The first bout of the 2012 season saw a rematch of last years final as the winners of the past two years faced off. A new year means new uniforms; this year with team emblems across the chest. Thankfully players appear to be allowed a little more leeway in individualising their kit than last season. The new rules made for a very different game; all players starting on the same whistle made it difficult to discern exactly what was going on in the tight pack.
During the warm up, it was clear that Comic Slams had been concentrating some of their training on staying in bounds after big hits, knowing Malice’s penchant for skating backwards to force the skater re-entering to be at a disadvantage. They had an early lead that they easily maintained through the first half with help from strong jammers, J’Knee Dodgem who scored a massive 35 points in one jam and Anna Pave-U’Ova who on several occasions simply leaped through the opposing players.
Early in the first half, Smash Malice jammer Orange Ruffie suffered an unfortunate skate mishap, resulting in a frazzled hurry by bench manager Cher Trouble to get her back in the game by finding replacement skates for her after it became apparent that it wasn’t fixable. She wasn’t on form for the remainder of the first half while she struggled to familiarise herself with the loaned pair.
At half time the score was 98 Slams / 56 Malice
The half time show was run by ZM who are a relatively new sponsor of RCRD. It was not up to the usual standards that I have come to expect from half time entertainment (in the past it has been much more alternative). Supporters from each team were called up to a tug of war, the Smash Malice team won but for some reason the guy running it kept referring to them as Comic Slams. But, they were giving away discounts to the ice skating (directly in front of the arena) so I’ll let that pass.
Some penalty-ridden skating by Slams in the second half saw Smash Malice make up the difference, showing great examples of walls and other strategic blocking when they had the pack advantage in power jam situations.
Suffer Jet, one of the two original skaters still actively skating, was fouled out of the bout following her seventh penalty during the jam in which Anna Pave-U’Ova (as pivot this time) suffered an injury which resulted in her leaving the game also with only 7 and a half minutes left in the game.
Despite a valiant effort from Smash Malice in the final quarter, including a strategic timeout to ensure that the clock didn’t run out, Comic Slams were the winners with a score of 161 to 138.
MVPs for the bout were named by the teams as Tuff Bikkies and Jem Molition (captain) for Smash Malice, and Frankenpain for Comic Slams. While these skaters were performing well during the night, we felt they didn’t do anything spectacular.
The next game will see Smash Malice up against Brutal Pageant but you have a while to wait as it’s not for another two months (June 15th)! The season has been stretched over eight months, twice as long as last season so it will be a year full of Derby.
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