London (#6) Upsets Montreal (#3)

By Vile Love It

The London Rollergirls (#6) from London, England and Montreal Roller Derby (#3) from Montreal, Canada met during last year's East Region Playoffs. In one of the most exciting games of the tournament, London, who went into the tournament as the 10th seed, pulled out a surprising win.

Photo by Manish Gosalia

This year's game was just as exciting.

Montreal struck first with a quick 4 hit-it-and-quit it. London answered immediately. It was the start of an intense first half of an extremely fast game.

Montreal crept up the scoreboard with a series of quick scoring jams. Often the battle for lead jammer took longer than it took that jammer to score points; each jammer careful to avoid minor penalties.

Halfway through the first period, Montreal's jammer Iron Wench headed to the box and London tried its best to capitalize on a power jam. In the end, their passive offense didn't help them make up the point difference.

Still, in a series of small scoring jams London was able to chip away at the score and come to within 29 points of Montreal.

Then, after several 0-0 jams, Montreal's Cheese Grater was able to hold London's jammer, Aggro, one on one for a full lap and a half. Aggro finally mohawked around her and went on to pull London to within 11 points.

London picked up momentum and in a reverse one on one, London's Stefanie Mainey held Montreal's jammer for much of a lap, all while skating backwards.

With just over four minutes left, London took the lead in a series of jams including a backwards edge slip up the inside by their jammer to maintain their lead.

At halftime it was a 68-64 game just barely in London's favor.

London held firm in the beginning of the second period and each team suffered a series of blocker trips to the penalty box. The score seemed to continually hover at a 10-point spread.

With two blockers in the box, the jammers raced each other around the track. London's jammer called it off a second too late and Montreal crept up to within 8 points.

With 17 minutes left in the second half, London got a power jam and Montreal’s pack slimmed down to 1 blocker for a few seconds until the third was waved back onto the track. The blockers repopulated the track and then repopulated the penalty box. London pulled ahead by 34 points.

Then with 12 minutes left, Montreal tried to call a time out but the jam started before Montreal fielded a jammer. This gave London a four-two pack advantage and, by the end of it, a 35-point power jam solidified London's lead.

“We really expected it to be a much tighter bout. We lost our grip towards the end of the first half and into the second. They were beating up on our jammers and our offense wasn't working in terms of protecting our jammers. They were able to break up our walls,” said Montreal's Smack Daddy.

“We came in very prepared and expected a nail-biter. But we had a lot of penalty problems and that's the death of any team. When you are in the second period and half of your team has three minors you know you are in trouble.”

With only a handful of minutes left Montreal gathered its forces and staged a comeback, but it was too late and London took the game.

“Montreal is our biggest rival. This was the game was came here to win. We knew it wouldn't be easy by any means. It was one of the hardest games we played and we have massive respect for Montreal's skaters. Now we want to go to Champs,” said London's Raw Heidi. “We won by playing our game and by playing very clean. We didn't give up one power jam.”

London Rollergirls (#6) 191
Montreal Roller Derby (#3) 122