It was a fine evening for D3's Stella Italiana.
Particularly in her sterling 22 point end-of-the-first-half jam and repeatedly throughout the second half, the same sequence of events repeated itself. Stella Italiana and another jammer would take off from the line, Stella would hold a decent lead over her Omaha counterpart, approached the pack towards the end of the backstretch and overtook all of them halfway through the second turn.
Nearly all night long.
As I have said before, it is truly a privilege and a pleasure to watch Stella Italiana skate. The grace and fluidity. Her exquisite perception in being able to seize whatever size of an path her blockers (or the opposition for that matter) open up for her. Her creativity, expression, and yes even her humor (I am thinking of one jam in particular where Stella Italiana gave herself a whip using nothing more than the uniform of teammate/blocker Toxic Moss). It is a beautiful thing to behold. If you missed D3's inaugural season, I encourage you to hope aboard that train to ride in the fall. Stella Italiana is not to be missed.
But frankly neither is the rest of D3.
I was anxious to see them again. After all, they have a special place in my heart, along with the Wisconsin River Valley Roller Girls, as being the ladies who turned me back on to Roller Derby. They are the reason you are reading this blog right now.
The first time I saw them was, as you know, their lone game at the Val-Air Ballroom in West Des Moines on April 10, in which they demolished Wisconsin River for their first game ever. Much has changed in two months. First, the Dames acquired a new home at the 7 Flags Center in Clive. When I heard this, I was very disappointed. The Val-Air had a very intimate charm about it, not to mention a gorgeous wooden floor. I got over this after talking with D3 players who emphasized that it frankly was not safe to play at. You had a minimal amount of padding over the stage area and against the columns near the dance floor.
Walking into the 7 Flags Center, I could see that it was indeed an upgrade. No wood floor to aesthetically please the eye, sure, but the place provided enough room for risers to let the crowd see the bout (something that was sorely lacking at Val-Air). The floor was concrete, always a bit dangerous for skaters due to its slickness. Yet Show Stopper and company appear to have solved this problem with a coating of Sprite on the floor for better gripping. The place sort of reminded me, shape-wise, like a barn. Pretty intimate. Nary a bad seat in the house. If it weren't for the Goo Goo Dolls and Willie Nelson posters on the wall, I would have thought the place was specifically designed for derby. The dark texture of the walls, combined with the green-lit track boundary made it look much more like a D3 home bout than anything the Val-Air offered.
Since my last visit, Show Stopper, the founder/coach of the Dames returned to the oval. I had never seen her skate before, she being out with injury doing the bout with Wisconsin River. I saw her on the bench before the match. Typical of Show Stopper, you could see her attempting to harness all of her formidable energies into a single clear minded focus on the bout ahead. Yet despite this, you could sense an aura about her that was part contentment and part joy. Whatever happened in the game to follow, I sensed a satisfaction radiating from her that this first chapter in the life of D3 would be finished after the bout. She had done it. She took a dream and drove it straight for five months, nabbing sponsors, finding recruits, securing bouts, skating and coaching, until the Des Moines Derby Dames finally hit the floor in early April.
As mentioned above, Stella Italiana really excelled in this performance, racking up a sterling 22 point jam at the close of the first half to catapult D3 into a 55-50 lead over the Omaha Rollergirls AAA. Fifteen point jams and 9 point jams followed in the second half.
I suppose you could say that Stella Italiana is such a force in the oval that she could carry the team on her quads alone. From what I saw Saturday night though, that is not the case. The D3 blocking corp has matured dramatically in the last two months. As I recall I did not see much in the way of cohesion on defense when I visited them in the Val-Air. This is not meant to be an insult. If you ask a majority of D3 players and coaches, they would say that while the team won handily that night, there were still raw nerves and hesitancy among the players- completely understandable when you consider that it was their second bout. Nevertheless, I did not see a lot of whips, did see a lot of strategy being partaken of in the D3 ranks that night, did not see a lot of expression among the Dames..
Not so on Saturday.
Whips and communication were aplenty. MOAB, Cosmo Disco, and others were leading dancing festivities on the floor in between jams, with Omaha skaters joining the fray. There were many smiles, before and during the bout. And while the aura of the team was certainly electric, it was not oppressive. Indeed, the Dames seem very comfortable in their own skin and in their respective rolls on the track. In short there was much more cohesion in defense, much more assertive and certain in their style.
To Be Continued.
