all about team … on the track and beyond.

The Oz Roller Girls rolled up their ninth straight win over the weekend, topping the Kingston Derby Girls’ Skateful Dead 200-124, but what really stood out to me was the teamwork that happened away from the eyes of the audience.

Our season opener involved our rented sport floor in a place we’d never played, the historic Oswego YMCA Armory. This required a veritable army of volunteers — rollergirls, refs, NSOs, volunteers and family members — to dissemble the floor at our OzZone facility, transport it across town, put it down in the Armory and then take the floor up again … all in one day. The whirlwind began at 11 a.m. with breaking the floor into 3 x 4 sections of tile at our facility, and we somehow had the floor down at the Armory within a couple of hours. Then after the exciting bout, a range of volunteers — including Kingston skaters and fans as well — broke the floor up again, stacked it, put it in vehicles and offloaded it our facility.

All that work notwithstanding, the Armory was a fabulous place to hold our first bout of the season. The seating is closer and makes for a more intimate experience. The layout, to me, made the fans much more a part of the bout. The acoustics are better … although we needed a hearty assist from Mike (aka Mr. J-Rock-It) of sponsor Dynamic Sound and Security to run in equipment to make sure we could be heard.

For the bout itself, I had a great bird’s-eye view from the balcony to call the action. We also had marvelous contributions by the World’s Most Dangerous Sideline Reporters, as Certified Public Assassin and Insane Assilem, both out with knee injuries, lent their expertise and personality to calling the action (and even volunteered to try their hands at wheelchair basketball with Move Along Inc. at halftime). Our new music man, DJ Atomic, handled his debut appearance with aplomb and picked things up very quickly.

The girls and guys from Kingston were awesome guests, right down to the dozens of fans who crossed the border with them. I’d like to think the whole night was a lot of fun for all involved. And, in large part, that was made possible by a huge team of volunteers who truly deserve an ovation.