You will see future stars who are graduating this year (SDB graduating the highest number, many of whom are already trying out for and making adult teams), you will see fast, heads up derby. You will see physical play, and you will see incredible heart. Five of these teams have met over the last five years at about this time of year in tournament play and the results have always been astounding. This year, Port Scandalous offered up the Roller Punks to the NW Jr Derby Championships.
Last year catapulted the juniors onto the scene with the bout between I5 and Rosebuds getting people's attention at Wild West and holding it through champs. This year saw the world looking in on the junior teams via video streams at Wild West, and this champs is going to be awesome as well.
But this year we have seen a bit of separation amongst the teams. And this year, I am going to delve into a little of what I have seen over the last season to give a bit of a look into what we will see this weekend as the 2013 Jr Derby championships get under way.
Over to the right of the blog, you will see the standings. This is pretty straight forward, showing the win/loss and the PF/PA of each team as they wen through the season. Let's dig a little deeper.
I5 Rollergirls - 5-0 through the season in ranked play and losing only one game all season (to Grave Danger), this team has been nearly unstoppable. Looking at the PF/PA, we see that they ended the season scoring 662 more points than their opponents in 5 games. That's an average victory of 132.4 points. Pretty impressive, no? But let's look a little closer. They beat the Galaxy Girls by 3 points, the Rosebuds by 137 points, the D-Bombers by 69 points, Reservoir Dolls by 250 and Port Scandalous by 202. In tournament play at Wild west, they faced the Rosebuds a couple more times and also defeated them, but by MUCH closer scores. Given what they have accomplished so far this season, they are my pick as the ones to beat this weekend.
SDB Galaxy Girls - 4-1, but two of those games were skin of the teeth affairs. Against I5, they lost by 3 in a game which was a nail-biter from beginning to end. Against the Rosebuds they won by 3 in a game which could definitely have gone the other way except for a missed time out opportunity with the Galaxy jammer in the box and 26 seconds on the clock. Rosebuds vindicated themselves against SDB at Wild West in an un-ranked bout, but only won by 23. Clearly, this team is well matched against I5 and Portland, but when it comes to KDB, Port Scandalous and Reservoir Dolls, there is some more daylight. I think they have the best chance of spoiling I5's run this season.
Rose City Rosebuds - 3-2. After last season's undefeated run, they fell victim to the a couple of painful losses to I5 and Galaxy. Against Galaxy Girls was the missed time out, and against I5 it was missing some of their upper level skaters as well as some serious penalty trouble. They proved at Wild West that they can handle SDB, but lost twice to I5... and all three games were very close. Coming into this weekend, they have a huge chance to show that the losses don't mean a thing. They have to play one more game to get there (the top 2 ranked teams get a bye in the first round), but look for them to be fighting hard to get into that final round.
KDB D-Bombers - 2-3. Perennially the team with the no win seasons in the past, the D-Bombers really pumped it up this season, snagging a couple of wins over Port Scandalous and the Reservoir Dolls. While their average PF/PA ran to the negative at -48.6, they were able to prove that they are a team to be reckoned with. Their three losses came to the top 3 teams, and those losses were by significant amounts. This is where we begin to see the separation in the 6 Premier level teams.
ECJG Reservoir Dolls - At 1-4 through the season, the Reservoir Dolls have been a bit of an enigma for me. Watching them play, they seem to be doing everything right, but losing the battle in the pack. Add to that some serious penalty trouble in the games and a seeming vulnerability in keeping their heads in the game and you see them where they are today. If they can resolve those problems coming into the tournament, they should definitely be able to win through.
Port Scandalous Roller Punks - 0-5. They may be 0-5, but this team has been up against one thing this season which has held them back. They only have 8-9 people playing in any given game. They play hard, they play well. Their star jammer (T-Wrecksher) currently holds the record for a single power jam at 44 points. They keep in games for a good long while, but the fatigue and penalties stack up. In their last game against I-5, they ended up with 6 players for the last 10 minutes due to two foul-outs. One need only look at the fact that they have a better average PF/PA (-81.6 to RD's -103.4) to see that they really are a better team than their record shows.
So now we come to the Championships. A bit of a different format this year, not opting for the punishing double elimination tournament and moving to a much easier seeded tournament a-la the WFTDA tournament model.
I have made my predictions and have saved off my filled out bracket. It should be really interesting to see how this turns out!
Find out more at http://www.nwjrderbychamps.com/ and sign up to follow the action on twitter @NWJRRollerDerby ! Tickets are available at Brown Paper Tickets and are the same price at the door (no convenience fee!)
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