The Queen’s birthday long weekend saw members of the Convict City Rollers jetting off to Adelaide to participate in the world’s BIGGEST roller derby event to date: The Great Southern Slam (Commonly referred to as TGSS)!

This year The Convicts were originally going to TGSS to play in the Matchup Bouts (Where a team gets to play two other teams they have never played before), but they were given the chance to play in the tournament as the 18th team!

The first round of the tournament was a round robin style of play with 6 pools of 3 teams. Each pool contained one high ranked team, one middle ranked team and one low ranked team. The teams in The Convict’s pool were Sydney Roller Derby League (high ranked), Ballarat Roller Derby League (middle ranked) and then the Convicts, who were the low ranked team and for The Convicts to go onto the next round they had to beat both of these teams in the first round.

The Convicts first game of the tournament was against Ballarat who they had already skated against two years earlier in November 2010, in what was their very first interstate, interleague game. That game in November 2010 saw Ballarat win convincingly with a score of 213 to 56, so the Convicts were out to prove they have come along way since then. Prove it they did, with an exciting close game where The Convicts were in the lead from the beginning with only one lead change to Ballarat for one jam in the second half. The final score was Convicts 98 to Ballarat 84.

Still on a high from their win against Ballarat, The Convicts had to prepare to play Sydney with only an hour and half break between games. Sydney was the high ranked team in their pool and The Convicts knew it was going to be a tough game, but even losing they would learn a lot from this talented team of skaters.

The Convicts fought hard until the very end of the game, celebrating their little victories as they happened and being encouraged by the roars of support from the sidelines. Even though they lost by a large margin the girls had massive smiles on their faces at the very end. Final score Convicts 31 to Sydney 177.

This loss meant that the Convicts couldn’t progress to the next round in the tournament, but had proved to themselves and the derby community that The Convict City Rollers were up there with some of the best teams in the Country, officially being ranked 11th out of 18 by the end of the tournament.

The other Tassie leagues also attended TGSS, all of them playing in the Matchup bouts and doing Tasmania proud. The Convict City Rollers would like to thank the other Tassie leagues for their support at TGSS and congratulate them all on their own amazing performance.

And I would like to Thank everyone that helped get The Convicts there, that cheered for them at home via Derby News Network (DNN) and in Adelaide, to all the sponsors, members and fans for just being downright awesome.

x R3d Hax0r x

Results of Other Tasmanian Games:

Devil State 231 VS Toowoomba 164
Devil State 170 Vs East Victoria 163

South Island Sirens 205 VS Gold City 104
South Island Sirens 164 VS Toowoomba 170

Van Diemen Rollers 219 VS Terrortorians 184
Van Diemen Rollers 164 VS Murder City 71