Ginger is upset with all the sexually explicit names and sexual violence names. I am also made uncomfortable by names referencing sexual violence, especially by male refs, but ones that are sexually explicit don't put me off. Why are plain-old violent names okay but something like Clitoris is not okay? It is a piece of anatomy. I mean if you watch pro-wrestling, which I would argue WFTDA is more professional than, well they have cliché violent stage names or whatever, like we do, but this is also a women's sport about female empowerment and I feel like part of female empowerment is not being told to censor our sexualities, especially when the mainstream media does that for us so effectively already. Why would you want to be on the tv if the tv isn't going to treat you properly?
I’ve also had the joy of skating for two amazing leagues, formerly with the Silicon Valley Roller Girls and currently with Ohio (although we never crossed paths at OHRG). I didn’t know what to expect when I transferred, and like you, I feel incredibly lucky to have played with two competitive leagues filled with warm, supportive, accomplished people. Reading your article I feel fortunate to have my leagues situated in two different regions because I love them both so dearly--I would hate to have to compete with my old teammates.
Transferring is often a heartbreaking experience, but the reassurance is that in the process you’ve created a bond between two leagues. There is always a current of excitement leading up to Ohio playing Arch—sure, part of that is because you all are an awesome team, but a lot of it is ongoing happy exclamations of “Chewie!” The lasting impact is strengthening the extended derby family we’re all a part of.
>>This is the #1 problem with roller derby. In a so-called "competitive" sport, WFTDA rules expect teams to cooperate to maintain the core function of the game, the pack. This is ultimately a pipe dream, because there's always going to be a team that does not want to do that for either offensive or defensive reasons.<<
Roller derby lacks more competitive bouts because it's new. It doesn't matter what rules you play under right now; competitive imbalance will still exist due to the youth of the sport. If you're trying to figure how to make roller derby more competitive, the only real answer is to improve the training available to leagues/skaters/referees/etc. —And I think that everyone is universally trying to do this already. In 20 years or so, when skaters will have grown up playing roller derby and derby training has been standardized, I expect the level of competition to be much closer. Still, it's worth mentioning that last year's WFTDA Championship tournament was much more competitive than in years past. If you compare bouts accross the years, you can obviously see the development happening. It's part of the natural maturation process for a new sport. You may not like that roller derby hasn't established itself enough to have universally good training, but that's just reality. Rule changes aren't going to change that.
As far as requiring or not requiring teams to maintian a pack: I don't think this is impossible in the least. Right now, 95% of the time this works. The only situation where it doesn't is with the patient offense in power jams. Yes, teams are always going to look for strategies to speed up or slow down the pack. —But that's part of the game at it's core. Altering that would be fundamentally change the sport, and who knows what the result of that would be. It could make it a little bit better, but it could also destroy flat track roller derby as we know it.
>>It appears that you're therefore saying that penalties make the game better, not worse, because without penalties a game could not stay close and exciting, as if the only way a game can be exciting is if it's close on the scoreboard.<<
What I'm saying is that I think removing power jams would be giving people a reason to stop paying attention to what is now considered a close bout late in the game. I think power jams help more than they hurt the sport because the threat of them creates the possibility for something exciting. Besides, I think strategies like trying to force jammers to cut the track have ultimately been good for roller derby because they allow blockers to be a bigger part of the game. If you eliminate power jams, you also eliminate the importance of having blocker that can force jammer penalties. Penalties are always going to be a part fo roller derby. Unless you want WFTDA to turn into renegade roller derby, they need to be a part of the game.
>>How you keep fans interested in the game is to give them genuine, constant, uninterrupted action. Power jams kill crowd excitement and break up the flow of an otherwise good game, because when a team goes "patient" it immediately cuts the action on track by 50%—ten players were active before the jammer penalty, but only five are active after it. And you're saying that makes games MORE exciting?<<
I completely disagree that power jams kill the excitment of roller derby. Situational roller derby can be very exciting. Power jams can and should be no different than when one team tries to take the front or walls up in the back to defend against a lone opposing jammer coming in ahead your jammer. Power jams just require a team to play defese for longer.
Let me be clear: I blame the patient offense "strategy" because I consider it loophole exploitation aimed at accomplishing something the rules try to prohibit. It's a tactic designed to destroy the pack and prevent the opponent from legally blocking. That's what makes the game boring; I just don't think that removing power jams is the answer to solving the patient offense problem. Prior to the pace line strategy, power jams were exciting because teams had the opportunity to kill penalties. If a team had a power jam, it could end up netting them zero points if the opponent blocked well. A 2v4 pack on a power jam wouldn't get you much because the defending team could use the numbers advantage to keep the jammer bottled up for the full minute. Prior to patient offense, a power jam only returned ~10 points on average. Teams had to work hard to convert power jam opportunities into a lot of points, and defending teams were often successful at killing a jammer penalty. What patient offense has done is basically doubled the impact of power jams. It now no longer matters if a team only has 2 blockers to help their jammer. They're all just going to stand at the rear of the pack regardless of how many there are. It requires little-to-no effort.
Ultimately, what bothers me the most is when people react to loopholes in the rules like this by demanding drastic, game-changing action. "WFTDA needs to blow up the rules and start over completely!" If you ask me, this perspective is horrible. This new sport has seen explosive growth under the WFTDA rule set. Obviously the rules are not perfect. They're probably never going to be perfect and make everyone completely happy. Demanding that they be perfect is utterly pointless. There's an evolution process which is ongoing. I'm far more in favor of making small, evolutionary changes rather than doing something drastic like eliminating power jams or changing the definition of a legal pack. I'd rather see something simple like just defining minimal movement which results in a pack destruction (the patient offense) as illegal pack destruction. The simplest solution is usually the best.
I feel like a loud minority of people are far too quick to call for wholesale changes whenever there's something about the game they don't like. They complain about WFTDA not rebuilding the rules fast enough because they don't like the fact that WFTDA has an established process for such things. They want immediate, radical action without any foresight. Persoanlly, I think a little caution is a good thing.
This is a great post.
As our league is coming up to our 4th fresh meat intake for the year this weekend, I will be sharing this out and discussing it with new skaters.
Work hard, train hard, support your league and the rewards in return will be ten-fold!
> And that's terrible because the rules specifically say that both teams are responsible for maintaining a legally defined pack.
This is the #1 problem with roller derby. In a so-called "competitive" sport, WFTDA rules expect teams to cooperate to maintain the core function of the game, the pack. This is ultimately a pipe dream, because there's always going to be a team that does not want to do that for either offensive or defensive reasons.
Note that some of the great games that have been happening in the playoffs thus far, the ones where teams are (mostly) skating to attack the pack, capture goats, and push forward on offense have been in spite of the rules, not because of them. That's not good, and that's why the rules need fixing.
> I think power jams add a level of excitement that could not be gained without them. Without power jams, a 15-point bout with 1 minute to play would be almost certainly out of reach. Power jams give trailing teams a puncher's chance to put together a rally and thus keep fans interested to the end.
It appears that you're therefore saying that penalties make the game better, not worse, because without penalties a game could not stay close and exciting, as if the only way a game can be exciting is if it's close on the scoreboard. Well, if you saw the Rat City/Rocky Mountain game at Westerns this year, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that how close a game is, is completely irrelevant to how exciting it is—the game was so bad, even Rat City's fans were mostly quiet throughout it...even though they won!
How you keep fans interested in the game is to give them genuine, constant, uninterrupted action. Power jams kill crowd excitement and break up the flow of an otherwise good game, because when a team goes "patient" it immediately cuts the action on track by 50%—ten players were active before the jammer penalty, but only five are active after it. And you're saying that makes games MORE exciting?
If you watched the ending of the Angel City/Sacred City game, which was easily the most exciting thing I've witnessed in-person, both jammers were on the track, the pack was moving, and both teams were working their asses off. That would have been fun to see regardless of the score, but the fact that it ended the game with a 1-point victory put it off the charts. It was both a close game AND one where everyone on the track was active, which is what we should be striving for, not an artificially close game on account of a poorly-timed jammer penalty and 60 seconds of no-effort offense.
> Besides, I kind of like the idea that jammers have to skate clean to keep their team in the game.
Yet, a team's blockers can take penalties left and right—especially at the end of a game—while their team is on a power jam, because those penalties neither hurt their team or directly help their opponents. You should like the idea that ALL skaters have to skate clean to help their team, because right now there are many instances where blocker penalties not only don't hurt their team, they HELP their team. That needs to be fixed with a better ruleset no matter what you think.
With respect, I don't think I could possibly disagree with this article more.
The issue I have with patient offense is that it uses a loophole in the rules to do something that the rules are trying to prohobit: Destroying the pack. Yes, patient offense takes coordination and working together, but it's still a tactic for destroying the pack within the bounds of the rules. —And that's terrible because the rules specifically say that both teams are responsible for maintaining a legally defined pack.
Teams have just figured out that the rules don't enforce maintaining a pack; they only prohibit actively destroying it. Passive action that destroys the pack is not penalized, so teams take advantage of this loophole to do something that the rules try to prevent.
—And as far as power jams are concerned, I have no problem with them. In fact, I think removing them would hurt the sport. I think power jams add a level of excitement that could not be gained without them. Without power jams, a 15-point bout with 1 minute to play would be almost certainly out of reach. Power jams give trailing teams a puncher's chance to put together a rally and thus keep fans interested to the end. I do not think power jams lead to blowouts. Blowouts are caused by differences in skill level. Removing power jams isn't going to suddenly make less skilled teams skate more competitively. Skill will still be slanted, and blowouts will still happen all the time.
Besides, I kind of like the idea that jammers have to skate clean to keep their team in the game. If there were suddenly no punishment for jammers trying crazy/dangerous things, they would try more crazy/dangerous things resulting in more injuries for a sport that has a big problem with lots of injuries.
...but that doesn't matter. Patient offense is boring to the fans. If the fans are booing, it's because they're not being entertained by the slow play and nonengagement that is the exact opposite as the past decade of derby that they're used to.
Without paying fans, derby cannot continue in the manner it has been. Why are teams trying to make fans leave?
How has this change of some sort not been implemented yet. I'd gladly sit the penalty box for my jammer if that meant my team was able to score points instead of having the score run up because she's in the box. There is still impact because now the team is down one blocker at least which still gives some advantage to the other team.
Lex for prez!!!!
I hear you. Plus, my real name is shared with a little-known (I'm assuming) porn star. So I just assume when I get a "great name" compliment, that someone's letting me on a little secret. :)
What you said about the crazies that fuck with your life hits home to the point of tears. When I was brand new to derby a long time skater who I had known briefly made false, devastating accusations against me (the exact same accusations she's made against others before me and since, but no other skaters). Why she did this only she knows, but being insane and enjoying the drama and attention of telling lies are my best guesses. Despite her well-known reputation for being a wack job, skaters who I had never met turned against me believing the lies, subjected me to ostracization, dirty looks, and intimidation. A judge ruled against my harasser, calling her accusations among other things "baseless" and pointed out numerous inconsistencies in her story. But it made no difference to those who prejudged me and never bothered to look further. I spent an entire summer afraid to go into large public places for fear of potentially running into this woman and being harassed again. I carried transcripts of the ruling in my car at all times in case she decided to say or do something paranoid and insane and I needed to defend myself. I spent countless hours on the therapist's couch trying to process the fear and grief I felt when all I ever have wanted to do is belong and be the best damn player I could possibly be. I have a lot of friends and support within the derby community. But there still those who make a point to intimidate and exclude. And no amount of hard work, dedication, or positive relationships with sane skaters can shake the damage done. Karma hit this woman hard, but she continues to lie to this day. And to play derby at the level that I want and deserve to play, I will have to move to another city to exorcise the damage she's done to me.
Ginger is upset with all the sexually explicit names and sexual violence names. I am also made uncomfortable by names referencing sexual violence, especially by male refs, but ones that are sexually explicit don't put me off. Why are plain-old violent names okay but something like Clitoris is not okay? It is a piece of anatomy. I mean if you watch pro-wrestling, which I would argue WFTDA is more professional than, well they have cliché violent stage names or whatever, like we do, but this is also a women's sport about female empowerment and I feel like part of female empowerment is not being told to censor our sexualities, especially when the mainstream media does that for us so effectively already. Why would you want to be on the tv if the tv isn't going to treat you properly?
I’ve also had the joy of skating for two amazing leagues, formerly with the Silicon Valley Roller Girls and currently with Ohio (although we never crossed paths at OHRG). I didn’t know what to expect when I transferred, and like you, I feel incredibly lucky to have played with two competitive leagues filled with warm, supportive, accomplished people. Reading your article I feel fortunate to have my leagues situated in two different regions because I love them both so dearly--I would hate to have to compete with my old teammates.
Transferring is often a heartbreaking experience, but the reassurance is that in the process you’ve created a bond between two leagues. There is always a current of excitement leading up to Ohio playing Arch—sure, part of that is because you all are an awesome team, but a lot of it is ongoing happy exclamations of “Chewie!” The lasting impact is strengthening the extended derby family we’re all a part of.
Cheesily,
Ava Tarr
>>This is the #1 problem with roller derby. In a so-called "competitive" sport, WFTDA rules expect teams to cooperate to maintain the core function of the game, the pack. This is ultimately a pipe dream, because there's always going to be a team that does not want to do that for either offensive or defensive reasons.<<
Roller derby lacks more competitive bouts because it's new. It doesn't matter what rules you play under right now; competitive imbalance will still exist due to the youth of the sport. If you're trying to figure how to make roller derby more competitive, the only real answer is to improve the training available to leagues/skaters/referees/etc. —And I think that everyone is universally trying to do this already. In 20 years or so, when skaters will have grown up playing roller derby and derby training has been standardized, I expect the level of competition to be much closer. Still, it's worth mentioning that last year's WFTDA Championship tournament was much more competitive than in years past. If you compare bouts accross the years, you can obviously see the development happening. It's part of the natural maturation process for a new sport. You may not like that roller derby hasn't established itself enough to have universally good training, but that's just reality. Rule changes aren't going to change that.
As far as requiring or not requiring teams to maintian a pack: I don't think this is impossible in the least. Right now, 95% of the time this works. The only situation where it doesn't is with the patient offense in power jams. Yes, teams are always going to look for strategies to speed up or slow down the pack. —But that's part of the game at it's core. Altering that would be fundamentally change the sport, and who knows what the result of that would be. It could make it a little bit better, but it could also destroy flat track roller derby as we know it.
>>It appears that you're therefore saying that penalties make the game better, not worse, because without penalties a game could not stay close and exciting, as if the only way a game can be exciting is if it's close on the scoreboard.<<
What I'm saying is that I think removing power jams would be giving people a reason to stop paying attention to what is now considered a close bout late in the game. I think power jams help more than they hurt the sport because the threat of them creates the possibility for something exciting. Besides, I think strategies like trying to force jammers to cut the track have ultimately been good for roller derby because they allow blockers to be a bigger part of the game. If you eliminate power jams, you also eliminate the importance of having blocker that can force jammer penalties. Penalties are always going to be a part fo roller derby. Unless you want WFTDA to turn into renegade roller derby, they need to be a part of the game.
>>How you keep fans interested in the game is to give them genuine, constant, uninterrupted action. Power jams kill crowd excitement and break up the flow of an otherwise good game, because when a team goes "patient" it immediately cuts the action on track by 50%—ten players were active before the jammer penalty, but only five are active after it. And you're saying that makes games MORE exciting?<<
I completely disagree that power jams kill the excitment of roller derby. Situational roller derby can be very exciting. Power jams can and should be no different than when one team tries to take the front or walls up in the back to defend against a lone opposing jammer coming in ahead your jammer. Power jams just require a team to play defese for longer.
Let me be clear: I blame the patient offense "strategy" because I consider it loophole exploitation aimed at accomplishing something the rules try to prohibit. It's a tactic designed to destroy the pack and prevent the opponent from legally blocking. That's what makes the game boring; I just don't think that removing power jams is the answer to solving the patient offense problem. Prior to the pace line strategy, power jams were exciting because teams had the opportunity to kill penalties. If a team had a power jam, it could end up netting them zero points if the opponent blocked well. A 2v4 pack on a power jam wouldn't get you much because the defending team could use the numbers advantage to keep the jammer bottled up for the full minute. Prior to patient offense, a power jam only returned ~10 points on average. Teams had to work hard to convert power jam opportunities into a lot of points, and defending teams were often successful at killing a jammer penalty. What patient offense has done is basically doubled the impact of power jams. It now no longer matters if a team only has 2 blockers to help their jammer. They're all just going to stand at the rear of the pack regardless of how many there are. It requires little-to-no effort.
Ultimately, what bothers me the most is when people react to loopholes in the rules like this by demanding drastic, game-changing action. "WFTDA needs to blow up the rules and start over completely!" If you ask me, this perspective is horrible. This new sport has seen explosive growth under the WFTDA rule set. Obviously the rules are not perfect. They're probably never going to be perfect and make everyone completely happy. Demanding that they be perfect is utterly pointless. There's an evolution process which is ongoing. I'm far more in favor of making small, evolutionary changes rather than doing something drastic like eliminating power jams or changing the definition of a legal pack. I'd rather see something simple like just defining minimal movement which results in a pack destruction (the patient offense) as illegal pack destruction. The simplest solution is usually the best.
I feel like a loud minority of people are far too quick to call for wholesale changes whenever there's something about the game they don't like. They complain about WFTDA not rebuilding the rules fast enough because they don't like the fact that WFTDA has an established process for such things. They want immediate, radical action without any foresight. Persoanlly, I think a little caution is a good thing.
This is a great post.
As our league is coming up to our 4th fresh meat intake for the year this weekend, I will be sharing this out and discussing it with new skaters.
Work hard, train hard, support your league and the rewards in return will be ten-fold!
> And that's terrible because the rules specifically say that both teams are responsible for maintaining a legally defined pack.
This is the #1 problem with roller derby. In a so-called "competitive" sport, WFTDA rules expect teams to cooperate to maintain the core function of the game, the pack. This is ultimately a pipe dream, because there's always going to be a team that does not want to do that for either offensive or defensive reasons.
Note that some of the great games that have been happening in the playoffs thus far, the ones where teams are (mostly) skating to attack the pack, capture goats, and push forward on offense have been in spite of the rules, not because of them. That's not good, and that's why the rules need fixing.
> I think power jams add a level of excitement that could not be gained without them. Without power jams, a 15-point bout with 1 minute to play would be almost certainly out of reach. Power jams give trailing teams a puncher's chance to put together a rally and thus keep fans interested to the end.
It appears that you're therefore saying that penalties make the game better, not worse, because without penalties a game could not stay close and exciting, as if the only way a game can be exciting is if it's close on the scoreboard. Well, if you saw the Rat City/Rocky Mountain game at Westerns this year, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that how close a game is, is completely irrelevant to how exciting it is—the game was so bad, even Rat City's fans were mostly quiet throughout it...even though they won!
How you keep fans interested in the game is to give them genuine, constant, uninterrupted action. Power jams kill crowd excitement and break up the flow of an otherwise good game, because when a team goes "patient" it immediately cuts the action on track by 50%—ten players were active before the jammer penalty, but only five are active after it. And you're saying that makes games MORE exciting?
If you watched the ending of the Angel City/Sacred City game, which was easily the most exciting thing I've witnessed in-person, both jammers were on the track, the pack was moving, and both teams were working their asses off. That would have been fun to see regardless of the score, but the fact that it ended the game with a 1-point victory put it off the charts. It was both a close game AND one where everyone on the track was active, which is what we should be striving for, not an artificially close game on account of a poorly-timed jammer penalty and 60 seconds of no-effort offense.
> Besides, I kind of like the idea that jammers have to skate clean to keep their team in the game.
Yet, a team's blockers can take penalties left and right—especially at the end of a game—while their team is on a power jam, because those penalties neither hurt their team or directly help their opponents. You should like the idea that ALL skaters have to skate clean to help their team, because right now there are many instances where blocker penalties not only don't hurt their team, they HELP their team. That needs to be fixed with a better ruleset no matter what you think.
Another excellent list, Hale Yeah!
With respect, I don't think I could possibly disagree with this article more.
The issue I have with patient offense is that it uses a loophole in the rules to do something that the rules are trying to prohobit: Destroying the pack. Yes, patient offense takes coordination and working together, but it's still a tactic for destroying the pack within the bounds of the rules. —And that's terrible because the rules specifically say that both teams are responsible for maintaining a legally defined pack.
Teams have just figured out that the rules don't enforce maintaining a pack; they only prohibit actively destroying it. Passive action that destroys the pack is not penalized, so teams take advantage of this loophole to do something that the rules try to prevent.
—And as far as power jams are concerned, I have no problem with them. In fact, I think removing them would hurt the sport. I think power jams add a level of excitement that could not be gained without them. Without power jams, a 15-point bout with 1 minute to play would be almost certainly out of reach. Power jams give trailing teams a puncher's chance to put together a rally and thus keep fans interested to the end. I do not think power jams lead to blowouts. Blowouts are caused by differences in skill level. Removing power jams isn't going to suddenly make less skilled teams skate more competitively. Skill will still be slanted, and blowouts will still happen all the time.
Besides, I kind of like the idea that jammers have to skate clean to keep their team in the game. If there were suddenly no punishment for jammers trying crazy/dangerous things, they would try more crazy/dangerous things resulting in more injuries for a sport that has a big problem with lots of injuries.
...but that doesn't matter. Patient offense is boring to the fans. If the fans are booing, it's because they're not being entertained by the slow play and nonengagement that is the exact opposite as the past decade of derby that they're used to.
Without paying fans, derby cannot continue in the manner it has been. Why are teams trying to make fans leave?
How has this change of some sort not been implemented yet. I'd gladly sit the penalty box for my jammer if that meant my team was able to score points instead of having the score run up because she's in the box. There is still impact because now the team is down one blocker at least which still gives some advantage to the other team.
Lex for prez!!!!
I hear you. Plus, my real name is shared with a little-known (I'm assuming) porn star. So I just assume when I get a "great name" compliment, that someone's letting me on a little secret. :)
Every time I interpretive dance at an afterparty, I think of you. :)
-A.Spears
I agree with everything you said. Thank you for bringing reason and logic to this discussion instead of just proclaiming that the sky is falling.
What you said about the crazies that fuck with your life hits home to the point of tears. When I was brand new to derby a long time skater who I had known briefly made false, devastating accusations against me (the exact same accusations she's made against others before me and since, but no other skaters). Why she did this only she knows, but being insane and enjoying the drama and attention of telling lies are my best guesses. Despite her well-known reputation for being a wack job, skaters who I had never met turned against me believing the lies, subjected me to ostracization, dirty looks, and intimidation. A judge ruled against my harasser, calling her accusations among other things "baseless" and pointed out numerous inconsistencies in her story. But it made no difference to those who prejudged me and never bothered to look further. I spent an entire summer afraid to go into large public places for fear of potentially running into this woman and being harassed again. I carried transcripts of the ruling in my car at all times in case she decided to say or do something paranoid and insane and I needed to defend myself. I spent countless hours on the therapist's couch trying to process the fear and grief I felt when all I ever have wanted to do is belong and be the best damn player I could possibly be. I have a lot of friends and support within the derby community. But there still those who make a point to intimidate and exclude. And no amount of hard work, dedication, or positive relationships with sane skaters can shake the damage done. Karma hit this woman hard, but she continues to lie to this day. And to play derby at the level that I want and deserve to play, I will have to move to another city to exorcise the damage she's done to me.
Glad I'm not the only one thinking these things. Can't say this weekend is doing anything other than entrenching my own beliefs...
Yes, Lex, YES.
I have nothing against the passive offense or slow derby, but a game that is just trading power jams is boring for everyone involved.
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