RESTORATION WORK – Father Herman Belt keeps an eye on Lincoln Street traffic this morning as workers use a Snorkel Lift to pull rotten pieces of trim from the facade of St. Michael’s Cathedral. Several pieces recently had fallen off the cathedral, which dates to 1976, causing concerns about other pieces possibly falling off and hitting pedestrians. Belt says the plan is to fabricate new wooden trim and properly flash it. East bound traffic was diverted up American Street during today’s work. Contractors may close the street again Wednesday morning. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
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Daily Sitka Sentinel
Sitka Sound Slayers Jam to No. 2 in State
By TOM HESSE
Sentinel Staff Writer
In just a little over two years the Sitka Sound Slayers have built the second-best roller derby program in Alaska.
The Slayers finished second in a 10-team field at the United We Roll Statewide Derby Tournament in Palmer. Sitka went 3-2 in the tournament, losing only to the Anchorage Rage City All-Stars, who came in as the tournament’s top seed.
Obligatory Roller Derby Explanation: If you’re reading this having no idea how roller derby is played, then congratulations for having a curious mind. In short, roller derby features two teams of five players skating counter-clockwise around a flat track. Four players on each team serve as “blockers” and one serves as a “jammer.” The jammer scores points for their team by skating past the other team’s wall of blockers and lapping opponents ahead of the other team’s jammer. Bouts are broken up into a series of jams, which can last up to two minutes and may be called off at any time by the jammer leading the pack, referred to in gameplay as the lead jammer. Got it? Got it.
The Slayers entered the tournament as the state’s second-ranked team, based on a formula that takes into account regular-season bout results.
Sitka Slayers blocker Erin “Sin&Tonic” Fulton – one more thing: the sport is famous for its use of nicknames – said the layout of the brackets led to them playing Rage City twice.
“With the Rage City All-Stars, because they are the only nationally competing team in the state, seeing them is one thing, but actually playing them is another. That first, half-hour game definitely had us nervous,” Sin said. “But by the time we got to that second game we had relaxed.”
Lisa “HotWheelz” Hutton said the team had been waiting all year to get a shot at the best team in the state.
“It was so gratifying. It was hard but we always play our hardest and so everybody did their best. It was encouraging to see them play their hardest, as well, to know that they couldn’t just cruise with us,” HotWheelz said. “Yes they won but I feel like we also won because we’ve only been doing this for two years and our skills have increased a lot.”
After Rage City won in the semifinal round, Sitka had to play in the losers bracket to get another shot at the championship. In between those two contests, Sitka played Juneau. It was the first time Sitka had played Juneau since losing to them in their first bout against another team.
“Our very first time playing another team was a little less than a year ago in Juneau. We lost to them. So we got to play them again and that was really fun,” Sin said.
It was also highly contested. Standard roller derby bouts are an hour long, but for the playoff rounds teams played half-hour bouts. Sitka beat Juneau 109-100 to earn a second shot at Rage City in the championship bout. Sin said the tournament was structured such that the Slayers had very little time between sweating out a close win over Juneau and squaring off again with the top-ranked Rage-City All Stars.
“After playing that last half-hour bout with Juneau, we didn’t have a break before the finals with Rage City. So we had maybe five minutes to eat some goo, get some water and skate around a few times to loosen up and then we were playing again,” Sin said.
“The last two minutes of the Juneau game were crazy. There were tons of penalties, tons of changes, and at the end we were only up by nine points and as soon as that was over we were getting ready for the championship.”
HotWheelz said it was a lot to process after a sloppy win over the Juneau Rollergirls.
“It was a whirlwind, it was, yay we beat Juneau but now we’ve got to regroup and play again,” she said. “ At least we didn’t have to waste time because we were fired up to keep playing.”
Rage City still controlled the championship game, winning 171-73, but Sin said the aura was gone in the second bout and Sitka established itself as a serious contender.
“As hard as they pushed us, I think we pushed Rage City pretty hard, too. By the end of it, that second half, their jammers were tired. I think they’re used to being able to bust through faster and they definitely had to fight for all the points they got,” Sin said.
Team Captain Cori “ValKori” Gervais Schumejda said she was also happy with the offensive pressure they put on Rage City.
“We were really happy to score 73 points against a team where scoring every point is really hard,” she said.
Sitka defeated teams from Anchorage and Wasilla in addition to Juneau. Teams from Kenai, Wrangell and Fairbanks were also represented, along with a mixed Southeast squad.
After struggling to scrap together bouts with other teams, Sin said it was refreshing to get to play against and root for so many different teams in the span of one weekend.
“For the Southeast teams, it’s definitely really exciting for us. You’ve got to get on a plane or a boat so just to be able to have so many different teams in one place was awesome,” Sin said.
And to prepare for those different teams, Sin said the Slayers put in time in the film room, just as you would expect for any other tournament.
“We did a fair amount of homework – of ‘know your enemy’ sort of stuff. On our league forum our coach put together a bunch of video of those other teams playing. So for the most part, we kind of knew what we were getting into,” she said.
Roller derby is relatively new to Southeast. Sitka held its first boot camp in January 2013 and for their first state tournament trip the Slayers fielded a team of 13: Nitrojen Peroxide, Angel of Death, Bruce Pinner, Becker the WreckHer, ValKori, Double DeckHer, HotWheelz, The Filthy Oar, KATastrofy, Bev O’lution, Ni’Ketah and Risky Mistress all made the trip. Johnny Danger coaches the team and Miss Eleneous Chaos announced each bout.
Both HotWheelz and WreckHer (Annette Becker) brought home team honors, with HotWheelz being named MVP Blocker and WreckHer named MVP Jammer for the Slayers. The awards were voted on by the competition.
With the state tournament wrapped up, the roller derby season goes on hiatus for the summer but HotWheelz said everyone on the team is looking forward to next year. She’s already got a Rage City shirt that she’s going to draw a target on as well as a list of things to improve on.
“Now we know where we need to be, what we want to be, and what we want we want to do to compete with them.” HotWheelz said. “I know I need to grow two feet. That’s where I need to start.”
Sin said the team is working on its schedule for next season in addition to recruiting more skaters.
“We haven’t plateaued yet. We still have a great upwards trajectory from the vet skaters that have been there since day one to the new skaters that are coming in. We just recently finished up an intake, we’re going to have another one in June,” she said.
Anyone 21 and older looking to join the team as a skater or an official can get more information from the Slayers at sitkasoundslayers.com. The team is also hosting a recruitment night at the Pub, 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 20. HotWheelz said it’s a great sport but an even better culture.
“I’m just honored to play with this group of women and JD as a coach has brought so much to the table,” HotWheelz said. “I grew up here and I saw a lot of them around but I didn’t know them. But now I get to know them through roller derby and it’s such an awesome atmosphere and a great group of people to be around.”
Sin said some team activities will shut down for a little while, but this tournament brought more excitement to the team and there’s a team-wide motivation to get to the top of Alaska roller derby next year.
“It really lit a fire under our butts because we just want to bout more,” she said. “That tournament’s going to be ours next year. We definitely have the drive for it.”
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20 YEARS AGO
April 2004
Photo caption: Sitka High students in the guitar music class gather in the hall before the school’s spring concert. The concert was dedicated to music instructor Brad Howey, who taught more than 1,000 Sitka High students from 1993 to 2004. From left are Kristina Bidwell, Rachel Ulrich, Mitch Rusk, Nicholas Mitchell, Eris Weis and Joey Metz.
50 YEARS AGO
April 1974
The Fair Deal Association of Sealaska shareholders selected Nelson Frank as their candidate for the Sealaska Board of Directors at the ANB Hall Thursday.