Kitchener-Waterloo, ON

by Whacks Poetic

Demolition City Roller Derby(Evansville, IN) was looking to continue the upset trend that seems to be prevalent at the 2014 WFTDA Division 2 Kitchener-Waterloo Playoff in their match up against 2 seed, Queen City Roller Girls (Buffalo, NY). This was an anything goes kind of game where you never knew what the next jam would bring. The 60 minutes were a bit like a spice rack, you got a pinch of everything including 92 penalties total across the two teams. Some jams were filled with team based, patient play while others were punctuated by aggressive individual blocking. In the end, Queen City would win, 188-174.

Photo by Steve Jurkovic

The first half started with controlled pack play by Queen City, securing a couple lead jams and 13 points while keeping Demolition to 0. Following this, however, Hurtz Donut got Demolition’s first lead jam and put up 8 points bringing the score to 18-8 for Queen City after 5 minutes. After several big-scoring jams for both teams, Demolition City would take the lead with 8:33 left, 64-61 with a 13 point jam by Hurtz Donut. Demolition managed to continue strong until the end of the first period where the scoreboard showed 95-76 for the Evansville team.

“At half time, we really focused on the penalties. We had 31 in the first half," said Guy O. Tine, Queen City bench coach. Queen City would only add another 18 penalties in the second. "We were being overly aggressive and needed to rein it in. We knew we’d start the second half with a power jam so if we could gain momentum there we could ride it to the win."

In the second half, Demolition City continued with their strong individual blocking, backwards or forwards. Queen City, however, started blocking Demolition’s jammers more aggressively causing more jammer penalties. In a jam that saw 3 jammer penalties, Queen City retook the lead, 109-95, with a 19-point jam by inSINerator. They added to the total in the next jam going 15-3 with several more jammer box trips. Demolition would claw back to within 12 points, 152-140 before the Evansville team failed to field a jammer in the 10th jam of the half.

“Our hearts sunk and we knew unless we drew a penalty on liBRAWLian, we just gave up a 2 minute jam," said Shelby N. Pain, Demolition City captain "The team may grind on that for a bit but honestly, people make mistakes and that wasn’t the only high-scoring jam in the game. Sitting the box hurt us too.”

liBRAWLian would score 23 unanswered points before being sent to the box on a track cut and the New York team would never look back, winning 188-174 with a heart-stopping final jam which saw liBRAWLian go to the box twice while Sprintin Tarantino put points on the board for Demolition City.

Final score:

Queen City Roller Girls 188

Demolition City Roller Derby 174

Queen City Roller Girls play for 5th place against the DC Rollergirls tomorrow at 2pm. Demolition City Roller Derby plays for 7th at noon against the Chicago Outfit.