Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, or The Brawlers' Losing Streak

After every game the Brawlers lose, someone out there says, "Brawlers will be the team to beat next year." After every game the Brawlers lose, I want to plug my ears for a few days so I don't go off on someone about how they have made it alright for the Brawlers to lose this year. Because to me, it's never alright to lose and it's never alright to make excuses.

I'm sure nobody knows this and I can't believe I'm going to divulge this, but I cry in my car on the way home from every bout. This past Sunday, my tears were also due to relief that I made it through the one-year anniversary of the worst injury of my life in one piece. I've been making excuses for not bringing my "A game" (as a fan called it), but I'm done. I'm going to shed my own personal self-fulfilling prophecy. I hope everyone joins me and stops making excuses because the Brawlers are rookies, the Brawlers are rebuilding, or the Brawlers are fan favorites (obviously that is just a downright misconception since there were only about 200 people left in the building for our second half).

So you might have been expecting more of a recap. Derby supporters and zealous fans have done a pretty good job of that elsewhere. The Brawlers will play the Betties in October for third place. I'm hoping to post a recap on a self-defeating prophecy.

I Sway Towards Pessimism

In the last jam of the Brawler/Siren bout on Sunday, I remarked to a teammate that we did exactly what we didn't want to do...let the Sirens score the most points on us this season. She replied, "But this is the most points we've scored yet." True.

I've spent a lot of time this season looking at the dark side of things. Somebody has to, I'm good at it, and as co-captain and former bench-warmer, why shouldn't it be me? Sunday's bout gave me a lot of reasons to look at the bright side, though.

We did score 104 points, almost more than we had scored in our first two bouts put together. I haven't seen jammer stats yet, but I know I had a 7-point jam to help with that. The Beast is back! Our blocker stats improved across the board. Sinister Sista had a particularly impressive showing, including a beautiful jammer-take-out on Dementia that has somehow ended up on YouTube. One of the Sirens put me into the front row, and even though that's not a bright side for me or the girl I landed on, it is a bright side for the league because it didn't happen much last year. We are all improving!

So I promise to keep a positive spin on the Brawler's 0-3 season, and look toward the playoffs in August with all the optimism I can stomach. Congrats to the Bosses going 3-0! If we stick with the seeded tournament for playoffs like the league has discussed, the Bosses get the privilege of taking on the new and improved Brawlers.

See what?

I called lineups for the Burlesque Brawlers Sunday night. Sure, it sounds easy. You have up to two minutes to tell five women what position they are playing in the next jam. No problem. Then one of your jammers complains about a knee injury, then another is slammed into the bench and comes up with a huge welt on her shoulder, then another skated almost the entire track out-of-bounds (still getting hit while she was out there) and wants to give up (rightly so), and suddenly, you can throw all your carefully-planned lineups in the trash.

I can't write a recap of the Brawlers vs. Betties, because I spent most of my time with my back to the rink, asking my team who could skate in the next jam. I did see one of our veterans, Wreckhell Welch, get in a fight with Beverly Kills at the end of the first half. I did see some out-of-bounds hits, only because they happened in front of the bench and had me scooting away from the sideline. I did see our blockers get blindsided more than once due to their continued habit of focusing on one opponent and not seeing the whole floor. I was not able to count points, see how each ref was calling the game, watch the other team's strengths and weaknesses, and other observant things I'm able to do while skating. I planned on watching the video to come up with a good recap, but I'm tired of thinking about it.

The bottom line is the Brawlers lost 162-57, and I have to come up with a way to narrow that gap before we play the Bosse$ in May. My return to the rink would help, but that is still not an option. As I previously mentioned, the Bosse$ beat the Sirens, 90-79. If I had to rank HRD's teams on their ability to kick someone's ass on any given day, it would go like this: Bosse$, Sirens, Betties, Brawlers. In my opinion, even though the Betties did such a fine job of preparing us for how it rolls in HRD (some of you might know that's an inside joke), it's going to be even tougher on the Brawlers in May.