With the Dames' remaining captain having been carted off because of an injury, I could only confer with the captains of the Grand Prix Madonnas, Racer McChaseHer and Peaches N. CreamYa.
Detroit Area Dork: What are you thinking right now about that bout?
Peaches N. CreamYa: We won the game, and it was a fun game to play. It was very physical, and the Dames are always a fun team to go head to head with. I had a great time.
D: What was the point of contention when an official time-out held up the second half?
Racer McChaseHer: There was a call for Shamwow, skater 19.99, who came onto the track during a jam that was in progress. The rule indicates, and I don't know the rule number, that if there is interference in an ongoing jam, that's a gross misconduct, and it's an expulsion from the game. Our arguement is that there was no interference because the pack was on the other side of the track. The refs had a meeting, decided that any interference, meaning stepping onto the track during an in-play jam was considered interference, and therefore gross misconduct, and expellable. She was expelled from the game, and required to go back down to the locker room. When she came back up from the locker room, that's when I received a penalty as a captain, wearing the "C" for the game, because she came out of the lockerroom, even though she had no skates, and wasn't going to play any more of the game. That's another rule. That was a heated debate in the middle of the track. I'm still pretty upset about it, because I feel like there was zero interference. If they're going to call the rules that tight, I have some things to say about that, at a further time.
D: After the Dames got 73 points in the first half, you held them to only 27 in the second. What did you do to shut them down?
R: I think we just tightened up our walls. We're known for our really big defensive walls. We had to keep our blockers on the track, and make sure that they stayed behind. We just really honed in on that particular skill. That's really one of our better skills, that the other teams seem to be not so excited about.
P: We had talked about it at halftime, that we need to play our game. We needed to get low, get some tight walls, and slow down their jammers. Their jammers are really powerful, and they have the ability to push hard. We had to get low, get slow, dig in, and shut them down.
D: When you win by a margin like that, is it hard to find flaws to work on?
R: I don't think so. There's always work to be done. A lot of times you watch footage for two reasons. A lot of times I like to watch it and watch us, and a lot times I like to watch it and watch them. Depending on what you're preparing for, there's always improvements to be made. Just because you're beating a team by 500 points doesn't mean you're doing everything right, it just means you're doing one particular thing right, which is keeping their jammer back.
P: We'll always find flaws. We'll watch the footage, and it doesn't matter what game it is, what the point spread it is, we're always looking to say where we can improve, and how we can tighten up our game.
D: In two months, you're going to be playing D-Funk, the only other undefeated team in the league right now. How are you going to prepare for them?
R: Same way we prepare for every other game. Lots of practice, lots of technical conversation, and lots of gameplay scenarios. Luckily we have another chance to watch them play. We sit out in February, so we'll be able to watch them play in February, and prepare for an additional month until we play them in March. They won't see us play again until they play us that day.
P: We'll practice as hard as we can. We'll watch footage. We'll put together our gameplan. We'll just hone in on the technical stuff, and get ready to take them on.
D: Do you see D-Funk as the likely opponent for the championship game?
R: You never know. Every year that we kind of figure "I think it's going to so-and-so and so-and-so in this year's championship". They lost one of their really great jammers. Ally Sin Shoverland just transfered to Chicago. They were able to keep her for the first two games, but I think without her they may struggle a bit in the jamming arena, but they may come up with some other chick that we're not really ready for. You never know. I think it's anybody's game in regards to the championship. I don't think anybody's really out of contention. We'll all really only played two games. That means everybody still has two games to be played.
P: With everybody still having two games left to be played, they can be two losses, so you never know who you're going to see at the end.
D: Who had the best Star Wars costume tonight?
R: I didn't get to see a lot of them because we were playing. I'm sure there were a lot of creative ones. I love that little kids get into it. I'm really bummed that the seven foot Chewbacca from last time wasn't here, because I think the little kids are scared of him because he's so big.
P: When I was in the penalty box, I enjoyed sitting with Yoda.
All photos by Dan Bachorik
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