Scene Report: MIR vs. Mahaska Mayhem by Déjà Deadwards

Dark clouds rolled across the sky as I headed to Oskaloosa to watch the Mahaska Mayhem host the Mid Iowa Rollers in the Mayhem’s first home bout. The two teams had faced up in Des Moines in May and the Rollers had been impressed with the Mayhem’s skills. The Mayhem skated faster and hit harder than anyone had expected from a brand new team. Now the Rollers were anticipating a hard battle as they’d packed their roster with fresh meat.

The first half was chaotic, to say the least. The early jams had several incidents of track-cutting and major penalties (pushing, back-blocking) that weren’t called, leaving the Rollers frustrated and leading to timeouts between each jam while bench coaches and captains argued plays with the refs. In one of the early jams, the Mahaska blocking line took off at a sprint, quickly splitting the pack and leaving the Rollers baffled in the back. In a no-pack situation, no one is allowed to hit anyone, so both jammers soared through clean. The Mayhem realized their strategy wasn’t working and the blockers lapped the track to catch up to the Roller’s blocking line. There were also a few incidents of the ref’s whistle on a penalty call being misinterpreted as the “end of jam” whistle with skaters leaving the track thinking the jam was over while it was actually still in progress.

After the first several jams, everyone settled in a bit and the play got better. Big hits started to rev up the crowd as girls tumbled to the floor. At one point, the medics rushed out to check on Tulsa Tararyz (a Rollers rookie) after she went down with her knee twisted behind her. After a few anxious minutes, Tulsa got to her feet and the crowd cheered. Unfortunately, it meant she was sidelined with an ice pack for the rest of the game.

Another round of mass confusion occurred when Babyface Basher was taking a turn as Mid Iowa Rollers jammer. After a multi-player pileup, Basher jumped up and headed back into the pack. Roxy Knocks was sitting next to me and pointed out that Basher had lost her star helmet panty (which signified that she was the jammer). We quickly scanned the floor to see if it had fallen off, and that’s when I saw a flash of blue on Wildcat’s knee. During the floor mash-up, the panty had gotten stuck to Wildcat’s kneepad Velcro! Basher continued to weave through the Mayhem blockers who were unaware of her being the jammer. Soon both benches were screaming about the helmet panty, but the players on the track and the refs didn’t understand what was going on. Eventually one of the refs caught on that Basher was missing her panty and sent her to the box just as the two minutes ended. Someone finally pointed out to Wildcat that she had a helmet panty stuck to her knee and everyone had a good laugh at her surprise.

Regardless of some of the issues in the first half, the Roller’s experienced jammers, Mizz Lolli Pop Ya, cTAL faTAL and Vyolent GriMm, soared through several jams to bring the Rollers to a 98-46 lead going into halftime, along with solid jams by Babyface Basher and rookie Sugar Kaned.

As the players took a break to regroup, I took some time to think about roller derby and Oskaloosa’s role in it. When Mid Iowa Rollers started up four years ago, Spinning Wheels rink in Oskaloosa was one of their first practice facilities. The owner even painted a permanent track on the rink floor. I’m amazed by the fact that those first girls were dedicated enough to drive 90 minutes each way to practice for a sport which most of them had never even had the chance to see live; and that a rink owner believed in the sport’s future enough to make a permanent track. It’s great to see that this track is being put to use once more and that the Mahaska team is generating a lot of excitement and new roller derby fans in the area.

Back in the second half, the Mid Iowa Rollers continued to dominate with fast jamming skills, but the Mayhem never stopped producing crowd-wowing hits and fighting for a break. The Rollers held the Mayhem pointless through the first four jams (props to Huzzie Lecher and Sin De Rolla for some great blocking) before jammer Vyolent GriMm was sent to the penalty box, leaving the opportunity for a 10-point jam by BAB that set the crowd roaring. The Rollers put a quick stop to that momentum though, holding the Mayhem pointless through another four jams.
With less than six minutes on the clock, a mass pileup left Brickyard Gerard lying face-down on the floor tapping her helmet (the sign for injury). The medics ran onto the track again, and after several minutes Brickyard was able to get up and skate gingerly back to the bench. Anita Spankins and BAB continued to push through the last few jams, making up a few more points at the end to leave the final score 169 – 90 in favor of Mid Iowa Rollers.

All in all, it was a great night of derby! It was so exciting to see our rookie players Snot Face, Sugar Kaned, Civil Penalty and Dolly Mad-As-Sin throwing themselves into the mix and using the skills we’ve learned in practice. It’s also great to watch a new team being born. Since we practiced with the Mayhem early on (shout out to BAMF who I worked with on hitting drills!), I feel a kinship with these girls who started derby around the same time I did. I’m amazed with what they’ve managed to pull together in such a short time, and thrilled by the new energy they’re bringing to this sport.
I think the night is best summed up by rookie Dolly Mad-As-Sin, who skated over to me at half time and with a face lit up like a kid at Christmas, shouted “I LOVE THIS! The skating, the hitting… I LOVE THIS!!!”

You’re not the only one, Dolly…