The All-Knowing Derbytron Roller Derby Rankings

The Best of Roller Derby in 2010: The Tronnies

2011-01-05T16:11:00.002-06:00

If you didn't vote on the Tronnies on Derbytron's facebook page, shame on you. If you did, THANK YOU. The Tronnies started out of off-season boredom and have grown to something that's not really that big but let's get on with the awards. The first winner in each category is my choice and the second is as voted on facebook.

2010 MVP: DeRanged
People's Choice: DeRanged
What more can be said about this year's MVP other than she's probably the best jammer in the world and a pretty damn good blocker on top of that. She took Rocky Mountain from a middle of the pack team in the West to instantly competing for a championship in 2009 after transferring from Pikes Peak with Psycho Babble and Ecko. The 5280 Fight Club followed up their surprise performance in '09 with a Hydra in 2010. The addition of Urrk'n Jerk'n didn't hurt matters but the added time to gel as a team may have had more to do with the championship run this year. It's pretty hard to argue against the best player on the best team earning MVP honors and that's just what the Derbytron and people did in 2010 naming DeRanged of the Rocky Mountain 5280 Fight Club MVP.

2010 Most Exciting Tournament: Rollin' on the River
People's Choice: Uproar on the Lakeshore
Sure, Uproar had the best bout of the year in my opinion and the opinion of DNN's readers but one bout is not an entire tournament. I definitely spent my fair share of time bashing everyone that labeled Rollin' on the River "Besterns" but they just may have been right but not for the reasons they were giving. Sure it had the best teams but it also oozed with drama. Oly's first WFTDA loss EVER. The return of Bay Area. The fall of Denver. It had everything that Uproar lacked until the final half of the final game.

2010 Best Demonstration of Ridiculous Athletic Ability: Bonnie Thunders scoring 108 vs Philly
People's Choice: Urrk'n Jerk'n's Weeble Wobble
Urrk'n Jerk'n's Weeble Wobble originally inspired this category but the more and more I looked into it, the more and more Bonnie Thunders' performance in the 3rd place game of Uproar on the Lakeshore kept looking more ridiculous. Philly gave up more than 108 points only two other times after February in 17 games and we're talking about giving up points to entire teams here, not one jammer. The thing is, that's not the ridiculous part. The ridiculous part is that Philly only allowed 106 points to Oly the day before. OLY! Seriously. Bonnie Thunders scored more points than the entire Oly roster. Sure, IM Pain scored more a couple days earlier but that was against Minnesota, not Philly, and only accounted for 44% of her team's score, not 67%.

2010 Best Uniforms: Denver Mile High Club
People's Choice: Denver Mile High Club
Some may say that Denver's uniforms are anti-roller derby with the real names on the back and the whole uniformity thing. The Mile High Club's uniforms are simple and simplicity always helps. The Mile High Club's uniforms have a lot of personality and personality always helps. The Mile High Club's uniforms have a great color scheme and that always helps. Really, there's no competition in my eyes beyond Montreal who have pretty much the exact opposite uniforms as Denver. Some say Madison but I think they're too doped up on cheese to see clearly.

2010 Biggest WTF Moment: Launch of Slowderbysucks.com
People's Choice: The Blackface Incident
The Blackface Incident was clearly the moment that probably instantly entered everyone's minds when they read this category but in reality, that was a mistake that was corrected. Slowderbysucks.com on the other hand is still going strong despite the insanity of it. The launch of that site had a full blown PR campaign, the site looks professional (maybe it's just a template but somebody had to photoshop those ridiculous pictures) and the message is clear. Seriously, WTF are they thinking? 1. Slow derby does not suck, 2. It's already naturally become less effective in a lot of situations as teams have adapted and 3. You're really trying to ban a strategy because you think it's boring? How about banning a running up the middle for 2 yards in football? How about banning fouls in the last minute of a college basketball game? How about banning the entire sport of baseball (okay, that might be a good idea)? WTF?

2010 Best Defense: Rocky Mountain 5280 Fight Club
People's Choice: Rocky Mountain 5280 Fight Club
Rocky Mountain held Oly to 86 points, their only output not in triple digits in their entire WFTDA history. They held Gotham to 79, their lowest score since Dust Devil in 2006. They were able to stifle the top two other teams in the country in ways no one else came close to. Many may point to the MVP and the rest of the jammer lineup as the reason for their championship but those jammers may not look as good without the best blockers in the country in front of them.

2010 Best Jammer Rotation: Gotham Girls
People's Choice: Rocky Mountain 5280 Fight Club
If I were to ask you to write the names of the five best jammers you can think of, I bet both Bonnie Thunders and Suzy Hotrod crossed your mind even if you didn't write their names down. That two-headed monster dominated opponents this season wracking up an average of 165 points against the 8th toughest schedule in the world. When you throw in Swede Hurt and Hyper Lynx to give the tall ones some rest, you have the best jammer lineup of 2010.

Stay tuned to Derbytron in 2011 for a new site design and a revamp to the ratings...and maybe even more.

Vote on the Tronnies

2010-12-22T10:16:00.000-06:00

Derby fans, head on over to the Derbytron's facebook page and vote on some end of the year "best of" categories. Like "biggest WTF moment", "best uniforms" and "best jammer rotation." Categories will be posted daily so go like the page, vote in the comments of each category, and keep checking back for more updates.

Simply Put, Boyfriend/Refs in Tournaments are Bad for Derby

2010-11-22T08:28:00.002-06:00

For those of you that haven’t been paying attention to the bottom half of the comment thread on the “Rocky Mountain Rollergirls Take It All” article on DNN, the Cliff’s Notes version is that referee Tootie Tinwhistle and Rocky Mountain Rollergirl Amanda Jamitinya are in a relationship. No big deal. However, Tootie was a ref in the championship game between Rocky Mountain and Oly. Now, it’s an issue. Despite the size this has become, I have not seen anyone call into question the results of the game or accused anyone of cheating. This is simply a matter of people addressing a problem and trying to get it changed. But, somehow, there is pushback from those saying it’s not a problem, which is evidenced in this week’s Derby Deeds podcast. If you aren’t listening to Derby Deeds then you are pretty much a failure as a derby fan (I kid, but seriously). In it, Megatron and Hurt Reynolds (two people whose opinions I respect but are completely and totally wrong about this issue) argued on the side that there are no problems with the current way that referee crews are being handled.

I don’t even need to address the relationship issue, the fact that refs are calling games for their home leagues or leagues they ref for on a somewhat regular basis in the playoffs represents a clear conflict of interest. That does not necessarily mean biased calls are made. It means that the refs are too familiar with the players on the track to have the ability to call a perfectly even game. Lemmy Hearya put it perfectly on DNN:

How many decisions must a ref make in the course of a bout? Hundreds, easily. From the first whistle to the last, a ref is constantly evaluating where various actions and situations fall---was something incidental, or intentional? Insignificant, or meriting a penalty? Major penalty, or minor penalty? A number of those determinations are going to be borderline situations, and must be decided quickly. With the best will in the world, I don't see how any human being could not, subconsciously at least, give some benefit of the doubt in a borderline situation to someone he knows and respects (much less loves, if it comes to that). And, how many things must a ref keep track of during a jam? More than anybody really can. When deciding who and what to watch (again, possibly subconsciously), it's only to be expected that somebody would focus more on the people out there they don't know and trust.

That’s just the issue of wanting the most fair game possible. The other aspect is the perception of the sport as a whole. Why are there no longer fake fights and players getting spanked at halftime after a spin on the penalty wheel? It’s not because there weren’t enough fans who cared enough to complain. It’s not because those fans didn’t like it. It’s because it called into question the seriousness and legitimacy of the sport. This ref issue does the exact same thing except on a much bigger scale: the championship game of the sport, not a random home game with 800 in attendance. Even if a ref can be perfectly unbiased, it looks bad, just as a row of dudes lined up to spank a skater looks bad.

During this week’s Derby Deeds episode, it was brought up that people are surprised about the existence of relationships between refs and skaters. I don’t think anyone has said anything even close to this. Nobody is trying to say that this is a problem through all of derby that needs to be addressed even down to the intraleague level. Everyone seems to be pretty realistic that, yes, this is still a DIY sport, yes, no one is getting paid. Everyone gets that. However, on the playoffs level, on the championship level, on the championship game level, the DIY all-volunteer aspect of the sport is not an issue whatsoever. There are at least two to three full crews of refs at each region and championship. That is more than enough people to successfully ref, at the very least, the two games on the Sunday of championships without conflicts of interest.

The surprise people are showing comes from this happening in the most important game of the year. Those dismissing this issue aren’t taking the scale and resources of the WFTDA championship into account. Nobody is saying that boyfriends shouldn’t be calling intraleague games. That’s a question of resources. There aren’t enough refs to call most of those games otherwise. But, we’re talking about the championship and playoffs. That is a completely different level of the sport. It’s even a completely different level than a regular season WFTDA sanctioned game. Since it’s on a different level, trying to use the DIY all-volunteer canned response to any criticism of the WFTDA is no longer valid. There were thousands of people there paying good money to be a part of it. They didn’t contribute to a charity for a write off on their taxes. They paid money to watch a legitimate sport's championship being played just as they would if they went to a college basketball or pro football game. They don’t care if no one is getting paid, the money out of their pocket is just the same. I know that many don’t like the comparison to pro sports but it’s a fact of life. You don’t need to change everything to “fit in”. You don’t need to use real names. You don’t need to have more consistent less-revealing uniforms. Those aren’t an issue with the sport. This is an issue of the sport.

And, since it’s an issue of the sport, I think we can all agree that we want the most fair game possible. The argument was made that boyfriend refs are many times more harsh on their girlfriend’s team. This is not an argument for continuing to use boyfriends in these games, it’s an argument against it. If the consensus is that boyfriends are taking it extra hard on their girlfriend and their girlfriend’s team, how is that a fair evenly called game? How is that fair for the girlfriend and her team? On the same hand, if refs are more familiar with skaters and more familiar with the penalties that skaters are prone to, then how is that fair and evenly called? The refs chosen for playoff games should be as neutral as possible. Again, we know that people have friends in leagues all over the country. Nobody is saying that refs need to live in a closed-off bubble but an attempt should be made to make the game fair.

It’s being said that ref crews need to work with each other for an entire weekend in order to gain trust and camaraderie with one another, otherwise, games won’t be reffed as well. You can’t argue on one hand that refs are mindless robots that would never let their relationship with skaters even subconsciously affect the game they’re calling while at the same time arguing that a team of refs need to be together for an entire weekend to be able to handle a game well. Either they’re mindless robots that don’t let any outside influences affect their calls or they’re human. If we’re arguing that refs need to know each other and be comfortable with each other then why aren’t these crews reffing with each other for the entire season? They aren’t comfortable with each other the first game, or even second game, of each playoff weekend. Nobody has made the case that the quarterfinal reffing was even slightly worse than the reffing in the finals. If that’s the case, then this idea that crews need to stick together is completely without merit.

Of course, we all want the best crews calling the biggest games and having familiarity with other refs on their crew is helpful but it isn’t the only variable at play. Having associations with a team in the game automatically makes that ref and that crew not the best for that particular game. That means that WFTDA should either use a different crew or substitute in a different ref. This is not a difficult issue to solve.

As roller derby continues to gain popularity, more and more issues will surface that may have been acceptable in the past that are no longer acceptable with the current level of fan support. Simply dismissing any of these new issues that come up as just a conversation among superfans is something that will stunt further growth of the sport. Calling these issues “derby drama” is only a way of writing off the seriousness of the issue. Obviously, not every little thing that comes up is going to need to change or even can be changed, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a legitimate concern. Every sports fan I’ve talked to about this has made the exact same arguments I’ve made here and some have gone even further saying that the results of the game should be called into question. Sports fans should not be ignored, they are the future fans of roller derby. They will not accept anything less than at least the level of fairness that they can get at a high school football game.

The reason that people are wrong about this is because every argument that has been made thus far has been an argument for why it was done in the past. This isn’t an argument about the past, it’s an argument about the future. There is absolutely nothing to gain from continuing this practice. Nothing. We can only expect negative results or, at best, the same. There are enough refs to cover every playoff game without a conflict. This should be a bigger priority than keeping a ref crew together. With what we know now, why would anyone want to continue this practice? We know that fans will freak out and have a big problem with this every time they find out about it. If we keep adding more and more fans every year, it's going to become a bigger and bigger issue every year and what if a ref actually does cheat and is caught? How about we just stop it now before it becomes a large enough issue to become a major embarrassment for the sport.

2010 Rankings Chart

2010-11-18T11:31:00.000-06:00

Making WFTDA more like NCAA Basketball

2010-11-16T09:15:00.002-06:00

Back in October, I wrote about how the current playoffs system is just as fair as any other playoffs system in the world. I still believe that to be the case but I also believe the roller derby season has problems. Mainly, there's isn't a structured regular season. I wrote about a possible solution to this last year, but that post was short-sighted as it did not account for the rapid growth of the WFTDA membership as well as the growing competitive divide between the teams at the top and the teams at the bottom. Also, with the recent expansion of South Central and the addition of Europe to the East, some regions are becoming GIGANTIC and really are no longer regions since they're bigger than some continents. The split to four regions was done to limit travel costs and allow for better rankings. I'm pretty sure travel to Europe is somewhat expensive. I'm also somewhat confident a WFTDA voter in New Mexico is going to have trouble seeing a team from Florida play before regionals.

With the addition of more and more teams to the WFTDA, the landscape is much different now than it was when four regions were put into place. That doesn't necessarily mean anything needs to change but what's the harm in exploring other options? My plan originally was to adapt a number of examples from different sports' seasons and playoff structures for roller derby. I quickly realized, though, that roller derby is so unique, most sports' structures would make no sense when applied to roller derby. The one sport that stuck out, though, was college basketball.

Many people like to compare roller derby to pro sports but that just isn't logical. Roller derby has much more in common with college sports than pro sports. There is a large number of teams in both derby and college (American pro sports leagues have around 30), neither derby nor college pays players, and both derby and college are working on limited travel budgets. With those things in common, it makes a lot of sense to look at the college basketball season and see how it could be applied to the WFTDA.

NCAA Division 1 Men's Basketball consists of 346 teams divided among 32 conferences. The champion of each conference receives an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. The "Big Dance" is a 68-team tournament made up of conference champions and at-large selections chosen by a committee who also seeds the teams and places them into regions. Two rounds are played each weekend for three weeks.

So, how do we morph this for use with roller derby? Abolish the regions and form 20-25 small divisions with a minimum of 5 teams with each team playing every other team in their division at least once. The champion of each division would then get an automatic bid into the WFTDA Tournament. Teams should be selected for each division based on their competitiveness and their willingness to travel. Top-tier teams should be playing top-tier teams and bottom-tier teams should be playing bottom-tier teams. This creates 5 "power divisions" in which the most competitive teams in the WFTDA will play each other as well as a bunch of regional divisions that contain teams that are closely located.

Seeing as how this plan wouldn't possibly go into place for a couple years, I put together examples of these divisions with the inclusion of WFTDA Apprentice leagues as well as San Diego (who the WFTDA would be stupid to continue to keep out) and Glasgow (who you could replace with any European league) to bring Europe's numbers up to five.

West Coast Division

Bay Area
Jet City
Oly
Rat City
Rose City
San Diego^

Mid-States Division

Arch Rival
Denver
Kansas City
No Coast
Omaha
Rocky Mountain

Great Lakes Division

Brewcity
Burning River
Chicago
Cincinnati
Detroit
Madison
Minnesota
North Star
Windy City

Southern Division

Atlanta
Carolina
Dallas
Houston
Nashville
Tampa Bay
Texas

Northeastern Division

Boston
Charm City
Gotham
Montreal
Philly
Steel City

European Division

London
Auld Reekie*
Bear City*
Paris*
Glasgow^

New England Division

Connecticut
Green Mountain
Maine
New Hampshire
Providence
Hudson Valley*

Lake Ontario Division

Central New York
Hammer City
Queen City
Tri City*
Toronto*

New York-New Jersey Division

Garden State
Long Island
Suburbia
Diamond State*
Jersey Shore*

Amish Country? Division

DC
Dutchland
Lehigh Valley
Harrisburg Area
Mason-Dixon*

Virginia-Carolina Division

Dominion
River City
Blue Ridge*
Cape Fear*
Charlotte*
NRV*
Rocktown*

Alabama-Tennessee Division

Dixie
Hard Knox
Memphis
Chattanooga*
Little City*
Tragic City*

Swamp Division

Big Easy
Tallahassee
Cajun*
Gold Coast*
Hub City*
Jacksonville*
Red Stick*

Lone Star Division

Assassination City
Alamo City
West Texas
Route 66*
Spindletop*

Conference of the Ozarks

Green Country
ICT
Northwest Arkansas
Oklahoma
CoMo*
OKC*
Springfield*

Indituckio Division

Bleeding Heartland
Demolition City
Derby City
Gem City
Naptown
Ohio
Southern Indiana
Black-n-Bluegrass*
Lafayette*
Twin City*

Michiganish Division

Fort Wayne
Grand Raggidy
Killamazoo
NEO
Glass City*
Mid Michigan*
Rubber City*

Northerner Division

Fox Cityz
Paper Valley
Rockford
Sioux Falls
Babe City*
Des Moines*
Mid Iowa*
Mississippi Valley*
Old Capitol City*

Rocky Division

FoCo
Pikes Peak
Pueblo
Slaughterhouse
Castle Rock*
Choice City*

Desert Division

Angel City
Arizona
Central Coast
Duke City
Sin City
Tucson
Bakersfield*

Near No One Division

Pacific
Salt City
Wasatch
Fairbanks*
Junction City*
Lilac City*
Rage City*
Treasure Valley*

Pacific Northwest Division

Bellingham
Emerald City
Lava City
Slaughter County
Cherry City*
Dockyard*
Sick Town*
Terminal City*

Wine Country Division

Sacred City
Santa Cruz
Silicon Valley
Battle Born*
Humboldt*
Sonoma County*

*WFTDA Apprentice League
^Non-WFTDA member

These divisions can expand and shrink easily based on the change in membership levels that there certainly will continue to be as well as individual leagues becoming more or less competitive and wanting to change divisions. The size and competitiveness of each division is not a major issue like it is for regions since there is only one automatic bid from each division and there are so many at-larges.

The next step is to apply the NCAA Tournament for the postseason. If there are this many teams competing in the WFTDA then a 64-team field is a perfectly reasonable size. The method of playing these games would definitely need to be changed, though, as the travel budgets for WFTDA teams are much lower than those of NCAA basketball teams. I would propose eight 8-team tournaments for the first four rounds with the championship tournament being made up of the eight teams still remaining.

I used the four 2010 regional locations and four other locations based on an even spread geographically throughout the country. I also determined seeds based on the 2nd quarter WFTDA rankings and the DNN and Derbytron rankings at that time. Teams were then put into a region based on proximity. This is what the tournament would like if this would have been put into place this year.

Green Bay, WI

Bay Area^
Windy City
Brewcity
Minnesota
DC*
Grand Raggidy
Fort Wayne
Tallahassee*

White Plains, NY

Gotham
Boston
Montreal
Carolina
Providence
Maine
Dominion
Suburbia

Sacramento, CA

Oly
Steel City^
Jet City
Naptown^
Sacred City
Angel City
Lava City
Central Coast

Lincoln, NE

Rocky Mountain
Detroit
Kansas City
No Coast
Omaha
Connecticut^
Sioux Falls
Bellingham^

Tucson, AZ

Rose City
Atlanta*
Nashville*
Duke City
Tucson
Arizona
Bleeding Heartland
Emerald City

Dallas, TX

Denver
Texas
Dallas
Houston
Hard Knox
Memphis
Green Country
West Texas

Cleveland, OH

Philly
Charm City
Cincinnati
Arch Rival
Dutchland
Burning River
Ohio
Dixie

Salt Lake City, UT

Rat City
Madison^
North Star^
Tampa Bay^
Pikes Peak
Slaughter County
Northwest Arkansas*
Salt City

*Traveling slightly further than a currently possible regional site
^Traveling significantly further than a currently possible regional site

Many people propose separate divisions as a solution to the WFTDA season problem. They say that putting the top 24ish teams in the top division, the next 24ish teams in the middle division, and the rest in the bottom division would create better competition and a structured regular season. They're conveniently ignoring the travel costs, exclusion of deserving teams from the title hunt, and the excitement of watching teams no one knows about upset a top team. They're also conveniently leaving out that Rocky Mountain, Oly, and Denver probably would have been left out of the playoffs the last two years. Seriously, that would be a travesty.

This solution would increase competition and creates a structured regular season without leaving anyone out.

This also might open up Australia and more European leagues because they’d be able to compete for a division championship and play a number of WFTDA sanctioned games each year. Also, they could work together to pool money to send their champion to the States for the playoffs each year. Whereas, the way it works now, each team would become a full WFTDA member individually like London and wouldn’t be able to convince anyone to come play them and thus wouldn’t even qualify to play in the playoffs because they can't play enough games. They’d also might be able to convince a couple US or Canadian teams to come play them because they could get 3-4 sanctioned games in in a weekend.

What would we miss from the current format if the WFTDA changed to something like this? I think the main thing would be losing the region championship but it would be replaced with a lot more division championships so that might be a push. The WFTDA Championship would be 8 teams instead of 12 so that would turn Saturday into just two semifinals instead of the epic 6 games it currently is but it would mean that each team would only play one game each day which is more fair and I think makes for better games since skaters wouldn't have dead legs. Another question is if the WFTDA has the resources to put on 2 major events in a weekend and 9 major events in the span of a couple months.

What would we add with something like this? A structured regular season. An inclusive postseason. More teams and more games in the postseason. Faster international expansion.

Again, I don't post this as my perfect plan to solve all of WFTDA's woes but more of an idea that I think is logical that we should discuss further. Please post any comments or questions you have in the comments section.

2010 Final Rankings - November 8

2010-11-08T09:33:00.000-06:00

	Team		Rating	2010 Record	Base Rating	SOS	Games Used	2010 Games
1	Gotham		0.782	12-1	0.739	0.585	18	13
2	Rocky Mountain		0.750	14-1	0.723	0.601	24	15
3	Oly	+1	0.714	15-2	0.728	0.602	23	17
4	Texas	-1	0.678	7-8	0.610	0.593	21	15
5	Denver	+1	0.676	9-3	0.664	0.554	19	12
6	Philly	-1	0.665	14-6	0.662	0.603	25	20
7	Charm City	+1	0.662	9-8	0.552	0.593	22	17
8	Chicago	+1	0.638	1-1	0.535	0.470	2	2
9	Rat City	-2	0.638	9-6	0.571	0.595	20	15
10	Steel City		0.633	12-4	0.623	0.497	20	16
11	Bay Area	+2	0.627	7-7	0.532	0.570	19	14
12	Rose City		0.624	9-6	0.568	0.585	20	15
13	Detroit	-2	0.622	9-3	0.627	0.557	18	12
14	Kansas City	+1	0.609	8-5	0.596	0.546	18	13
15	Windy City	-1	0.601	7-6	0.564	0.598	18	13
16	Boston		0.582	5-9	0.526	0.577	20	14
17	Madison		0.573	3-9	0.482	0.594	17	12
18	Atlanta		0.569	12-4	0.597	0.496	22	16
19	Jet City	+2	0.538	6-4	0.545	0.501	11	10
20	Cincinnati		0.536	9-4	0.568	0.516	18	13
21	Minnesota	-2	0.532	7-3	0.526	0.480	16	10
22	Brewcity		0.527	8-5	0.565	0.483	18	13
23	Omaha		0.524	7-4	0.545	0.471	12	11
24	Montreal	+1	0.524	11-5	0.578	0.447	20	16
25	Naptown	+1	0.520	11-5	0.534	0.462	19	16
26	Nashville	-2	0.519	11-5	0.564	0.490	22	16
27	Maine		0.515	3-3	0.552	0.441	7	6
28	Tampa Bay		0.506	7-11	0.460	0.494	24	18
29	Dallas		0.504	13-10	0.544	0.497	27	23
30	Carolina		0.503	6-9	0.459	0.522	21	15
31	North Star		0.486	6-5	0.490	0.492	16	11
32	Arch Rival		0.484	4-12	0.430	0.524	21	16
33	Houston		0.482	5-9	0.472	0.506	19	14
34	No Coast		0.476	8-3	0.543	0.451	16	11
35	Pikes Peak		0.464	6-6	0.428	0.404	16	12
36	Tucson		0.457	6-6	0.461	0.523	16	12
37	Duke City	+1	0.443	4-7	0.457	0.536	16	11
38	Grand Raggidy	+2	0.435	4-3	0.424	0.450	12	7
39	Sacred City	-2	0.433	4-5	0.448	0.509	11	9
40	Ohio	+1	0.427	4-5	0.420	0.441	11	9
41	DC	+1	0.425	5-10	0.407	0.479	19	15
42	Providence	-3	0.422	4-9	0.440	0.523	18	13
43	Fort Wayne		0.417	4-4	0.465	0.397	10	8
44	Salt City		0.403	3-3	0.439	0.332	7	6
45	Connecticut		0.395	2-5	0.397	0.426	12	7
46	Dutchland	+2	0.393	7-7	0.445	0.411	16	14
47	Slaughter County	-1	0.391	1-2	0.413	0.491	3	3
48	Lava City	-1	0.384	1-3	0.412	0.452	5	4
49	Emerald City		0.368	2-1	0.407	0.401	3	3
50	Arizona		0.366	5-3	0.448	0.367	8	8
51	Bleeding Heartland		0.365	2-5	0.353	0.430	9	7
52	Hard Knox		0.364	7-6	0.424	0.423	18	13
53	Bellingham		0.362	0-3	0.432	0.562	3	3
54	Memphis		0.353	4-8	0.407	0.432	18	12
55	Northwest Arkansas		0.349	2-3	0.391	0.451	7	5
56	Dominion		0.348	2-3	0.399	0.456	10	5
57	Angel City		0.345	0-3	0.349	0.539	8	3
58	Tallahassee		0.338	1-4	0.332	0.481	6	5
59	Green Country		0.333	4-3	0.475	0.361	9	7
60	Sioux Falls		0.331	0-6	0.383	0.515	8	6
61	Assassination City		0.319	2-7	0.311	0.381	10	9
62	Big Easy		0.313	2-4	0.356	0.357	7	6
63	Central Coast		0.306	2-2	0.411	0.351	4	4
64	Oklahoma		0.284	1-3	0.308	0.378	6	4
65	Burning River		0.282	0-3	0.357	0.494	8	3
66	Dixie	+2	0.265	2-7	0.296	0.402	12	9
67	Pacific		0.250	1-5	0.271	0.427	7	6
68	Suburbia	-2	0.248	2-5	0.346	0.395	8	7
69	Long Island		0.197	0-1	0.280	0.289	2	1
70	Sin City		0.184	0-5	0.216	0.376	5	5
71	River City		0.177	1-4	0.251	0.396	6	5
72	FoCo	+1	0.167	0-3	0.265	0.498	3	3
73	Hammer City	-1	0.167	0-7	0.225	0.449	9	7
74	West Texas		0.124	0-2	0.221	0.450	5	2
75	Alamo City		0.109	0-2	0.170	0.391	3	2
76	Derby City		0.094	0-4	0.229	0.463	4	4
77	Harrisburg Area		0.081	0-5	0.199	0.416	5	5
78	Gem City		0.060	0-3	0.181	0.283	4	3

	*Unofficial Team

November 5-7 Results

2010-11-08T09:30:00.002-06:00

2010		Away Team			Home Team		Accuracy
11/7	4	Oly	146	2	Rocky Mountain	147	2/4	WFTDA Championship
	5	Philly	51	1	Gotham	162	1/5	WFTDA Championship

11/6	4	Oly	106	5	Philly	81	4/5	WFTDA Championship
	2	Rocky Mountain	113	1	Gotham	79	2/1	WFTDA Championship
	4	Oly	178	14	Windy City	76	4/14	WFTDA Championship
	5	Philly	147	15	Kansas City	126	5/15	WFTDA Championship
	8	Charm City	103	2	Rocky Mountain	165	2/8	WFTDA Championship
	3	Texas	52	1	Gotham	151	1/3	WFTDA Championship

11/5	24	Nashville	53	4	Oly	214	4/24	WFTDA Championship
	17	Madison	53	5	Philly	213	5/17	WFTDA Championship
	8	Charm City	249	19	Minnesota	118	8/19	WFTDA Championship
	13	Bay Area	59	3	Texas	72	3/13	WFTDA Championship

WFTDA Championship Preview - Uproar on the Lakeshore

2010-11-03T09:02:00.000-05:00

Last year, I said that nationals was the most anticipated roller derby event in modern history which was probably true. This year, Westerns took some of the luster away from "The Big Show" by having six of the top teams in the country fighting over three spots along with some sort of crowdsourced PR campaign. Despite all the hype over Westerns, this year's championship is shaping up to be a heavyweight slugfest between the East and the West.

WFTDA Championship (as seeded):

Gotham Bracket
1: Gotham Girls Roller Derby (#1, 10-0)
2: Texas Rollergirls (#3, 6-7)
3: B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls (#13, 7-6)

Rocky Mountain Bracket
1: Rocky Mountain Rollergirls (#2, 11-1)
2: Minnesota RollerGirls (#19, 7-2)
3: Charm City Roller Girls (#8, 8-7)

Kansas City Bracket
1: Kansas City Roller Warriors (#15, 8-4)
2: Philly Roller Girls (#5, 12-4)
3: Mad Rollin' Dolls (#17, 3-8)

Windy City Bracket
1: Windy City Rollers (#14, 7-5)
2: Oly Rollers (#4, 12-1)
3: Nashville Rollergirls (#24, 11-4)

Champion: Gotham. If Westerns was the new Nationals then the semifinals might be the new finals. Gotham will probably be meeting Rocky Mountain in that game. Those are the top-ranked two teams in the Derbytron, DNN, and Dyte Rankings. This season so far has been all about the West but the championship may be all about Suzy Hotrod. The star jammer is moving to Philadelphia and won't be playing another game for Gotham. You better believe that not only will Suzy come to play but the rest of the team will step up as well because Gotham may not be able to stay in the title hunt in the future without their two-headed monster of Suzy and Bonnie Thunders.

Runner-up: Oly. Not only has a former champion never repeated but the reigning champion has never even made the championship game. Texas won in 2006 and finished 3rd in 2007. Kansas City was the champion in 2007 and didn't even make nationals the next year. Gotham of course won in 2008 and was knocked out by Oly in the quarterfinals last year. Oly will have to break this pattern just to make the championship game but if the Oly/Gotham championship game prediction is correct, no matter who wins, it will be the first time roller derby has had a repeat champion.

3rd Place: Rocky Mountain. This is the team to pick for the championship if you're a history buff. If the trend of former champions not repeating continues then this would be the team to pick. Even if you don't care about history, this may be the team to pick. Suzy Hotrod and Bonnie Thunders may be Gotham's two-headed monster but DeRanged and Psycho Babble may be the country's two-headed monster. DeRanged might be the best jammer in the country and Psycho Babble is, well, psycho. These two transferred from Pikes Peak last year and have already taken this team to a title contender. I have no doubt they'll finish a season on top before they're done but it may have to wait until next year.

4th Place: Philly. Philly may be on the receiving end of the Suzy Hotrod move which could send them to the favorite for next year's championship but it's still 2010. When Philly took on Oly in February and lost by 66, they weren't quite there yet. The Liberty Belles have steadily improved throughout this season and could even be peaking right now but Gotham proved that Philly isn't a championship-calibre team at Easterns with the 133-104 victory that wasn't nearly as close as the scoreboard indicates.

Quarterfinal Dropouts: Texas, Charm City, Kansas City, Windy City.

First Round Dropouts: Bay Area, Minnesota, Madison, Nashville.

2010 Rankings - October 26

2010-10-26T21:27:00.000-05:00

	Team		Rating	2010 Record	Base Rating	SOS	Games Used	2010 Games
1	Gotham		0.785	10-0	0.756	0.577	15	10
2	Rocky Mountain		0.752	11-1	0.722	0.597	21	12
3	Texas		0.717	6-7	0.624	0.593	19	13
4	Oly		0.703	12-1	0.728	0.603	19	13
5	Philly		0.701	12-4	0.687	0.602	21	16
6	Denver		0.687	9-3	0.669	0.560	19	12
7	Rat City		0.648	9-6	0.576	0.603	20	15
8	Charm City	+1	0.640	8-7	0.551	0.597	20	15
9	Chicago	-1	0.640	1-1	0.535	0.472	2	2
10	Steel City		0.640	12-4	0.626	0.501	20	16
11	Detroit		0.634	9-3	0.634	0.567	18	12
12	Rose City		0.633	9-6	0.574	0.592	20	15
13	Bay Area		0.630	7-6	0.543	0.573	18	13
14	Windy City		0.621	7-5	0.583	0.601	17	12
15	Kansas City		0.615	8-4	0.607	0.544	17	12
16	Boston		0.589	5-9	0.532	0.586	20	14
17	Madison		0.584	3-8	0.498	0.598	16	11
18	Atlanta		0.575	12-4	0.600	0.501	22	16
19	Minnesota		0.565	7-2	0.552	0.481	15	9
20	Cincinnati		0.544	9-4	0.571	0.522	18	13
21	Jet City		0.540	6-4	0.546	0.503	11	10
22	Brewcity		0.530	8-5	0.566	0.487	18	13
23	Omaha	+1	0.529	7-4	0.548	0.475	12	11
24	Nashville	+1	0.528	11-4	0.575	0.482	21	15
25	Montreal	-2	0.526	11-5	0.579	0.450	20	16
26	Naptown	+1	0.524	11-5	0.536	0.465	19	16
27	Maine	+1	0.516	3-3	0.552	0.442	7	6
28	Tampa Bay	+1	0.510	7-11	0.462	0.499	24	18
29	Dallas	+1	0.510	13-10	0.547	0.502	27	23
30	Carolina	-4	0.494	6-9	0.462	0.527	21	15
31	North Star		0.492	6-5	0.494	0.500	16	11
32	Arch Rival		0.487	4-12	0.433	0.529	21	16
33	Houston		0.486	5-9	0.474	0.511	19	14
34	No Coast		0.480	8-3	0.544	0.454	16	11
35	Pikes Peak	+1	0.470	6-6	0.432	0.408	16	12
36	Tucson	-1	0.458	6-6	0.461	0.524	16	12
37	Sacred City		0.453	4-5	0.451	0.514	11	9
38	Duke City		0.445	4-7	0.459	0.540	16	11
39	Providence		0.440	4-9	0.445	0.529	18	13
40	Grand Raggidy		0.437	4-3	0.426	0.454	12	7
41	Ohio	+1	0.429	4-5	0.422	0.443	11	9
42	DC	-1	0.425	5-10	0.408	0.481	19	15
43	Fort Wayne	+1	0.420	4-4	0.467	0.399	10	8
44	Salt City	-1	0.403	3-3	0.439	0.332	7	6
45	Connecticut		0.396	2-5	0.398	0.428	12	7
46	Slaughter County	+1	0.391	1-2	0.413	0.491	3	3
47	Lava City	+1	0.385	1-3	0.412	0.453	5	4
48	Dutchland	-2	0.384	7-7	0.446	0.415	16	14
49	Emerald City	+5	0.368	2-1	0.407	0.402	3	3
50	Arizona	+1	0.368	5-3	0.448	0.368	8	8
51	Bleeding Heartland	-2	0.366	2-5	0.353	0.432	9	7
52	Hard Knox	-2	0.365	7-6	0.425	0.426	18	13
53	Bellingham	+2	0.362	0-3	0.433	0.561	3	3
54	Memphis	-1	0.354	4-8	0.408	0.435	18	12
55	Northwest Arkansas	+2	0.350	2-3	0.393	0.454	7	5
56	Dominion	+4	0.350	2-3	0.399	0.457	10	5
57	Angel City	-1	0.347	0-3	0.350	0.542	8	3
58	Green Country	+3	0.342	4-3	0.475	0.362	9	7
59	Tallahassee	+1	0.339	1-4	0.334	0.485	6	5
60	Sioux Falls	-1	0.334	0-6	0.385	0.520	8	6
61	Assassination City	+6	0.320	2-7	0.312	0.384	10	9
62	Big Easy		0.314	2-4	0.357	0.359	7	6
63	Central Coast		0.308	2-2	0.411	0.352	4	4
64	Oklahoma	+1	0.285	1-3	0.308	0.379	6	4
65	Burning River	-1	0.284	0-3	0.358	0.496	8	3
66	Suburbia		0.279	2-5	0.347	0.397	8	7
67	Pacific	+1	0.269	1-5	0.272	0.430	7	6
68	Dixie	+1	0.267	2-7	0.296	0.404	12	9
69	Long Island	+2	0.197	0-1	0.279	0.289	2	1
70	Sin City	+3	0.185	0-5	0.216	0.376	5	5
71	River City	+1	0.177	1-4	0.250	0.396	6	5
72	Hammer City	+2	0.169	0-7	0.227	0.454	9	7
73	FoCo	-3	0.167	0-3	0.266	0.501	3	3
74	West Texas	-22	0.125	0-2	0.223	0.454	5	2
75	Alamo City	+2	0.111	0-2	0.170	0.392	3	2
76	Derby City	-1	0.095	0-4	0.229	0.465	4	4
77	Harrisburg Area	-1	0.081	0-5	0.199	0.417	5	5
78	Gem City		0.060	0-3	0.181	0.284	4	3

	*Unofficial Team

October 23 Results

2010-10-26T21:25:00.000-05:00

2010		Away Team			Home Team		Accuracy
10/23	52	West Texas	58	67	Assassination City	204	67/52
	28	Maine	99	27	Naptown	103	27/28
		Silicon Valley	118		Santa Cruz	110	Unofficial
	74	Hammer City	58	46	Dutchland	198	46/74
	45	Connecticut	108	40	Grand Raggidy	140	40/45
	70	FoCo	31	36	Pikes Peak	383	Unofficial
	26	Carolina	107	9	Charm City	224	9/26

Besterns? More like Wah-sterns.

2010-10-21T09:53:00.002-05:00

Wah wah wah. Pout pout pout. Bitch bitch bitch.

That's all we've heard coming from the western half of the country the last couple weeks. "We have all the best teams in the world, they should all be going to Chicago to compete for a championship. I mean Gotham's good and all and they destroyed most of the teams we're talking about in the Hometown Throwdown but still, WE'RE THE BEST REGION EVER!!!!!!! It's not fair." You know what's not fair? Having to put up with your whining for this long.

Last college basketball season, Kansas was ranked #1 for 13 out of 18 weeks. They lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Northern Iowa. Should they have been moved onto the Sweet 16 anyway just because they were ranked so high?

In 2008, the Patriots finished the regular season undefeated. Why did they even hold the playoffs? They should have just handed Tom Brady a Super Bowl ring in early January.

The Miami Heat just signed Lebron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwayne Wade. Three of the best players in the league. Why even play the season?

The AL East has the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays, Toronto Blue Jays, and Baltimore Orioles. One of those teams has been the AL Wildcard 6 of the last 7 seasons. Maybe the MLB should redistribute the divisions every year to make them even. Screw consistency and rivalry. IT'S NOT FAIR.

Listen, people. This is how sports work. There are cycles. Sometimes one division, region, conference, whatever has a ton of strong teams and sometimes that division, region, conference, whatever is horribly weak. The WFTDA is going to look completely different in 5 years than it does today. Shit, look just two years ago at the Northwest Knockdown in 2008. The championship was Gotham vs Windy City and the 3rd place game was Texas vs Philly. Not a single team currently playing in the West was playing on Sunday.

Things change.

For those not paying attention: Rose City (#12, 9-6), Rat City (#7, 9-6), and Denver (#6, 9-3) are not going to the WFTDA Championship despite all of them being ranked in the top 12 in almost every rankings system in the derbyverse. They are not going because only three teams from each region move onto the Championship and the West has Rocky Mountain (#2, 11-1), Oly (#4, 12-1), and Bay Area (#13, 7-6) who earned those spots.

I'm certainly not saying that the current WFTDA format is perfect. I'm just pointing out that the complaints I'm hearing are a fact of life and how all sports playoffs work. Here are some of the very few "solutions" of this "problem" I've been hearing:

Redraw the region borders every year or few years. I'm not going to deny that this will probably need to happen a couple of times as WFTDA membership grows but that is more of a function of the changing geography of the added membership. Some regions are just growing faster than others and the regions should be pretty even in terms of the amount of teams so this is just a fact of life. However, this is not a permanent solution to keep the playoffs fair. First, there's only so much you'd be able to do since it obviously wouldn't make sense to put Oly in the South Central. Second, sports are about a number of things and tradition and rivalry are certainly on top of that list. Moving teams to a different region every year pretty much destroys both of those things. Nebraska and Colorado just left the Big 12 and that was a HUGE deal in the midwest. People are PISSED. It's destroying all the traditions and rivalries those teams have created over the last 100 years. And, you want to do that every year?

Only have 4 or 8 of the 12 teams make the WFTDA Championship and have the rest selected as at-larges. This is just stupid. Life isn't fair in the playoffs. You lose and you go home, you win and you move on. That's how EVERY sport works. THAT'S WHAT MAKES PLAYOFFS FUN TO WATCH.

Don't hold regionals altogether and just vote the top 12 teams in the country into the WFTDA championship (maybe even include non-WFTDA teams like San Diego). Again, stupid. This would basically be the BCS in college football. EVERY ONE HATES THE BCS. Why would that be the system you copy? And, seriously, San Diego? That team is awesome and I wish they were in the WFTDA but they aren't. The NFL doesn't invite the Grey Cup or NCAA champions to play in the Super Bowl.

User Submission: Top 3 from each region plus 2 to 4 wild cards. Copy what I said from two solutions above. Let me add, having a 14-16 team format would require either having games on Thursday or having teams play twice in the same day. Thursday isn't going to happen at this point. If you advocate the two games be played on Friday, think about what you're asking. Friday will be a bunch of games of 3's vs wild cards. Snore. Then, the schedule as normal. If one or those 3 or 4 seeds won their games, they'd have to play in the morning, at night, morning, night. 4 games in 2 days. Is that really more fair than the current system?
Imagine how awesome it would be if the NCAA Tournament got to the Sweet 16 and then voted on the 4 best teams that lost in the first 2 rounds and then had those 4 teams play the worst 4 teams that made it through on like Tuesday or something, how awesome would that be? By awesome, I mean ridiculously horrible and would make that tournament go from the best in the country to the worst.

If you have any more "solutions", post them in the comments and I'll add to this list.

What people need to remember is that regionals and the WFTDA championship are all part of the same playoff structure. Win and you move on, lose and you go home. If a team can't finish 3rd in their own region then they honestly don't deserve to play for a WFTDA Championship. And, that tournament is called the WFTDA Championship for a reason: to crown a champion. It's about taking the voters out of it and making teams prove it on the track.