My Second Scrimmage

Photo by Phantom Photographics

Sunday I skated in my second ever scrimmage. I am very glad that it was not my first scrimmage, because the experience was not that good. My first scrimmage was at the rink I’m used to with tons of my fellow teammates and we had specific lines without much strategy other than to have fun and play hard. The scrimmage last night was quite a bit different.

Rather than set lines, we moved along the benches provided and were put into lines based on that…kinda. I don’t think it really worked all that well because the bench coach switched it up completely to a point where I was skipped over 3 jams in a row despite being the next person to go up (this happened several times to me and at least 1 other girl, maybe 2). Obviously it was because I’m not that good, but I still wanted to play, too. One girl said I should be more assertive and I have to agree. I think if I had been more aggressive and assertive, I would have been in more jams and not skipped over so much.

While our coach was insanely cool, we started off on the wrong note. He told everyone not to hit very much and do more positional blocking because that is what he had talked about with the coaches on the other team. It wasn’t until the 2nd jam when someone on the opposite team completely took out someone from our team that he changed the game plan and just let us play how we would normally play. Because he plays on a nationally competing broller derby team and practices with another top level team, he wanted us to focus more on strategy plays (which are definitely made for more experienced, existing teams rather than a group of varied level players on a mix of several teams). There was one play he tried to do that, in theory, should have sent pretty much the entire other team to the box, but instead just ended up costing us a ton of points. Complex strategies like that are good if you’re experienced, but with a less experienced player that has no idea what the strategy is and what’s supposed to happen it just turns into a mess.

In my first scrimmage I hit several people and know I actively helped my team in almost every jam I played in. In this one I didn’t feel that way at all. In one of my jams I knocked a jammer out of bounds on the outside and in another I held the jammer off on the inside through the straightaway before getting her out of bounds. Looking back I can see exactly what I should have done in the other jams.

I know that as long as I keep practicing and playing I’ll get better, and I’m okay with progressing at the rate I am (which is the complete opposite of how I felt on Thursday & Friday). After reading a few blog posts and talking with Heather I felt better, but then I also spoke with the girl from my team that was also in the scrimmage. We rode to Lakeland together and she told me how she thought she would never improve or be a good player and now she’s one of the best on our team. Girls just bounce off of her during hitting drills and she was the first person to lay me flat when I joined the vet’s side. I will get there, it’s just a matter of time and practice.

My two goals were to have fun and not get hurt (it was explicitly stated by several of my teammates that I had better not get hurt at the scrimmage), and I consider it a success. The whole experience was fun (except for those few negative points), and I definitely learned from it.

Team Dog FTW (except not really because we lost)

Yes, my tongue is out. No, I don't know why it is.

Photos by Clarke Moffitt Photography