Daphne Does Tattoo Freeze 2012

What do you get when you mix up the top UK derby teams, tattoos, camper vans and ice-sculpting? A typical rollergirl outing!

Tattoo Freeze is a convention that takes place yearly and hosts a mini roller derby tournament with the eight teams battling it out. The tournament was held in a huge hall with ice sculpting at one end, a stage where live bands played, a BMX ramp and then the track and stands set up for the roller derby.

There were eight games in total, each lasting only 30 minutes, with a maximum of two time outs and a stricter penalty system: only four minutes in the box was grounds for ejection, rather than the typical seven. So, er, maybe that explains why five Blitz Dames skaters managed to foul out... We're not sloppy, we're spirited!

The teams in attendance were: The Birmingham Blitz Dames, The Auld Reekie Roller Girls, Glasgow Roller Girls, London Rockin' Rollers, The Dolly Rockits, London Batter C Power, Lincolnshire Bomber Roller Girls and the tournament was organised by Central City Roller Girls.

The first game was ARRG against the Dolly Rockits. DRR had some powerful jammers, including Gob Stop 'Er, Truckin' Elle and of course Rogue Runner of Team England fame, but after a close game, ARRG emerged victorious.

Next, the London Rockin' Rollers played Lincolnshire. The Bombers looked very professional in their kit and pulled off some impressive assists, particularly Synyster Motives, but the Rockin' Rollers were the stronger team, with an array of high standard players such as Jack Attack, Von Bitch, and The Mighty Mighty Bash who was playing her final bout for the team. The final score was something something.

Then it was finally time for the Blitz Dames to play CCR! The Dames took a quick lead and were initially showing strong pack work and communication. Violet Attack jammed alternatively and Penny Block experienced her bouting debut with a fantastic hit to Hustle'Her. It was all going well until a few skaters started hitting the four minutes in the box limit and getting ejected. By the end of the match, four of the most experienced skaters had been ejected and the BBD game suffered considerably.

In the final of the first round games, Glasgow played London Batter C. It was the first time most people had seen LRG's C team play and they had a hard time against the more experienced Glasgow team.

The semi finals saw a fast paced game between London Rockin' Rollers and ARRG with the latter losing over only 19 points and sending LRR to the finals.

CCR triumphed over GRG in a very close game where Billy Whizz and Hustle'Her worked as effective jammers, catching the points even though GRG often got lead jammer. GRG had wonderful blocking and waterfalling, but at the end of the thirty minutes, CCR had the higher score and went through to the final.

After ARRG played GRG in a tight All Scottish battle for third place the final had CCR up against London Rockin' Rollers. With the help of Jack Attack, LRR took an early lead and maintained it, staunchly preventing CRR from closing the point gap and taking the Tattoo Freeze trophy for 2012 with a score of 105 – 22.

Although the Dames didn't win, we put up a good fight and enjoyed meeting up with the other teams and watching the other matches. All in all a day of great derby!

See you all next year!

~ Daphne du Gorier #905

(Roller derby is serious bananas and Daphne is the most serious banana)

Tattoo Freeze

On Sunday 17th January, the Blitz Dames popped down the road to Telford to the Tattoo Freeze convention to play their first bout of 2010. Tattoos and a day of derby you say? Was this the best day ever? Why yes it was!

A mini tournament was set up composed of half hour bouts throughout the day. With stiff competition from the formidible London Roller Girls league teams; The Ultraviolent Femmes, The Suffrajets and The Steam Rollers, the Dames decided to call in some help from their allies. Our roster was made up of 7 Blitz Dames skaters, plus 7 guest skaters from London Rockin' Rollers, Severn Roller Torrent and Leeds Roller Dolls to form The Blitz Dames Allied Army!!! (It was also the first time the Dames had had the opportunity to bout wearing our shiny new logo!)

(The Blitz Dames Allied Army: Bitchy the Killer, The Skatrix, Bruise 'em Banshee, Jack Attack, Violet Attack, Sleazy Rider, Roisin Roulette, Saintly Sin, Diamondback Belle, Von Bitch, Moxie Blitz, Cat A Sonic, Hooligal, Helen Fury and Frantic)

The first mini bout of the day was The Ultraviolent Femmes vs The Steam Rollers. In a closely fought match that turned the LRG inter-league expectations on its head, The Ultraviolent Femmes won with 31 points to The Steam Rollers' 28.

After a short break it was time for our first bout of the event against The Suffrajets. After a fairly good start, our jammer ended up in the box, allowing the jammer from The Suffrajets to get a 30 point jam. This left the Blitz Dames Allied Army trailing at the end with 20 points to The Suffrajets' 86 points. Ouch!

Next up was The Steam Rollers against The Suffrajets. The Suffrajets, tired from playing their second match in a row, caused The Steamrollers to win this bout 28 points to 60.

The Blitz Dames Allied Army then took on their second team of the day, The Ultraviolent Femmes. With blocks that were notoriously difficult for our jammers to get past, and some excellent jams from the Femmes' Kamakaze Kitty, the final score was 17 to the Blitz Dames Allied Army and 89 to the Ultraviolent Femmes.

The Femmes went from victory against us, straight into victory against The Suffrajets, winning their match against them 97 points to 12.

Our final round robin bout of the day, was against The Steam Rollers. After what seemed a promising start, The Steam Rollers secured a win with 88 points to our 21.

As the Allied Army and The Suffrajets had won the least games so far, we then went on to play them for third place in the tournament. The Allied Army fought valliantly, but determined not to be in 4th place, The Suffrajets pulled out all the stops and used their most effective tactics to break the 100 point barrier and win the game with 126 points to the Allied Army's 12 points, securing them third place in the tournament.

The final between The Steam Rollers and The Ultraviolent Femmes was nail-bitingly close for the entire half hour. With the team in the lead changing many times throughout the bout, it really could have been anyone's game. However, in the final jam, Fox Sake managed to clock up enough points for The Steam Rollers to lead them to victory. The final score; The Ultraviolent Femmes: 33, The Steam Rollers: 36.


(Raw Heidi for The Steam Rollers, recieves the trophy for the winning team. Photo by Teshi)

Although the Blitz Dames Allied Army didn't even get a whiff of a win all day, it was unanimously agreed to be a great day of derby. The atmosphere was both electric and friendly, with derby-types from leagues all across Britiain helping to organise, officiate, and promote roller derby!

The event also drew a huge number of fans from the tattoo convention who came along to see what all the fuss was about and there wasn't a time during the day when there wasn't a large crowd of people against the barriers, craning their necks to see oddly-dressed girls skating around bashing each other! It has to be said it went down very well with the punters at Tattoo Freeze.

The Dames all had an excellent day and would like to thank all three LRG teams for not going easy on us and making us up our game. It was a tough, challenging, but awesome event. We'd also like to thank Tattoo Freeze for having us there, and our allies from LRR, SRT and LRD for going into battle with us. It was an honour to fight beside you!