Fort Wayne, IN

Montreal hold up against surging Wasatch

By Whacks Poetic

The second multinational bout of the day today involved Wasatch Roller Derby from Salt Lake City, Utah, against Montreal Roller Derby’s New Skids on the Block from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Canadian team came into the 2013 WFTDA Division 1 Fort Wayne tournament seeded second. While there were times where an upset seemed possible, perhaps even likely, at the end of the bout, the second seed managed to defeat the seventh seed by a closer-than-expected score of 188-159.

The game started out with Montreal trying several different jammers with Iron Wench, Mel E Juana, Lil’ Mama, Georgia W Tush all taking a turn with the star in the first 6 jams. Wasatch returned to what had worked so well for them against the Grand Raggidy Roller Girls earlier in the day, jamming Moonraker, Ali3 Kitt3n, Harry Slaughter and Bunz Bunny regularly in the first half. Montreal and Wasatch alternated jammer penalties early on with Mel E Juana going to the penalty box for a track cut and Wasatch’s jammer, Moonraker returning the favor with her own track cut in the subsequent jam. Lil’ Mama then visited the box due to cutting the track and Moonraker followed in her footsteps for a false start two jams later. The jammer penalties subsided after Georgia W. Tush picked up a back block in the same jam. By the end of jam 7, there’d been 5 jammer penalties and the score stood at 45-28 for the underdogs. Montreal decided to take a team timeout and Iron Wench managed to pull out lead jammer and a 4-0 score for her team on the next jam. By midway through the first half, Montreal had switched to jamming Iron Wench every other with Mel E Jauna and Greta Bobo usually sharing the other spot. Near the end of the half, Montreal appeared to find their groove, getting lead jammer the last three jams, going on a 28 point scoring run and pulling into the lead just as the whistles blew for halftime, for the first time since Iron Wench’s one point in the first jam of the game.

© Bob Dunnell

The second period started with Wasatch reclaiming the lead on a 4-0 jam by Moonraker. Montreal then repeated their jammer troubles from the beginning of the first half with Mel E Jauna and Lil’ Mama going to the box in the third and sixth jams. Ali3 Kitt3n, in the same jam as the Lil’ Mama backblock, went to the box for a cut and Montreal managed to pull the score back to 105-101 in favor of Wasatch. The tide had begun to turn and the Montreal blockers began to gel and play as a top roller derby team. Smack Daddy played some excellent offense for Lil’ Mama and the team seemed to rally around that power jam play.

With some great jamming by Iron Wench and the Montreal blockers managing to draw a smart track cut off of Harry Slaughter, Montreal proceeded to go on another scoring run, taking the lead and racking up 45 points before Moonraker managed to score 7 points in a jam that went two minutes against Lil’ Mama. The score with about 12 minutes remaining was 151-120 in favor of the players from up North. Wasatch shortened their jammer bench to Moonraker and Ali3 Kitt3n and, with 7 minutes remaining, Greta Bobo was sent to the box on a track cut and Moonraker managed to score 24 points on the powerjam for Wasatch, pulling the game to within 5 at 155-150. Montreal rallied and put up a 4-0 jam by Iron Wench and a 20-0 jam by Mel E Jauna after Ali3 Kitt3n was sent to the penalty box on a forearm and joined two fellow Wasatch blockers there. The score going into the final jam was 179-152 for Montreal with a few seconds remaining on Ali3 Kitt3n’s penalty. Iron Wench was awarded lead in the final jam and proceeded to trade pass for pass with Ali3 Kitt3n until there was no time remaining on the period clock at which point she tapped her hips repeatedly and sent Montreal into the semi-finals.

“I felt pretty good [going into the last jam]," Iron Wench said. "We had a few seconds left in a power jam and knew there was less than two minutes left. That last jam actually was not so bad. It was two or three jams before where it was pretty stressful. I mean I know it’s not over until it’s over but we were definitely in a good position at the end.”

“We got a great opportunity to come and play Montreal," said Colonel Skirts, Wasatch Captain. "We don’t get the opportunity to play people from out of the country often so we didn’t know that much about them, but we went into the game playing what we’ve always played and what we’ve practiced and it was really effective. We’re really proud of the game that we played. We’ll be going home happy.”

Final Score

(2) Montreal Roller Derby 188
(7) Wasatch Roller Derby 159

Montreal plays the Ohio Roller Girls Saturday at 4 pm in one of the semi-finals. The winner of that game will be guaranteed a place at 2013 WFTDA Championships in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in November. Wasatch will be playing on Saturday at 8 pm.