Five seconds! [jam­starting whistle] R. Lee Quinn: Hi and welcome to this first episode of Crime City Radio, with R. Lee Quinn and Merle Hazard This is a brand new podcast where we will talk about things related specifically to Crime City Rollers but also about roller derby in general. In this first episode we will talk about how european derby is really starting to move up in the world rankings. We will have a conversation with Kix from Crime City Rollers A­team and Merle will guide you through what you need to know about the teams CCR will be facing at Beach Brawl this weekend. Last year, in the April rankings, there were only two european teams in the top 100. London Rollergirls at number 3 and Auld Reekie Roller Girls at number 100. And that was it! But the following month a lot of european teams took a big jump in the rankings and in May there were five european teams in the top 100. Last year, several european teams travelled to the US, played well against a lot higher ranked teams and since then we have been climbing, and we’ve been climbing fast. So in this years May rankings there are no less than eight european teams in the top 100! 11 London Rollergirls 24 Glasgow Roller Derby 31 Stockholm Roller Derby 35 Helsinki Roller Derby 59 Bear City Roller Derby 62 Auld Reekie Roller Girls 78 Crime City Rollers 83 Tiger Bay Brawlers 102 Rainy City Roller Girls (not really top 100 but too close not to mention) 1 Based on the June rankings, the top 40 teams get to play division 1 playoffs, and the teams ranked at 41­60 will get to play division 2 playoffs. The ranking seems to be moving a lot right now and several of these teams has gained or dropped a lot just this last month. Glasgow is the best example of this, they went up 42 spots since April. In only a month! Several other teams have moved up or down a lot only since last month, which makes it hard to predict who’s going to playoffs. But I will go ahead and assume that it’s safe to say that London Rollergirls will be in the division 1 playoffs. Glasgow and Stockholm are looking quite safe aswell. Bear City is currently ranked at number 59, and hopefully they will hang in there and get to go to div 2. Personally I would really love to see them there because I think they did an amazing job at division 2 playoffs last year, as the only other european team aside from London. In June they were ranked at number 61 but since another team turned down their spot in playoffs, Berlin got a chance to go. So they were one of the lowest ranked teams in division 2 playoffs but they played so well and actually finished off fourth place. As for Crime City Rollers, the biggest change in our ranking was when we went to Philadelphia last year, to play at the East Coast Derby Xtravaganca. While in the US we played five bouts, and won four of them. When we went there we were ranked at 145, but the following month we hade moved up to 106. That is a leap of 39 spots, almost as big as the one Glasgow has now taken since last month. And now, we’re higher ranked than we’ve ever been before, and if things go as planned this weekend we will keep on climbing... On June 12th ­ 14th we will play at Beach Brawl in Florida. This is another chance to really gain ranking and since we are now ranked at number 78, these games at Beach Brawl mean that we are actually playing for a spot in the division 2 playoffs. I went to see Kix, who took a break from all the Beach Brawl preparations to answer some questions. * * * 2 I’m sitting here with Kix from the Crime City Rollers A­team. Hi, Kix! Hello! So last year you went to Philadelphia to play at ECDX last year. You also played two bouts in the US before the tournament and at all bouts you played really well, you won four out of five bouts. You came home with victories and new experiences and a lot of ranking points. How do you think this successful trip affected the team as a whole? I think the trip really gave us confidence. When we got there we were ranked at 145 and played much better teams according to ranking and we took four wins out of five. I think it was really useful for us that we got to play so many bouts after each other, we hadn’t done that before. Or, maybe CCR had, but I hadn’t done that with that team. I think it really built on teh team spirit aswell, maybe a bit more for me because I was new in the team, I had only been with the team for a couple of months so it meant a lot to me to be on the trip, hang out, play good derby. As soon as you came home you played the Swedish championships finals and you played really well there, and it seemed to me as if you trusted each other a lot more on track and had gotten to know each other in a new way. Is that something you experienced aswell? I think that we were in one way a new team. There were old players but we were also some new players and it felt like we had the chance to become more coordinated. And I’ve also experienced that it’s very good for us to play one game or something before it counts. Like, we lost the first game but then it felt like we got better and better, and we didn’t get tired… So I think it’s good for us that this year the first game will be a scrimmage against Dub City. It’s just a scrimmage, it doesn’t count. We can get a bit nervous sometimes when there’s too much pressure in the beginning. So I think that will be really good for the team. I can imagine. So, when you’re going to Beach Brawl I of course assume you are hoping to play well and win a lot again, but what other expectations do you have? 3 My main expectations is that we will be there, play good derby, be happy, build even more on the team spirit and also to gain ranking. Not only for the purpose of being high ranked but also to be able to play teams on our level in Europe. And a big expectation is that we play so good that we reach division 2, so we can head of to playoffs. That’s the main goal. And we already played one sanctioned bout this year that we gained ranking points from so it feels like we have the confidence with us, that we can do it. That’s good. How have you been preparing for this trip? We have been training a lot. I don’t think that we have been training more than before, we have our three practices a week. But I think that we have practiced more focused and really started to be able to perform the strategies. Somehow it feels like we have known what to do before but yet we haven’t done it in games, but the last game we had I really thought that we could make it happen. Alright. Do you have any anecdotes from the last trip, that you’d like to share? I don’t know… There was one thing, we were driving around in cars and we kind of got different identities depending on which car we were in. So we had for example the shopping car. That car only went to malls, they were kind of only shopping. And then we had one car which was more the nature focused car. They went to weird places and saw animals and stuff like that. And then we had my car, I don’t really remember the name, but we didn’t really do anything. We had plans but we always ran out of time. We stopped in some random town, I don’t remember what we were gonna do there, but then suddenly we came to this 50’s café with all these American flags and “God save America” and… Yeah, we kind of just ran late all the time but we were drinking a lot of good coffee and we had good meals of vegan food. So we kind of only drank coffee, ate food and enjoyed life. That sound nice. I hope you have an amazing time in Florida, on and off the track, and thank you for joining! 4 Thank you! It was very nice talking to you. * * * R. Lee Quinn: As you can hear, there is a complete focus on the US trip.Merle, you have some information about the teams we will be playing at Beach Brawl. Merle Hazard: I sure do! There are three teams we’re going up against. First one out is Charlotte Rollergirls from Charlotte, North Carolina. This is a team we’ve actuallt played before, last year att ECDX, and Crime City won that game 200 ­ 90. Charlotte Rollergirls are ranked at 92 as of May. When we met them a year ago they were at 98, and they don’t seem to be moving alot.