Friday, April 13th: Dust Devil Day 1

Everyone was up early and running to the Captains' schedule. We arrived at Bookman's in a convoy and moved as a single unit. We were shown to our change area which happened to be sandwiched between Arizona, Rocky Mountain and the Officials. Yeah, no pressure.

Fortunately, we weren't the first team debuting at Dust Devil so it was Nervous City on Day 1. A skater from another league was overheard in the toilets exclaiming, 'It smells like nerves in here!' I think you know what I mean.

Whilst in training, we had hammered out an on/off skates warm-up ritual for the tournament. We meant business. Why else would we drag an agility ladder halfway across the world? I loved our warm-ups and cool downs. I especially loved the dorky dancing the normally sandwiched the warm-up.

Back to the tournament. As is tradition with most US sporting events, the event was opened with the singing of the national anthem, including Australia's. The DJ had two versions prepared but Mad Mel Arena did us proud by taking the microphone and performing an accapella version of 'Advance Australia Fair' for the crowd.

As mentioned earlier, we faced off against Assassination City (7th seed from Dallas, TX) in the opening bout of the tournament. We went out hard and strong and won our first ever WFTDA sanctioned bout, 356 to 27. The win saw us advancing to the quarterfinals to play the Angel City Hollywood Scarlets, the tournament's 2nd seed, later that afternoon.

After a quick trip back to the hotel for lunch and a swim, it was back to the venue to face off against the Scarlets. If you ever get the chance to see the Scarlets' pre-bout warm-up, do it. Channelling a zooful of spirit animals is the only way I can describe it.

Despite the 'fun' warm up, Angel City came out HARD and pulled out to an early lead, holding us scoreless for quite a few jams. But we recovered. We didn't let them beat us down. We had the support of the crowd and our family and friends back home and before the end of the first half, momentum was swinging our way.

The second half was a blur to me. It felt like we went through a million line-ups, the game was so fast paced. We were slowly chipping away at the Scarlet lead but in the end, we ran out of time and went down 105 to 149. This bout definitely is in my Top 5. The Hollywood Scarlets were so gracious and lovely, they even cheered 'VRDL' after winning the bout then it was cuddles all round. SWOON. I am totally in love with ACDG. What a lovely, lovely roller derby team.

By the way, I apologise now for lacklustre bout recaps but most bouts are a blur to me.

Highlights from Day 1: Our first (and second) WFTDA Sanctioned bout / tournament in the U.S.A.; Chip Queso delivering a message of support from the Texas Rollergirls; meeting Sharkey, the photographer sent to us by Re-Animater; catching up with Joy Collision and Ivanna S.Pankin; being in a venue with so many people that I've only seen via the internet and suffering from starstruckety goodness; dinner with the Kaufmans at the secret squirrel steakhouse.