Okay, I’m back.  I just got back from vacation in Minnesota and it was lovely.  I skated a bit but wasn’t able to practice with the local league since I didn’t have a car at my disposal.  Besides some skating outdoors and a little bit of emailing for the upcoming bout I pretty much took the two weeks off. 

Since there’s a bout tomorrow (July 26th), I’ve got some pre-bout stuff to do; cupcakes to bake, a playlist to throw together, a jersey to find and I maybe even a last minute wheel change to stand by for.  So yeah, it’s the usual amount of last minute craziness that I have to attend to before a bout.

Tomorrow’s doubleheader is also a food drive.  The Bulletin was nice enough to run our press release about it a few weeks ago but basically we’ve added a food drive onto our usual derby festivities.  If you bring a non-perishable food item, you’ll get a raffle ticket (or a few, depending) and you could win a cool hat from MyMonsterHat, a derby art print from Derby Monster or a pair of tickets to our next doubleheader in September. 

Another thing you’ll note at these bouts is that we’ll have some guest skaters skating with us.  Basically we had a few skaters injure themselves in a space of 3 days so we had to call in some friends for reinforcements.  The Salty Broads will play Western Mass Roller Derby and the BellaDonnas will be playing the Upper Valley Vixens.  Honestly I have no idea how either bout will go, the result probably depends on what it usually depends on, teamwork and penalties.

The whole thing is Grease themed, so hopefully there will be some T-Birds and Pink Ladies in attendance.  Also expect to hear some Grease music (perhaps some Grease 2 music, I’m not sure if we’re admitting that Grease 2 exists) and drink some adult beverages if you’d like.  It’s going to be a great night and the door opens at 5 with the first bout starting at 6.  Tickets are $12 at the door, $10 if you have a military ID.  If you’re able to make it, don’t forget a food item so you can get in on the raffles.  I know I’m hoping to win one.

The first derby interview I ever did was with Reverend Al Mighty, he’s now the announcer for Philly Roller Girls but at the time he was announcing for Providence Roller Derby.  Anyway, one of the many pieces of advice he busted out was something like (and I’m paraphrasing here), “If you want to have a good time, wear a roller derby shirt when you travel”. 

So when I fly home this weekend, that’s my plan.  Not really in the name of fun, but in the name of science (cuz who can say no to science?).  I think I’ve tried this before but this time I have a bright blue Minnesota Roller Girls shirt that’s pretty unmistakeable so if this shirt elicits no reaction on my trek through a few terminals, then I don’t know what will.

I’m also going to live on the edge a little bit and leave my skates in my checked luggage.  I know, I know, this is kind of playing with fate but it’s really a pain to unpack and repack a skatebag with at least 7 compartments whenever I go through security.  I don’t mind security, eventhough one time I lost a cool lighter going through it.  I only wish I could see what I look like on whatever scanner thing that I’m going to walk thru today. 

One time I got to see my bag full of skates and gear on the x-ray display. Basically all of the screws light up and everything is stacked on top of eachother so it’s a weird mass of bright metal and shadowy plastic.  Every once in a while my gear bag will get pulled over and checked out but I really don’t blame them because it has a lot of zippers and pockets.  Luckily for any TSA agents who might check out my skatebag, I always wash my gear before traveling, I mean it’s the only polite thing to do. 

In any event, I shall try to update everyone if I have the time to blog in between vacationing and all the wokr I won’t be doing.  At the very least I’ll try the derby shirt experiment and report back if anything interesting happens, you know, in the name of science.

If you don’t play, watch or support roller derby in one way or the other, you’re probably asking yourself what a Non-skating Official is…and I am here to tell you that for once something is really what it sounds like.  A Non-skating Official (hereafter referred to as NSO because I’m tired of writing it out) is a bout official who isn’t on skates.  At a bout you will see them at the scorekeeper’s table, in the middle of the track, behind the penalty box and probably a few other places that I’m forgetting right now.  Until Saturday I was either the scoreboard operator or the scorekeeper but I got to penalty wrangle and let me tell you; NSO’s are the unsung heroes of a derby bout.

Penalty Wranglers are the NSO’s next to whoever is updating the penalty board.  Some leagues have the penalty board in the center of the track, some have them off to the side.  We keep ours in the center and I can see why.  Penalty Wrangling is a whirl of whistles, listening, asking a million questions and trying to read numbers off of skaters shoulders (shoulders moving toward the penalty box at the speed of “WHO, ME?”).

Basically the tracker helps keep track of what number player got which penalty and when.  I could get more complicated but that’s the gist of it.  There’s supposed to be one for each team on the track, but in this bout it was only me so I was quite glad that I took time out of our scrimmage night to practice it a little bit.

When a skater on the track commits a penalty, the referee who sees it whistles one whistle blast (seriously they have whistle skills) and yells the team color of the skater, their number and what their penalty was.  For example if I cut the track (exactly what it sounds like), and a referee saw it, it would sound like this:

“WHISTLE BLAST.  BLUE!  One four seven!  Cutting!”  And then I would skate to the penalty box and sit for 30 seconds as monitored by the NSO’s running the penalty box.

What’s so hard about watching that and listening to the referees when the yell?  Oh yeah, that’s what I thought.  In theory it isn’t that hard, but in a bout, with 10 noisy bodies colliding with each other it’s a lot of chaos that your ears and eyes have to cut though.  If you hear two of the three cues you’re good because you can piece together who just did what, so really you have about 35ish seconds to solve each little player penalty mystery and get ready for the next one.

The craziness happens when multiple penalties happen at once.  Suddenly there are 3 skaters angrily making their way to the box and you only heard one of the penalties called.  You think that you saw another one, but you can’t write down what you saw, you have to write down what the referees just called.  Then to top it off, two of the skaters in the box have similar numbers and it’s impossible to see around their forearms.  Basically after about 10 jams I was just hoping that no one would get any penalties and to both of the teams credit (and my relief) there were some penalty free jams.  I’m pretty sure I broke my personal record for f-bombs per hour that night.

So if you’re thinking about volunteering for your local league, wherever that may be, take a turn NSOing.  You might not see all of the bout because you’ll be busy updating a score, tracking penalties or timing something but you’ll definitely be a part of the action, the whistling, yelling, number decoding action.