For four seasons, they stood by as another team lifted the Golden Rollerskate. For four seasons, the Hotrod Honeys had to make do with second place. But 2008 was their year, the year all the pieces fitted together and they finally became the Texas Rollergirls League Champions at Playland Skate Center last night.
Going in, last year’s champs the Hell Marys must have known the smart money was on the Honeys. A straight 3-0 season; three of the best jammers in the league in Lucille Brawl, Vicious Van GoGo and Rice Rocket; and a season-opening win over the Marys gave them a paper head start. But the Marys haven’t exactly been slouches this season, and when they pushed the first jam to a pointless draw with no lead jammer, it looked like their powerful pack might make for a substantial challenge.
In the pack and in the jam, the Marys’ Sparkle Plenty proved, even in her final home bout before retirement, that she set the standard for speedy blockers (although she was lucky to not get a major penalty for her high elbow against Rice Rocket in jam 10 of the first period.) Their other big-name retireee, Derringer, will leave a similar gap next season: there’s still few power blockers like her for conditioning and strategy. But the Honeys used a combination of speed and peerless jamming tactics to eke out a slow but vital lead, taking the first period 15-27.
In the second period, it was all the Marys could do to hold the Honeys down from turning each jam into a grand slam. Coming out of half-time with a 12-point lead, it almost seemed like the Honey’s biggest enemy could be their own confidence: In jam 20, Rice was so busy wiggling in front of Bloody Mary that she gave away lead jammer status. But the Marys could never capitalize, while the Honeys sliced ahead to a dominating 79-23 win.
If the Honeys were waiting to complete a perfect season, the Hustlers were waiting for a break: 0-3, with a rookie-heavy team that has sometimes seemed green, and a season heavy with major and minor penalties. Yet for every minus, there’s been flashes of plus. No-one can write off a team with veteran jammer Barbarella, rookie-of-the-year candidate Das-It (part of the new wave of light-weight pure speed jammers), and blockers like Cheap Trixie and Lady Stardust (who seems happier back in the pack than out-front.) Their third-place match-up with the Honky Tonk Heartbreakers was their last chance for league redemption.
But if anyone was looking for a bad omen, it came in jam 6, when Trixie’s wheel and bearing came clean off her skates and bounced across the track. Then Slim Kickins got herself ejected. Then the Heartbreakers set a new league record of getting lead jammer eight times in a row. The Hustlers were plagued by the same gappy pack and communication problems that hampered them all season and the supportive capacity crowd watched while they were out-scored 1-31 at the end of the first nine jams. Electra Blu broke that streak, and Das-It helped them add 8 points to only 2 for the Heartbreakers. New Hustler Bullet Tooth Tracy, a recent acquisition from Albuquerque’s Duke City Derby, may be one of the heaviest hitters in any league, and a major gain for the women in purple and silver.
In truth, the Hustlers have never looked better all season, and they gave a talented and aggressive Heartbreakers a hard-fought second period. But a 9-33 losing margin by the end of the first period was too much to come back from, and the Heartbreakers made that 26-58 by final horn.
This article appears in August 1 • 2008.
