Terrace’s North Coast Nightmares are moving up in the national roller derby rankings with a 171 to 128 win over the Rated PG Roller Girls in Prince George April 19.
This is the first time the Nightmares have beaten the more experienced Roller Girls and a sign that the hard work the Terrace players have put in growing the team over the past few years is beginning to pay off.
Their second competitive season in, the team sees a lot more players consistently show up to practices, said co-captain Jessica “Marge Sins Some” Hogg. This has allowed them to deepen their level of training with more opportunities to work out plays and scrum as a team.
“The Nightmares have been working hard on strategy and teamwork the last few months,” said co-captain, Jenny “Bam!b” Danskin. “We came out as a cohesive team, working together and executing our plays, which ultimately made us successful.”
It looked like it was going to be a tight game for the first half of the match up, with the halftime score at the Roll-o-Dome showing Rated PG sitting at 66 to the Nightmares’ 61. Both teams had been successful in scoring points nearly every jam.
But the Nightmares came back from half-time looking to break away and get the win. And the cohesive team strategy they’d been working on began to pay off.
“Our blockers were aggressively throwing hits in the pack and successfully playing offensive strategy with the team’s jammers,” said Hogg. “I think this really helped us score enough points to beat Rated PG.”
By the end of the game, the Nightmares had it wrapped up, with 171 points to Rated PG’s 128.
And the game saw another first for the Nightmares.
Playing under the updated Women’s Flat Track Derby Association rules, this was the first bout the Nightmares played with 30-second penalties. Before the change, players served a full minute in the “sin bin.”
“When a jammer goes to the box for a penalty, it enables the opposing team to play just offense, which is a great opportunity to rack up the points,” explained head coach Beny Bones. “With only 30 seconds to do that, it has definitely changed the dynamics of Roller Derby power plays.”
This victory over Prince George has boosted the team’s ranking to 167th in Canada, and just 11 spots behind Quesnel’s Gold Pain City, the Nightmares’ next opponents. The Nightmares host Quesnel for the “Who’s Your Momma?” bout at the Terrace Sportsplex on May 10.
And if you want to get a feel for roller derby before the big bout, the Nightmares host public roller skate nights at the Sportplex each Tuesday.