Too many blowouts. That’s what I heard this morning on a derby Facebook group. They were discussing a game from this weekend with a score of 611-115. People then started debating the new rule set, power jams, etc etc.

So I wondered: Is it that bad? Is this happening regularly? Enough to be a concern?

I took all the scores DNN has up from this past weekend and I calculated the score difference, by percentage. And now I’m making up a totally subjective ranking system.

A game with a score of 100-101 is THE FUNNEST game (101% score differential)
100-120 is a great game (120%)
100-140 is a good game (140%)
100-200 is sort of lame (200%)
100-400 is boring* (400%)
Anything worse than 100-401 is a super boring blowout and sort of makes you question if the winners are douchebags**.

By my rankings, how did this weekend go in roller derby? Pretty good. Of the 43 games played, 26 (60%) would have been fun to see. Only 8 (18%) were total blowouts (400%+).

Here they are (Format is: % differential, team and score, team and score):

THE FUNNEST:
101% Hammer City Hamilton Harlots 191-Glass City Killer Bs 192

GREAT GAME:
103% Ventura County 186-Junction City 192
105% Team United Blue Ribbon Bruisers 123-No Coast Road Warriors 117
106% DoomsDames 113-Ho-Bots 120
114% Chautauqua County 191-Central NY Wonder Brawlers 218
120% Ventura County 159-Wasatch Bonneville Bone Crushers 132

Good game:
122% Holy Rollers 27-Hellcats 33
124% Chicago Outfit 185 – Blue Ridge 149
126% Green Mountain 129-Assault City 102
127% Your Mom 200-NYSE 157
130% Jacksonville River City Rat Pack 125-Gainesville 163
130% Oakland Outlaws 213-Richmond Wrecking Belles 164
132% Monterey Bay 163-Santa Cruz Harbor Hellcats 215
133% Detroit 147-Ohio 196
137% San Francisco ShEvil Dead 263-Berkeley Resistance 192
144% Black Widows 174-Switchblade Sisters 121
144% Team United 123-No Coast 177
152% Nutcrackers 270-Wicked Pissahs 178
156% Cape Fear Black Harrts 124 -Carolina Bootleggers 194
166% Nashville 246-Tallahassee 148
172% Burning River 149-Queen City 256
174% PPDD All Stars 138-Capital Punishers 240
178% OK Victory Dolls 221-Duke City 124
185% Ithaca 194-Central NY 105
187% Chicago Outfit Shade Brigade 193-McClean County 103
187% Finger Lakes 232-Broome County 124

Sort of lame:
201% Arkham Horrors 118-Cosmonaughties 237
231% Pikes Peak 136-Santa Cruz 314
247% West Texas 96-Oklahoma City 237
252% Cape Fear 265-Mason-Dixon 105
260% Detroit 285-Cincinnati 109
289% Manhattan Mayhem 91-Queens of Pain 262
289% Detroit Motor City 76-Ohio Gang Green 220
306% Hammer City 245-Glass City 80
310% Oly 304-Jet City 98

You’re boring me:
(No one)

Blowout:
419% Inland Empire 104-Angel City Rocket Queens 436
436% Twin City 397-Circle City 91
451% Sin City 80-Angel City 361
488% Tallahassee Jailbreak Betties 93-Nashville Music City Brawl Stars 454
659% Ft Myers 46-Tampa 303
873% Twin City Plan B 428 -Circle City Party Crashers 49
1350% Dixie 351-Tragic City All Stars 26
1423% Victoria 370-South island 26

All scores are from Derby News Network. I didn’t pick and choose — there are men’s games here, home teams, etc.

Also, I don’t have time (right now) to do this for this weekend last year, but upon initial glance, it looks exactly the same at this year. There are some really close games and a few wide spreads (Actually, there may have been more blow outs this weekend last year. I’ll try to find some time and update this with last year’s stats if I find an hour or two.). Which leads me to believe it’s not so much a rule’s change …

*Disclaimer: Boring roller derby is still roller derby and derby ain’t boring.
**Sad, true.