By: Jammit Dim
August is an unusually quiet month for men’s roller derby this year, but the games that have been played may have some serious post-season ramifications. As most teams are winding down their regular season campaigns and tuning up for MRDA Championships in October, the push for late season positioning and the fall rankings saw some potential shuffle in the top-of-the-table results.
The MRDA #2, Your Mom Men’s Roller Derby, traveled to St. Paul, Minnesota for matchups against a six-skater roster BisMan Bomberz, and host team Twin Cities Terrors. Playing in back to back games on Saturday, Your Mom came out 2-0 on the day with a 484-55 win over the Bomberz and 297-23 against the Terrors. The Terrors and the shorthanded Bomberz took to the track the following day with the Terrors putting one in the W column, 302-103.
The Philadelphia Hooligans hosted a two-day, 4-team mini tournament on August 20th-21st, which featured the #16 PJRD Hooligans, #4 New York Shock Exchange, #10 Massachusetts and #7 Bridgetown Menace of Portland, Oregon. Starting off the action big on the weekend was a highly anticipated matchup of #4 vs. #7, New York against Bridgetown, which found the visitors from the West Coast victorious in a defensive showcase, Menace over the Shock Exchange 152-107. That same night, another top 10 tilt for the Menace, facing a resurgent Mass Maelstrom, but Menace proved worthy of the task, finding another victory on the day, 263-54. The final MRDA game of the weekend was Sunday afternoon, with Portland taking on the hosts, #16 Philadelphia Hooligans. At the final whistle, Bridgetown had completed the weekend sweep with another victory, 205-108 to finish 3-0 on the weekend. Hooligans also had an additional 4 MRDA games in August at the O-Town Throwdown in Ottawa, Ontario. A more detailed review of those games can be found in the MRDA August recap – Canada.
Other games around the country saw a short staffed Race City Rebels, missing all but one of their regular jammers, top the Carolina Wreckingballs by 15 points in sanctioned play, 132-117 the final score from Charleston, South Carolina. Baltimore’s Harm City Havoc finds victory over the Cleveland Guardians 263-123 in Baltimore, each of those teams fielding less than 10 players each in their final games of the 2016 season; and the Denver Ground Control hosted the Tulsa Derby Militia at the Glitterdome in Denver, Colorado late in August. Ground Control finds themselves on top in that matchup with a convincing performance, 429-27 only a few weeks ahead of their traveling to Des Moines, Iowa in mid-September for late season games against the Sioux City Kornstalkers and Your Mom Men’s Derby.