September 23, the day of the bout. I did not sleep well but it was time to get my game face on. We occupied Denny’s for our team breakfast. After breakfast we parted ways. Some of us went to Walmart, while others went running, swimming, or to Starbucks. We all got bout ready and went to eat lunch before heading out to the venue. The bout was located at the Flagstaff Activity Center.
I strapped on my skates and took the track to test out the floors. A couple days before we left we had been informed that the floor was named, “The Swamp.” The track lived up to the name. It felt like skating on AstroTurf. The straight-aways grabbed your feet like mud and the turns were slippery. My first jam I was tug boating a 3 wall. 2 fell and I got a major back block. I felt so awful! During the game all I could think of was how awful the floors were! It was painful to skate on and from what I heard painful to watch us skate. I remember finally breaking free from the pack and watching the pack get closer to me faster than I could skate away. At the half the score was 77-8. After a pep talk from Racky Balboa and Andrematon, we held a stronger wall, played more aggressively, and rallied as a team! The final score was 135-23.
This was definitely a big learning experience for the Santas. I think about what we could have done better during the game, how we could have had stronger walls, how I could have fought harder as a jammer. I can dwell on these things but as a player, you have to realize that you can’t always win. Does it suck not to win? Yes, but you move on. All you can do is think about what’s next to come. Penalties won’t always be called…Refs are human too! You learn from your mistakes as an individual and as a team, give it all you got to work hard, and keep skating left.
We did however win the after party!
<3, Fatal Mishtake #9:15