North Central Region

Minnesota and Windy City met in the final of the North Central Regional Championship for the third year in a row. (Photography by Neil Gunner)

It seemed like for the first time in the whole tournament everyone who was in Niagara Falls, New York, for the Thrill of the Spill, the 2012 WFTDA North Central Regionals, was in the venue. Every bleacher seat and suicide seat was finally full; the crowd was loud from the first welcome that blared out over speakers. More than any other year even, this showdown seemed inevitable. Minnesota. Windy City. The North Central Regional Championship game.

Every year in the organized history of flat track roller derby, the WFTDA playoffs and championship has represented the best of this sport: the best the game has ever been played, the best sporting event that the game has seen, the most memorable performances, the greatest celebrations; it’s been the grandest stage. Regardless of in-fighting, dramatics, disagreements about the game, the culture, or the identity, the one constant has remained that this tournament is the tournament to win. Like or not, the WFTDA Championships is the biggest thing, athletically, that the sport has ever known. It hasn’t stopped out-doing itself every year. And this year, it is getting bigger still.

Minnesota (teal) and Naptown (white) met in the semifinals with Minnesota winning with surprising ease 283-86.

While like the sport itself, the buzz around it has continued. There’s a certain buzz around this year’s WFTDA playoffs that is new and unique to this year. Since the first ever WFTDA championship in 2006, every year has seen the sport advance considerably. From 2006 to 2009 the game on a national and increasingly international stage had to “find itself” on the flat track. By the 2009 championship tournament (aptly titled “Declaration of Derby”), the game seemed to have settled. The parameters had been set. A team culled from national level USARS inline skating sports based out of Olympia, Washington, was bringing a level of athleticism and professionalism to the game that the sport—in any of its previous incarnations—had never seen. But it would be another western team, the Denver Roller Dolls, who, despite losing to those aforementioned Oly Rollers in the semi-finals, would be the team that would lead the forefront of the flat track game’s greatest evolution, and would lead the sport in its Great Leap Forward.

Arch Rival (in black) entered the tournament 4th, but exited in 8th spot.

2009 was so essential for so many reasons, not all to do with what was happening on the track. While the Derby News Network was already taking its spot in the derby world and had dabbled with boutcasting in 2008, it would be the 2009 championships that would truly see DNN and roller derby boutcasting reach the larger audience. Perhaps for the first time, there truly was a larger audience to reach. But as it were, the greater derby community tuned in to that tournament because they could, and what they witnessed there was the flat track game finally throwing off the shackles of the past and truly finding itself. For the first time it seemed like strategies and game-play philosophies were emerging organically from the fact that the game was being played on a flat track. And although they may not have invented it, it was Denver who introduced the derby world to flat track’s greatest (and admittedly most controversial) evolution: the slow game. Perhaps just as importantly—as confused boos rained down on the track from the baffled fans—it gave the sport one of its first major on-track controversies.

Despite being overwhelmed in the 3rd place game against Naptwon, Ohio won big in the hearts of the fans.

Controversy surrounds the 2012 playoffs as well, and Oly is once again at the centre of it. Transfergate may be the overarching narrative of this Big 5 cycle, but in Niagara Falls at the North Centrals it isn’t quite the news that it most certainly will be when Westerns kick off less than a week after this opening tournament. Perhaps more than any other region (from top down), the teams in the North Central Region still adhere to a fast-pack game (though the once controversial aspects of the game that Denver ushered in in 2009, like isolating blockers to control pack definition and trapping on power jams, have become such a ubiquitous part of the sport that it’s funny to think they churned up such vitriol only three short years ago). There isn’t much passive offense in the North Central game, and when teams do employ it, for the most part, it’s being used as a set-up to other plays. The game is fast and it’s hard hitting.

Naptown (in red) will return to the WFTDA Championships for the second year in a row.

If they weren’t already the darlings of the region, the Ohio Roller Girls won legions of fans this weekend with their spirited play. Small in stature by the standards of the North Central (they looked like a junior league next to teams like Brew City and Windy City), they are big in spirit. After completing the busiest schedule in the WFTDA this past year (21 games), they still came into the tournament underdogs in their opener against Arch Rival. In the most thrilling game of the opening day, Ohio would show the resilience that has made them so successful and would constantly fight back; showing endurance gained from those countless games on the road, they roared back late in the bout as Arch waned. They won by 10 points to set up a showdown against Windy City.

In the semi-final against Windy City, they would leave it all on the track. Windy City was riding a 26-game regional unbeaten streak heading into this one, and they would be pushed all game by the upstarts from Columbus. Battered, bruised, injured, Ohio would limp away from that 50-point loss to the defending champs knowing they’d done all they could. Unfortunately, they had little left for the third place showdown with Naptown who dominated the game from start to finish to ease their way into a second straight WFTDA Championship Tournament. It wasn’t much of a surprise to see Ohio’s Phoenix Bunz take Tournament Blocker MVP, but it was a surprising sweep when her teammate the Smacktivist was named top jammer. Small consolation for the hardest working team in the game.

It so rarely happens in sports, but the Minnesota Windy City showdown lived up to its high expectations.

The final delivered. Easily the best game of the tournament, it was wide-open, fast, full of hard hitting blockers and jukey jammers. A stunning display of the game by two of the sport’s most venerable leagues. Having played to a controversial tie earlier this summer, this one seemed capable of going the same route as neither team could gain an advantage in the first half. In the second, Windy seemed to pull away early only to have Minnesota climb all the way back. But as champions do, Windy City brought its best game of the tournament—and perhaps even the season—when it mattered most. The 165-153 win meant that the same three teams (in the same ranking order) will be returning to the championship this year.

The Thrill of the Spill couldn’t have provided a better start to this year’s WFTDA playoffs.

****For complete-game recaps head over to the Derby News Network where Justice Feelgood Marshall captured the blow-by-blow action.

2012 WFTDA Championship Participants

North Central Region

1. Windy City Rollers All Stars

2. Minnesota RollerGirls All Stars

3. Naptown Roller Girls Tornado Sirens

Naptown (Indianapolis) hosted this year's North Central Region Championship.

A few months ago, had you told me that the best regional tournament of the 2011 WFTDA playoffs would be the North Central, I would not have believed you; but in terms of parity and the close-bout excitement that comes with that, it was clear that the North Central provided the most entertaining region, top to the bottom, of the playoffs. On top of that, the derby itself had everything you could ask for: hard hitting, smart, grindingly slow, breathtakingly fast; there was lots of slow derby, but no “stop” derby.

All regions had at least a few exciting bouts, usually in the earlier rounds, but in the North Central, bouts were close across the board. The average margin of victory in the tournament was 51 points (far and away lower than the other tournaments: South Central 88 points, East 95, West 102), but more excitingly, the average margin of victory in the matchups featuring the final four (the semifinals, finals and third place bout) was an amazing 16 points! Except in the West, where the final four had an average margin of victory of 33, this was usually the point when the best pulled ahead and lapped the field (it was 121 in the South Central and a whopping 162 in the East when Gotham completely ran away with it).

What this meant for the other regions is that there was usually a pretty clear line drawn between “talent groupings” (pockets of competitive teams), and this was lacking in the North Central. Only three bouts in the whole tournament had a margin of victory of over 100 points (there were 6 in the West, 7 in the East and 8 in the South Central). More telling though, were the amount of games that could have gone either way. 7 games finished with less than a 30 point differential (to compare, there were only 3 in the East, two of those involving Montreal.). There was really only one major blowout, Minnesota’s 137 point victory over Mad Rollin, which could also be considered somewhat of a shocker since both of these teams qualified for the Championship last year (though the Dairyland Dolls have been in a fairly steady decline since; they ended up finishing 10^th).

The host Naptown Roller Girls were the surprise of the tournament, qualifying for the team`s first WFTDA CHampionship.

As surprising as Mad Rollin’s fall was (they also qualified in 2009), the story of the tournament was the rise of the Naptown Roller Girls Tornado Sirens. Although they were on an impressive 10-2 streak heading into the playoffs, their biggest victories had been over relative unknowns Demolition City, Sioux Falls and Omaha, while their losses had come to regional rivals Minnesota and Detroit (a somewhat one-sided 72 point loss in May). While they had solidified their 4^th place ranking in the region, there was nothing to indicate that they would be able to crack the top three. Led by some all-star jamming from Amooze Booche and Maiden America, and a tight-recycling pack defence, they announced their intentions with a thrilling 11 point semifinal loss to the top seed Windy City Rollers. Their ability to contain Racer McChaser and the Detroit Derby Girls under the pressure of a third place bout (on a few occasions they seemed out of it, only to crawl their way back) shows that they have the constitution to survive the big-game pressure.

Naptown joins Rose City as the only two newcomers to the WFTDA Championship tournament.

Naptown joins Rose City from the Western Region as the only two first-time competitors for the WFTDA championship. But unfortunately for the teams of the North Central, they will be in tough to compete with the rest of the qualifiers. All three North Central representatives have performed poorly outside of their region, with even Windy City (who has still never lost an inner-region bout) struggling against the likes of Bay Area (who failed to qualify in the West) and Kansas City (second in the South Central). Though they were able to beat Championship-bound Charm City early on in 2011, they later struggled against Eastern non-qualifiers Montreal and Steel City.

Although they may not be competitive at the top level yet, the parity in the region actually bodes well for the future, and in the long term, the North Central may be better off than the other regions in that a more competitive foundation is being laid. Windy City may have kept their unbeaten streak alive for now, but after being taken to the limit by Naptown and Minnesota, it is clear that things in the North Central are about to be shaken up.

WFTDA CHAMPS PARTICIPANTS (2011 records/DNN ranking in parentheses):

East:

1. Gotham Girls Roller Derby All Stars (10-0 / #2)

2. Philly Roller Girls Liberty Belles (11-8 / #11)

3. Charm City Roller Girls All Stars (9-7 / # 12)

West:

1. Oly Rollers Cosa Nostra Donnas (12-0 / #1)

2. Rocky Mountain Rollergirls 5280 Fight Club (7-2 / #3)

3. Rose City Rollers Wheels of Justice (9-5 / #5)

South Central:

1. Texas Rollergirls Texacutioners (12-8 / #10)

2. Kansas City Roller Warriors All Stars (10-2 / #7)