Salt Lake City, UT

by Danger (ismymiddlename)

When Montreal Roller Derby took on Tri-City Roller Derby today, at the first game of the day slot, it was the first intra-Canadian game seen in WFTDA Playoffs history. While neither team left this game feeling like they were playing “their game,” as the high number of jammer penalties from both displayed, Montreal came out best in the end. They took back control of play in the second half, pushing up their already-convincing halftime lead to win 366-145.

Photo by Donna Olmstead

The game started with an easy lead from Montreal, as highest-scoring jammer Mel E Juana (at 158 points across the game) put up a quick 24 unanswered points. Then, in jam 2, Montreal was able to prevent any more than a 4-point addition from Tri-City’s Freudian Whip with a quick emerge up to the back of the pack from the initial pass.

Some highlights of the next minutes included watching Mel E Juana, upon being knocked to the inside of the track, crawling off the track and through the inside to re-enter legally, to see the jam called. Not long after, Ova’Kill took a jammer penalty, leaving Honey Badger to a power jam, but then they swapped out their penalties, and Tri-City gave themselves a power jam start for Preying Man Tease. At this point, Montreal used the first of their team timeouts to reset. But still, Montreal gunned into halftime, 179-80.

By this point, it seemed like the last-jam loss to Charm yesterday may have had a clear knock-on effect on Montreal’s play.

“I think yesterday was a big disappointment,” said Montreal’s Smack Daddy. “So definitely the first half of this game they were a bit scrappier than what we’re used to, so we definitely started playing a bit of their game. And then readjusted during the halftime.”

And readjust they surely did, as Montreal crested the first five minutes back into the game at 219-80, adding in a steady 40 points while holding Tri-City scoreless. Montreal developed linking and braced-arm rear walls that somehow carefully avoided multiplayer complications, slowing and controlling play much further than the first half had displayed.

But the teams were still hemorrhaging jammer penalties on both sides.

“I think just because we’ve been playing at the highest level of derby we’ve ever played. This is our first season playing any teams within the top forty at this frequency. So I think that we are still in an adjustment period,” said Fox Smoulder, of Tri-City Roller Derby. And scrappy play is with blocker engagement extending beyond the prerequisite jammer-focused engagement.

As Montreal’s star continued to ascend, Tri-City responded with a team timeout, the score was 296-129 with 10 minutes remaining in the game, with several Tri-City jammers teetering on 6 penalties.

Montreal called a team time-out to give themselves an extra jam to play at the 16-second mark. It started with Mel E Juana and Ova’Kill jammer engaging on the line, and a barely moving pack. And while Mel was contained momentarily at the rear before taking lead jammer status, she then took more points and called both the jam and game once the period clock wound up, before Tri-City could add more. The final score was an emphatic win, 366-145, for Montreal Roller Derby’s New Skids on the Block.

Montreal advances to play No Coast at 4 pm MDT, expect to see them attempt a follow-through on these pals: “We plan on growing in the next two games, and showing that forward,” said Smack Daddy.

Tri-City goes on to play the loser of the next game for 9th tournament placing Sunday at 10 am MDT.

Tri-City is looking forward to the next day’s play, from Fox Smoulder again:

“We didn’t want to sell ourselves short, but we had kinda figured we’d be playing at 10 am every morning, and it’s good ‘cause you don’t have all day to sit around with your nerves, you kinda play your game, you have the whole day off to relax, eat some good food, go see some of the city, and then you just go to bed early and you wake up and play roller derby. So we love 10 am games.”

Final Score

(10) Tri-City Roller Derby 145
(5) Montreal Roller Derby 366