2016 Season Schedule - Save the Dates!

Save the dates for our 2016 season! 

Game 1:  March 19  @ John Jay College
Brooklyn Bombshells vs. Manhattan Mayhem

Game 2:  April 9 @ John Jay College
Bronx Gridlock vs. Queens of Pain

Game 3:  May 7 @ John Jay College
Bronx Gridlock vs. Brooklyn Bombshells

Game 4:  June 11 @ John Jay College
Queens of Pain vs. Manhattan Mayhem

Game 5 & 6 (Doubleheader):  July 16 @ Abe Stark Arena, Coney Island
Manhattan Mayhem vs. Bronx Gridlock & Brooklyn Bombshells vs. Queens of Pain

Game 7:  August 6th @ John Jay College
3rd & 4th place game

Game 8: August 27th @ John Jay College
GGRD NYC Championship

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For The Golden Skate – Brooklyn & Queens Meet in GGRD Title Bout

At the start of Gotham Girls Roller Derby league’s 2015 season, the odds wouldn’t have been good had you picked the Queens of Pain and Brooklyn Bombshells to meet in the championship game. Brooklyn was coming off a winless season in 2014, while Queens had lost a bit of their heart and soul with Ana Bollocks and Donna Matrix no longer on the team.

But as the old adage goes, that’s why they play the games, and on August 29 at John Jay College in New York City, it will be black versus blue – or as the skaters are calling it, “the BQE Championship” – as Queens meets Brooklyn for the league’s 11th championship game.

Queens already has four spots on the GGRD championship banner; Brooklyn just a single one. And while the Bombshells enter the bout unbeaten this year – their last victory being a 219–183 win over the ladies in black just last month – they’re not assuming that the Golden Skate trophy is already theirs.

Photo by David Dyte.

“Obviously, I think the Brooklyn Bombshells are the best team in all of roller derby, but when it comes down to it, Queens isn’t a lesser team than us,” said Brooklyn captain Evilicious. “I don’t think you can predict who’s gonna win this game and I don’t think it’s worth placing bets on because it’s going to come down to whatever happens on the track when the first whistle blows. And then every jam thereafter for the next 60 minutes. I don’t think you can say that we have much of an advantage going into this game undefeated.”

It’s a humble approach, but don’t think for one second that the Bombshells aren’t confident heading into the biggest bout of the year. They’ve said from the start of the 2015 season that this is the “Year of the Bombshell” – and they’ve proved it, defeating the Manhattan Mayhem, Bronx Gridlock and Queens of Pain in impressive fashion. You wouldn’t expect that kind of swagger on and off the track after a winless 2014, but this team has never wavered in their belief that hard work will ultimately pay off.

“It’s a much more subtle shift, going from losing all of our games last season to winning all of our games this season,” Evil continued. “It’s less of an adjustment than it may seem. Coming out of a losing season, it’s hard because you know how hard you worked, and I know what commitment and effort everyone put in, and we still lost every single game. That alone is a catalyst to win. So we worked as hard last year as we did this year and we just ended up with Ws instead of Ls. It’s a really interesting way to go into the championship game.”

Perhaps not as interesting as the way Queens is going in. Losing two of the team’s anchors in Donna and Bollocks was a crushing blow, even with Suzy Hotrod and Hyper Lynx waiving their spots on the GGRD All-Stars roster to focus solely on home-team play. The team even assumed that 2015 could end up be a rebuilding year. But then the opening whistle blew against the Gridlock on April 11 and those competitive fires came roaring back, leading them to a 181–126 victory.

“[Bollocks and Donna] have been a fixture with Queens since the team first started, so losing them was a big loss to us,” Lynx said. “So we said ‘it’s a rebuilding year’, we’ll take it as that; when we won the first game it was definitely a shock to us, especially when it was against the Bronx, who have the most All-Star players on their team. So we were just using the regular math we’ve been using year after year: the more All-Star players you have the better, because you get more practice time. But I guess we were able to gel as a team better, and it was basically those first few jams where we executed really well. That won us the game.”

Whatever it was, it lit a fire under the Queens team, and let them know that a fifth championship was possible. In May, they won a razor-close bout over Manhattan 194–187, and while they lost their final regular-season game against Brooklyn last month, neither team is putting much stock in that result, at least when it comes to predicting August 29th’s outcome.

“Every win is important, but there’s a freedom that you have when you know that your place in the championship is decided, and I think that both teams knew that, and so because of that, we were able to treat our lineups in a different way than we would have otherwise,” Evil said. “We were able to do things differently than we would have had we not had the calming effect of knowing that we’d go to the championship game win or lose.”

Photo by David Dyte.

“We played that game down quite a number of players and obviously, we also had a lot more penalty trouble than they did,” Lynx adds. “You play every game to win, and we didn’t win that one, but we’ll have another chance and we want to make sure we clean up our fouls and give them a much better game this time.”

And oddly enough, while Queens was always the team with the veteran core taking on squads that had a rough time with turnover nearly every season, this time it’s Brooklyn with a unit that has largely been together for several years.

“An advantage we have that you used to be able to say for Queens a bit more than now is that the core of our team has been together for years,” Evil said. “You used to have Bollocks and Donna and Suzy and Lynx together, and now Brooklyn’s got a similar group of skaters that has been together for five, six and even seven years in some cases. That is a pretty special thing, and I think with adding really smart, awesome, newer teammates to that mix, the trust that we have with each other is a big advantage and why we can add little things that won’t take away from our core – which is ‘walls stops jammers,’ and that’s what we need to do to Queens. And our jammers need to score as many points as they can.” The Brooklyn captain laughs. “It sounds really simplistic when you say it like that, but that innate understanding of how to skate with each other and those really simple rules are what help us win.”

So who will win next Saturday? Both teams have the talent and desire, as well as plenty of personal reasons to get that championship bearing once more.

“For me on a personal level, I’m trying to take some time off to finally start a family, so maybe this will be the last game in a while for me,” said Lynx. “So I would love to go out with a win. And we’re gonna fight as hard as we ever did. We’ve got a lot of new skaters, so that’s always exciting, but we also want to prove that the foundation of Queens is always there, even if the players change.”

As for Evilicious, she gets right to the heart of the matter for the skaters formerly known as lovable underdogs.

“We didn’t change much this year,” she said. “We had a foundation of skaters who are really committed to each other and to the team, and we’re certainly not underdogs anymore. So it would mean so very much to be able to get another blue banner up on that pile of orange, black and yellow.”

Let’s Play Two – Title Challengers Get Acquainted in Coney Island

They’ve already stamped their ticket to the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league home team championship game, but before the Queens of Pain and the Brooklyn Bombshells head to John Jay College on August 29, they will first meet in the second game of the GGRD doubleheader at the Abe Stark Arena in Coney Island on Saturday.

The bout poses an interesting dilemma for both squads. Is this an opportunity to come out all guns blazing and send a message to their opponents, or is it a chance to simply stay sharp and test out strategies against the team they will face for all the marbles in a month?

With both teams holding an unbeaten record and wanting to keep it that way, expect the usual level of intensity, along with some serious scouting going on at the same time.

“We’re absolutely not looking at it as just another game,” said Queens’ Whiskey Lullabye. “We want an undefeated season – that is our number one goal – and we think we have a chance to do that. So we’re going into this game with just as much seriousness as we went into our first two games of the season.”

“[The Bombshells] have trained really hard and the tone of the season is a very serious one,” adds Brooklyn’s Lady Fingers. “We have been meshing really well and we go into every game with the intention of winning and playing our best, so even though it’s like having the same game twice, we may be trying some other stuff out. Because we’re going to be facing them again, it’s good litmus test to see what’s working really well and what’s not working, and then have some more time to focus on those things before the championship game.”

Competing against each other in the league’s first BQE title game, Brooklyn and Queens have taken similar paths to the final, each having trouble with the Manhattan Mayhem while having less so against the Bronx Gridlock. Seeing Queens in the championship is not surprising, given their 6–2 record over the last two seasons heading into their 2015 campaign. And if the veteran squad does one thing better than most derby teams, it’s adjust on the fly. So if Brooklyn thought they were going to catch the ladies in black napping next month, this weekend’s bout will likely kill any chance of that happening.

“Any mistakes that we might make in this game, we’re going to be able to learn from because we’re playing them again,” Whiskey said. “Any mistakes that they make, we’re going to be able to hopefully exploit and capitalize on because we’re going to play them again. So we’re going to get a good indication of what that final game is like, and we’re going to know what we need to work on to win that championship game.”

The Bombshells, league champs in 2011, had always been the league’s loveable underdogs up until that memorable season four years ago, and while that tag always stung the skaters, as Fingers points out, “I think it’s safe to say those days are over.”

Brooklyn did enter 2015 off a 2014 season that saw them go winless, so maybe those underdog whispers were coming back, but with B. Zerk and Hela Skelter returning to the track, Sexy Slaydie intimidation of opposing jammers and Miss Tea Maven continuing to cement her status as one of the league’s elite scorers, the Bombshells got their groove back.

“There wasn’t much that needed to be changed,” Fingers said when discussing the team’s plan of attack for 2015. “After every game last season, we would come back to the locker room and I would say ‘I’m proud of the way we played, I think we played an excellent game, I’m proud of all my teammates, and we felt really good about our performance.’ We knew there were minor tweaking issues and we had the same attitude coming into this season. We know we’re a great team, we know we have great defense, we know we do all these things well – let’s just fine-tune the areas that we thought were not as ideal. People were really excited about this season.”

And with good reason, as the GGRD home season has been more competitive and evenly matched than ever before. In the NFL, they used to call it parity. In derby, suffice to say that when everyone’s playing at the highest level of the game, it’s the smallest details that make the difference.

This Saturday, it’s not a championship bout, but it will feel like one, and don’t think for a moment that every hit and every point scored won’t be remembered come August. This will be no calm before the storm.

Written by: Thomas Gerbasi

Manhattan and the Bronx Battle for Pride this Saturday

Considering that home teams in the Gotham Girls Roller Derby league only get three games per season, every win is pivotal and every loss hurts. Some hurt more than others though, and no one knows that better than the members of the defending champion Manhattan Mayhem.

The inmates won’t get the opportunity to repeat in the league’s title game next month, but it’s not from a lack of trying, as their 0–2 record was achieved with losses that came by a total of just 12 points. If you’re looking for a heart-wrenching season, you’ve come to the right place.

“It’s been a really challenging season,” said seven-year veteran Em Dash. “We’ve had some bad breaks – unfortunately literally in our case – and the hardest thing is that we haven’t gotten to play as a whole team for a whole bout this season. I think anyone who watches Mayhem sees how close-knit we are, how good our teamwork is, and how much we love and support each other. So in that first game, to have [Bruzin] Brody ejected and to lose two players to injury, including our captain [Bonita Apple Bomb], that was really devastating. Our second game, both our captain and Full Metal Jackie were out, so when a team has great chemistry, losing anyone is awful. I think anyone who watched those bouts would say that the way we work together as a team is apparent. Even more than the losses for me is feeling like there’s been a hole in our team this season on the track.”

The losses to Brooklyn (153–148) and Queens (194–187) have given the Mayhem an unofficial title of the best winless team in sports, but their opponents this weekend in Coney Island, the Bronx Gridlock, could give them a run for their money when it comes to that distinction.

Also checking in with an 0–2 record, the Gridlock didn’t have the razor-thin defeats Manhattan did this year, but there is no shortage of talent on the cabbies’ squad – seven members of the GGRD All-Stars is the big roster stat that jumps out at you. One of those All-Stars, blocker Cherry Napalm, knows how good this team is when it comes to individuals, but what hurt them this season is that with so many of them suiting up for the Bronx for the first time in 2015, it’s been hard to get the cohesiveness that brings teams championships.

“Half the team is new this year, so we’re still getting used to playing together, but by this next game, we’re feeling really confident and excited to get in there and have all the pieces fall in place instead of fall apart.”

Having over two months of working together since their last bout on May 9 has helped the Gridlock become a unit, and not just a collection of All-Stars.

“We’ve definitely got to know each other better,” Cherry said. “We’re working together, working on our skills, and everybody has gotten a lot better individually and as a team. We’re all on travel teams as well, so we’ve gotten experience there, and I feel like it’s solidified. It finally feels like we’re a team.”

Dash has seen the development of the Bronx over the last few months, and while most would consider the Mayhem the favorites to win this Saturday, she’s not counting them out in the slightest.

“The Bronx is a really impressive team, and they’ve been rebuilding for a couple years, but they’ve got some incredible players, they have a ton of All-Stars this year and they really seem to be jelling quite well, which is really wonderful to see,” Dash said. “I think the tougher every team in the league is, the better it is for the sport and for our fans and for all of our development as skaters. So I can’t wait to skate against them on the 18th.”

The fact that two talent-rich collectives such as the Mayhem and Gridlock have not won a game between them this year shows just how good the Gotham home teams are. Seemingly every bout is a war pitting evenly matched teams against each other, and the veteran skaters know that once the whistle blows, anything can happen. But how do new skaters adjust to the league’s talent level and intensity? Dash believes team culture has a lot to do with it.

“I have loved our rookies every year, but especially the last couple years, because they come in with so much energy and so much drive, and that reenergizes the whole team,” she said. “And I think that what our rookies see when they land in Mayhem, is that we have a wonderful team culture. We’re all really supportive of each other, the veterans take the rookies in hand and help them to build skills and learn how to play the sport and how to play Mayhem’s version of the sport.”

It’s why Manhattan has picked up league titles in two of the last three seasons, and even though 2015 won’t see an orange banner hanging from the rafters, don’t call Saturday’s bout an opportunity to salvage the season.

“I don’t like the idea of salvaging a season, because every single player on our team has learned and done great things this year,” Dash said. “We had a little bit of bad luck or maybe a couple bad decisions or foul problems, but the work we’re doing on the track every practice, as well as running together and working and scrimmaging together, it doesn’t feel like an 0–2 record is a reflection of our team this season. All of us are going into that bout on July 18 the way we take the track every game, which is that we’re going to play our game with our team, focus on what we’re great at, keep calm heads and stay positive. And hopefully this will be the beginning of our 2016 winning streak.”

Bronx is equally inspired to end 2015 with a win and carry that momentum into next season with a return to championship form for the first time since 2010. It’s not too early.

“We definitely want to come out and win this one,” Cherry said. “We’re both 0–2, so we both really want that win, so it’s going to be a good game. We do want to end the season on a high note and keep the momentum going into 2016. I’m actually really excited for next season – and after this season, it can only get better.”

Written by: Thomas Gerbasi

Queens and Manhattan Prep for Possible Bout of the Year this Weekend

A friendly warning to those sitting trackside for Saturday’s Gotham Girls Roller Derby league bout between the Queens of Pain and the Manhattan Mayhem at CCNY…there might be some bodies flying around.

“There are so many big hits that people get a little hot-headed, so the games are really intense and they must be fun to watch,” said Queens’ Babe Brawlins. “I don’t know why it works out like that with these two teams but there are big hitters on both teams, for sure.”

Brawlins is one of those big hitters for the ladies in black, countered by the always imposing Manhattan duo of the aptly named Violet Knockout and Roxy Dallas. And despite the three being members of the same GGRD All-Star team and friends off the track, when the jerseys read Queens and Manhattan, it’s on for 60 minutes on game night.

“It gets intense,” she said. “I’ve hung out with [Mayhem players] off the track and they’re lovely people, but when you separate us into our teams, it’s strictly business. We’re intense on both sides, and since I’ve joined the league, it’s like it’s always been Manhattan, Manhattan. It feels a little extra special to win against them.”

Photo by Sean Hale

A win over Manhattan would mean even more this weekend, as it would not only avenge a 189–150 loss in the 2014 title game, but also eliminate the Mayhem from this year’s championship race and secure a Queens vs. Brooklyn title bout in August. High stakes indeed, but Manhattan has the same championship ambitions as their rivals, and they’re not ready to let those goals fall to the wayside.

“There’s definitely a lot more riding on this game than just the win,” said the Mayhem’s Full Metal Jackie. “There’s the big picture as far as the championship, and I know that I want another bearing [the championship necklace pendant]. We were always about the big picture. It’s like the saying goes: you may lose some little battles, but we’re all about the war and we want to win it.”

The “little battle” that has placed Manhattan in a precarious spot heading into this weekend’s bout was a razor-thin 153–148 loss to Brooklyn in the league’s season opener in March. The bout proved just how evenly matched every home team in Gotham is, with one call or one jam going the other way likely the difference between victory and defeat. When that’s the case, it’s not that the losing team needs a total overhaul between bouts, but perhaps that they just ran out of time.

“I’d like to think we just ran out of time,” Metal agreed. “I was actually really happy with the way we played. We played against a highly competitive team, and we played Mayhem derby, which is really all that we care about. We’re together, in cahoots with each other, and obviously I want to win, but first and foremost, as a Mayhem player, I want to just play with my team. We lost by five points, we were down three players, and there was a lot of insanity, but the whole time I knew I could look at any of the other girls on the team and they had the mindset I did. We were calm, collected, we knew what we had to do, and we gave it our all.”

It didn’t help that the team lost GGRD All-Star and team leader Bonita Apple Bomb and blocker ROCKS! due to injury, and that standout jammer Bruzin’ Brody was also sent to the sideline after being ejected. But those negatives could be seen as positives—Manhattan still only lost by five points with three key players off the track. And with plenty of time to get ready for this second bout against Queens, Mayhem is in a good place mentally and physically.

“It’s definitely been interesting this time around with having that long pause in between the bouts, but it’s also been really fun to hone our strategies and push ourselves and figure out the next step where we need to go, instead of thinking about the next bout,” Metal said. “We had time to pay attention to our skills, rather than ‘Oh, what do we need to do for the bout?’ It was more ‘What do we need to do as a team?’”

Photo by Sean Hale

As for Queens, their opener saw them in the same fearsome form they were in back in 2013 when they won their last GGRD title, as they defeated the All-Star-laden Bronx Gridlock 181–126. The way Babe and her squadmates see it, it’s just an omen of things to come.

“We’re always thinking about winning everything,” she said. “It’s on our minds. We want to go there, we want champs, we want it this year, so why not win all of them?”

Why not, indeed. And if you get to knock off an old rival along the way, even better, right?

“It’s always extra special,” Brawlins said about playing Manhattan. “There’s been a rivalry between the two teams where it’s always really intense and I don’t know what it is—it’s just really good competition. And it ping-pongs back and forth, but we’re going to make up for [last season’s] loss. We’re gonna win.”

If so, is Queens ready for two straight against the Bombshells?

“We’re going for it, and I think it would be interesting to see Brooklyn,” Babe said. “They’ve always been kind of an underdog team and I think this year they’re going to play really well. So it would be cool to have a BQE championship.”

Written by: Thomas Gerbasi