Scrimmage, baby!

Saturday was another open, black-and-white scrimmage at Rose City. It was a real mixed bag for me. I'll tell the bad parts first, and then the good stuff.

- I drew a penalty for low blocking (we are not allowed to trip other players or to hit them below the knees) when I got knocked down and two or three other girls fell on me. Charlie called a low blocking major on me when I was still lying on the floor trying to figure out what had happened. I got mad (which is not cool). I got up and said, right to him and loud enough to be heard by anyone, "Bullshit!" Charlie then, quite rightly, added an additional one-minute penalty for misconduct.

It's totally unacceptable to swear at a referee like that. And the thing is, if it had been *any* other ref who had made the initial call on me, I might not have liked it, but I would have gone to the box without making any rude remarks, and then asked my teammates about the call later. That's what I should have done. When Charlie is refereeing, I need to be unimpeachable: I mean, if I commit fouls, I commit fouls (it's not like I do it on purpose). But deliberate, under-my-control stuff like mouthing off to the ref? No. Not cool, and I need to never do it again.

So, lesson learned.

I also spent a minute in the penalty box later on because I forgot to put my mouth guard in. D'oh! Well, that one just falls under "shit happens." The funny part is that if I had just quietly put it in, it's possible the refs wouldn't even have noticed. But I said, "Oh my god, mouth guard!" Yeah, no mistaking that. Oh well. :-)

The good and neutral stuff:

In my first jam, I was pivot, and my team were all newer girls -- fresh meat or rec skaters. I was actually doing a pretty good job as pivot at first and deploying some strategy, like when our jammer went to the box, I was getting my girls to speed up and try to make the pack go fast so it would be harder for the opposing jammer to score points.

Unfortunately, the other team at that point was all experienced girls (including one lady named Mercy who moved from Hawaii to Portland *to play for Rose City*). I was skating at the front of the pack, looking back (which is basically what I was supposed to be doing), and Mercy swooped in and laid my ass OUT with a sternum block (which is particularly impressive if you know that Mercy is like 6 feet tall and I'm 5'2" -- so for her to get low enough to legally sternum block me, she had to be *crazy* low).

And that's when I hit the floor and three girls piled up on me, and I went to the box. So, I had felt really good about what I was doing until that happened ... here I was, being all strategic and feeling like an effective pivot for the first time ever. Oh well, the fact that I went to the penalty box doesn't mean I wasn't doing some good strategic stuff (or at least, trying to) before it happened.

Other good stuff:

- When my friend Tyger Bomb (a RCR freshie who I'm sure will be drafted to a team soon) hit me, I counterblocked her! Tyger hits really hard, so that was a victory for me. :-)

- Bones said I was having no trouble keeping up with the packs. Typically, that is a problem for me -- I'm always one of the slower skaters on the track, it seems. But lately I am doing better on speed, and that's a wonderful thing: if I'm not having to bust ass just to go fast enough, I can focus on my form more.

Oh, and bummer news: Wetback is leaving Sick Town after this Saturday's bout. I guess she got tired of driving down from Portland (can't think why, ha ha) ... it's too bad, because she's an awesome player and coach, and I'll miss seeing her every week.