Slay of Fundy - The Atlantic Regional Championship Tournament!

Slay of Fundy, the first annual Atlantic regional roller derby tournament, has just concluded this past Sunday September 23^rd. What a weekend! On Friday night Fog City Rollers hosted a disco skate night for all visiting skaters. There were flashing lights, costumes, a disco DJ, and a lot of smiles. It was heartwarming to see so many derby girls having fun on skates together! On Saturday all the teams got down to business. Some teams played five full length bouts over the weekend, which I believe is a first for any of our Atlantic teams.

The skill levels of a lot of the teams were very close. There were several very tight scores over the weekend. My personal favourites to watch were the Halifax Roller Derby Association (HRDA) versus Capital City Rollers (CCR - Fredericton) bouts. They were extremely well matched teams and both play a very physical game so it was fast paced, athletic, and a lot of back and forth in the scores… HRDA took the first bout on Saturday (215-198) and CCR took the second bout on Sunday (236-149). Unfortunately the one bout I missed was the closest bout of the weekend which was between CCR and 709 (Newfoundland). 709 took the win in an overtime jam (190-186)!

Red Rock N' Roller Derby (RRnRD - PEI) was one of the most surprising teams to watch this weekend because, for a team that has only bouted a few times, they demonstrated a grasp of most current strategies used by other teams, and executed them in a cool headed manner. This is uncommon to see in new teams. With some more bout conditioning under their belts they have a good chance of being a rising star in Atlantic derby next season!

709 deserves more time and credit than I can give right now but they really deserve a big hand all around! Despite having little derby diversity on “The Rock” they have managed to train to a very competitive level, as demonstrated by the way they took 3^rd place in the tournament. The team is full of friendly and tough skaters, with fresh playing styles, and a general boisterousness that makes them fun to either play or socialize with! The fact that they traveled the farthest to be here means a lot too!

 

The most tense competition of the weekend was between Muddy River Rollers (MRR - Moncton) and Fog City Rollers (FCR - Saint John). Having had a controversial 1 point game earlier in the season, both teams were hungry for a win and put their hearts fully into the games. They played two bouts against each other in one day, the first resulting in a 3 point win for MRR (215-212), which resulted in FCR needing to battle 709 for access to the championship game. The score for that game, in favour of FCR over 709, does not truly reflect the amazing skills and tricks pulled out by both teams (202-119). In particular the jammers for both teams demonstrated some excellent footwork and doled out a lot of contact!

The championship game was well fought by both teams. MRR pulled ahead for a stronger win than before with 227-174. Regardless of the scores over the weekend, everyone put 100% of their being into these bouts and should be proud of the results!

I did NSO work for five of the bouts over the weekend and watched another five. It took a couple days to get over as an NSO so I can only imagine how the skaters are feeling. I feel I spent half the weekend exclaiming at amazing athletic feats and the other half rushing about and worrying about doing my job well. I’m glad we were able to pull off our first tournament with no major problems and that all the regional teams had the chance to push themselves to their highest potential all in one weekend!

***Edit: I can't believe I left out the all the volunteers that made this work! We had an army of officials, headed up by TORD's R'effin Adora Bell (tournament head referee), MRR's Elle Frozen Over (tournament head nso) and FCR's Naughty Cal! Most volunteers worked 5 or more bouts, and some worked pretty much all of them. The time commitment alone was amazing to have from so many people!

The MRR Lumbersmacks (Slay of Fundy First Place) and FCR Shipyard Sirens (Slay of Fundy Second Place) will be training in preparation for the Canadian national championships, which have yet to be announced.

I should take this opportunity to announce I will be signing out of derby blogging for a time. I am getting close to giving birth to my first progeny and so my time and attention is becoming inundated with baby clothes and curtains and toys and all those fun things… However I will be back on skates next season and hopefully will be able to make the time for some derby blogging as well!

Slay of Fundy Bracket (with scores and mvp's)  leading into the championship bout

Thank you to Marc Henwood Photography  (or Mr. Shotgun) of Saint John and  Richard Lafortune of Halifax for yet more beautiful shots of the action over the weekend!