I wish I could recap everything that happened, but it’s a total blur. I remember a few moments during the actual bout, but that’s it.
- Some Highlights
- My goal for this bout was to knock someone down at least once in every jam I was in. I would say that it was a definite success. There may have been one jam that I didn’t hit anyone down, but I know I hit someone in every single jam I was in, and I was pretty solid every time I got hit.
- No one got hurt! That was a big problem in our last scrimmage and a constant worry at practice, but I’m glad to report that no one on either team was injured!
- During one of the jams I was able to keep the jammer in the pack for a long time. I kept positional blocking and hitting her down and out of bounds. Unfortunately, our jammer was also stuck in the pack during that same jam. I’m super proud though because we were able to hold her for so long. I wish we had been able to do that more.
- With a bit of a push from another girl, I completely laid the jammer out. It also resulted in me being flat on my stomach and sliding on the floor. Apparently the team went crazy and once the jam was called everyone was congratulating me and my coach told me, “That was the most sacrificial hit I’ve ever seen.”
- So much of our team spent so much time in the box. One of our players was even ejected for accumulating so many majors (that’s a first for our team!). There was one point in the bout that our jammer just kept going to the box over and over and over again. During the bout I got at least one minor that I’m aware of. If we have the penalty sheets at practice tomorrow I want to find out what it was.
- The other team kept trying to trap me in the back, but they were really horrible at it. Or at least, they were horrible at it with me. There were some other girls that got stuck in the back, but because everyone always tries to trap me at practice I’ve become very good at getting out of traps.
- I jammed and it was awesome! Our bench coach (who did a freaking fantastic job and was probably gutted that she’s still on the mend and can’t skate) handed me the jammer panty and said that after all of the jammer drills she had me doing at practice, she would feel awful if I didn’t get to jam during the bout. She told me it was the last jam of the night (which surprised the hell out of me because the whole thing went by so fast!), so I pulled it on and went to the line. It was a power jam in our favor, so I was the only one at the line. The whistle blew and the other team was stopped. They were running the clock to get their jammer out, but then the whistle finally blew to release me. Of course, I’m intensely clumsy and was so excited that I completely wiped myself out at the second turn, but I got back up, made it through the pack, and started a second lap around to get my points and as I was going through, the other jammer was released from the box, so I called it off and the bout was over. We didn’t win, but it felt like a huge win to me!
- The after party! I now know what it means when someone says they lost the bout, but won the after party! I was on cloud nine from jamming and just had a fun time hanging out and talking with the team. I drank beer (I’m not at all a beer drinker, but some awesome fans bought the team several pitchers) and I joined in on some leg wrestling! I almost had a Ted Mosby “I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR” moment.
I’m sure we’re going to get reamed at tomorrow’s practice for our horrible playing, lack of communication, and bad teamwork, but I can say with certainty that I’m proud of the way I played and that I noticed a real improvement in my performance compared to the Santa vs Elves scrimmage two months ago. Now that I've proved to myself that I can be an asset to the team, I'm going to work more to be part of the damned team and maybe open my mouth when I'm in the pack. I will communicate more and we will follow our coach no matter what!
photo by ACR photographer
photo by ACR photographer
photo by ACR photographer
photo by Heather
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