarter (Wild Oates taking a 20 point power jam) with a worrying central set of jams where Argentina picked up 33 points of their own, helped by an almost continuously depleted Scottish pack. Happily, Scotland resurged in the final 2 jams, Blazin’ Phoenix taking 8 points in the last jam of the bout and drawing out the time to ensure it closed, for a final score of 114:91.

Second up against Scotland was Germany, probably the team who least expected to be in the 1st round consolation pool after a loss to New Zealand. After a fairly even couple of jams, Germany started to pull ahead over the rest of the first period, showing generally better discipline than Scotland. That said, the score at the end of the first period, 73:7, was an overstatement of the advantage from Germany. After what must have been an impressive half-time speech from Knuckles, Team Scotland played a totally different second period, matching Germany score for score, and vastly improving their discipline in turn, to bring the final score to 104:41. (Yes, the second period score balance was 31:34, a narrow win for Scotland). On another day, on the basis of the second period, Scotland might have won this one, but it wasn’t to be…

…so, with Germany off to play their next bout to snatch 9th place overall (over Ireland), Scotland was playing derby newcomers Brazil (who had lost to Ireland) for 11th place in the tournament. Both teams had vying for the title of “Most Loved Team in Tournament”, with the South American team showing almost as much heart as Scotland in all of their jams, although without the advantage, perhaps, of the loudest supporters in the Cup (in several bouts, the commentators noted how deafening the Scottish crowd’s cheering was…). With Brazil heavily reliant on their one highly experienced jammer, Nanda (who plays as Brazil(ian?) Nut for Gotham Girls Roller Derby, but adopted the Brazilian tradition of sporting stars skating under their first names for the national team), Scotland just had to control her, and pick up points when she wasn’t jamming. That’s generally what they did, Marla Mayhem and Mistress Malicious picking up the majority of the points for the Scottish team, with the latter managing not just a 19 point power jam, but a 15 point natural as well!  With a final power jam, Brazil’s Bianca off for track cutting, Blazin’ Phoenix capped off the score with another 13 points, taking the final score to 113:64

With that win, Scotland had played all of the bouts in their consolation pool, 2 wins and 1 loss placing them at rank 11, a solid middle.

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Meanwhile, in the elimination tournament, Australia continued their rolling defeat of all challengers, knocking a resilient Sweden out of the 2nd round by 126:80, and the USA, Canada and England all (predictably) won their 2nd round bouts against New Zealand, Finland and France.

This puts the semi-finals as USA : Australia, Canada : England today. While the Canada : England bout could go either way, it would be an impressive upset for Australia to beat the USA (but also probably the most exciting result you could expect in the tournament overall).

Meanwhile, in the 2nd round consolation bracket, fighting for the maximum rank of #5, Sweden defeated New Zealand, and Finland, France, meaning that it is likely that the battle for 5th place will be between the two Scandinavian countries. The last time Sweden played Finland, pre-World Cup, they managed to achieve a win; if they can repeat that performance today, they’ll confirm their #5 seeding. If Finland win, they’ll be managing a big upset, as they entered the tournament proper with a seeding of only #10…

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So, with Scotland now officially the 11th ranked country in the world for Roller Derby, their ranking with the crowd at the cup seems significantly higher. Scotland’s determination, and good heartedness (and impromptu dance party in half time versus Brazil!) have seen them mentioned more times by commentators than most of the other teams; challenged only by New Zealand’s haka (which was exceptionally novel to Americans, who aren’t really a Rugby playing nation… ) and Brazil’s general massive underdog status. Wild Oates, in particular, seems to have become a commentator favourite; that point against the USA branding her into the consciousness of everyone with a microphone as “that Scottish skater”.

So, with a next potential World Cup in 2 to 4 years, and the possibility of a European Cup (which some people are now mooting as a “7 Nations”, based on the European component of the current tournament) on a similar timescale, we have a while to wait until another roller derby event of this magnitude. I think it’s fair to say that Scotland will be taking advantage of the remaining day of the Cup to spectate at all the remaining derby; and probably continue to pick up fame from deafening the announcers…

 

World Cup Day Two: Hammer of the Scots

The second day of the Blood and Thunder World Cup began with the second half of the pool placement rounds. As Team Scotland were arriving on multiple flights, they couldn’t play any bouts on Day One, so both of their pool bouts were held today.

After fighting New Zealand in a close bout (thanks, in particular to sterling jamming by Marshall Lawless, with a 30 pt jam in the first period, and a 12 point jam, while visibly exhausted, in the very last jam of the bout) only to lose 124:111.

The bout against the USA went as predicted; despite some individually good performances, Team Scotland was as (happily, from their faces) outclassed as most of the teams in this tournament would be. The crowd was clearly with the Scottish team, however, with a huge cheer when Wild Oates scored Scotland’s one and only point. (This seems to have made Oates something of a minor celebrity, considering the number of later namechecks by commentators. In fact, DNN took the time to interview her after the bout, and stuck it up here: http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/2011/12/world_cup_interviews_wild_oates_juke_boxx)

Unfortunately, due to the use of a win/loss, points bracket scheme for seeding, the seeding placements for many of the teams were not reflective of their true skill (New Zealand and Scotland both ranked lowest in their win/loss ratio bracket, putting NZ 9th and TS 13th, just because they lost overwhelmingly to the best team in the world, while some other teams seem to have been seeded higher than I would have expected based on their performance.)

Seeding 13th set up Team Scotland for their 3rd bout of the day, their first in the elimination tournament proper, against 4th seed, Australia (who hadn’t played a bout in the day). While the first 5 or so jams were actually fairly close, an clearly tired Team Scotland kept making mistakes and picking up penalties; the final score of  251:48 to Australia reflects a multitude of factors other than the skill of the players (Australia would probably have won the bout with a fresh Scotland, but not by such a landslide.)

Scotland will now play Argentina (who were seeded 12th, after a drubbing by England in their final pool bout, and then defeated by an tired Sweden (like Scotland, playing their 3rd bout of the day) in their first elimination bracket). Depending on how well Brazil and Ireland do, a win in the consolation bracket could potentially place the Scottish team as high as 9th.

If there was a consistent theme to all three bouts, it was the same weakness that was evident in Team Scotland from their exhibition bouts: that is, a particular fondness for the sin-bin. In all three bouts, Team Scotland played very well when all of their skaters were on the track, and exploited power-jams themselves exceptionally; but there were far too many times when there were only 3 or 2 blockers to hold back the opposing team.

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The other events in the day were: England methodically dissecting All-Ireland and Argentina and Canada steamrollering Sweden and Brazil (bouts which, like the USA matchups, Ireland, Argentina, Brazil and Sweden were never going to win, but fought hard on nonetheless), Germany ekeing out a win against a very determined Finland (in a bout where the lead changed multiple times, but a serious Second Half strategy by Germany ensured the win), France trouncing Brazil (rather like Scotland, Brazil have problems with keeping all their skaters on the track, but France outplayed them as well),  and, finally France being generally outplayed in a low-scoring bout against Sweden.

This set the seeding for the elimination tournament as shown here: http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/2011/12/world_cup_elimination_round_set

Other than the Scotland/Australia and Sweden/Argentina bouts mentioned above, the other two elimination bouts played were:

France facing off against Brazil (again!), in a much closer bout than before, but still easily leaving France the victors.

All-Ireland facing off against Finland; in the first upset of the tournament, #7 seeded Ireland was defeated in a close 148:134 by #10 seed Finland.

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The next bout of interest to Team Scotland supporters is the play-off against Argentina, at 3pm GMT.

The other bouts are:

Germany v New Zealand

Australia v Sweden

and then the rest of the brackets to be determined by the results of the games to be played.

World Cup Day One: Some impressions.

With the schedule of bouts for the first day of the Roller Derby World Cup almost complete, now is as good a time as any to start looking over the events for insight.

Australia and New Zealand entered the tournament as the dark horses; not having played anyone in the US or Europe, we had no idea how good they’d be. Arguably, we still don’t know how good New Zealand is – anyone could lose to the USA by 377:8 – but we do know that Australia is as formidable as some had feared, beating the seeded Team Germany with triple their score, and Finland by a larger margin. Personally, I’d go as far as suggesting they’re the only team outside the North American continent who might be able to win.

New Zealand are most memorable for borrowing the tradition of the Haka from their Rugby playing compatriots; we’ll see if it has more intimidating effect on Team Scotland than it did on the USA, tomorrow!

Meanwhile, the France-Canada bout went just as we might expect, as did the Sweden-Brasil match up (although Brasil played a little better than I’d expected; despite also picking up a worrying number of penalties). Argentina-Ireland was hard to call, but All-Ireland proved they have the potential to go far in the elimination round, beating the South American team handily. (Indeed, the Scottish Roller Derby Blog seems fairly agreed that Brasil may actually be a stronger team overall than Argentina is, based on their first bouts played.)

The scores were:

Canada 244 : 17 France

Australia 136 : 53 Germany

Argentina 51 : 164 Ireland

New Zealand  8 : 377 USA

Brasil 30 : 163 Sweden

Australia 179 : 29 Finland

Scottish Referees Ella Bella Bang Bang and Cherry Fury made appearances refereeing the first two bouts, and returned to ref on the exhibition USA-USA bout proceeding as I write this.

(Team Scotland Photographer, and talismanic lens Lenszilla, made visible appearances as well. We look forward to seeing the fruits of his labour.)

Anyone who missed a bout should be able to view the recorded footage from Derby News Network’s archive, eventually. It looks like the World Cup is creating a high enough load that archive copies may only be available after the Cup itself, however.