"As a jammer you don't get through if your blockers don't help you, so thanks for the MVP award but it's for my team really," Rangeon said, in a podium interview after the tournament. Teammate Shaina "EEEKlips" Serelson earned Blocker MVP honors. "We watched a lot of video throughout the season to prepare for the playoff, so I think we learned from all the mistakes that we've made and it paid off," Rangeon said. The Denver Roller Dolls hadn't made it to championships since 2009; this is the team's second third-place finish.
After beating the Mile High Club in semifinals on Saturday, the Gotham Girls All-Stars followed up a 2011 win at the championships held here in Colorado with another championship win in Atlanta, completing a perfect 15-0 season after beating out the Oly Rollers in finals to hang on to the Hydra trophy for another year.
Previous updates and original story after the jump...
See also: - Denver Roller Dolls finish second in the West Region - Denver's eleven best roller derby nicknames - Mr. President, meet Amanda Jamitinya: Roller derby champs want White House welcome
UPDATE 11/3/2012, 8 p.m.: The Denver Roller Dolls' Mile High Club lost 221-120 in the semifinals round against defending champs Gotham Girls All-Stars on Saturday at the 2012 "Grits and Glory" Women's Flat Track Roller Derby Association Championships in Atlanta. The Mile High Club will skate against Texas Rollergirls for the third place consolation round on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET (11 a.m. locally); Gotham Girls will skate against the Oly Rollers -- the team that beat Mile High Club for the West region championships in September -- at 3 p.m. ET (1 p.m. locally). Eden (3090 Downing Street) will be screening both bouts during its brunch service.
UPDATE 11/3/2012, 2 p.m.: The Denver Roller Dolls' Mile High Club breezed past the Windy City Rollers 212-130 in today's quarterfinals bout at the 2012 "Grits and Glory" Women's Flat Track Roller Derby Association Championships in Atlanta (full blow-by-blow at DerbyNewsNetwork.com), and will be skating in semifinals tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET (6:30 locally), most likely against the Gotham Girls All-Stars. Eden is hosting a viewing party at 3090 Downing Street, and the local heroes will need all the cheering they can get: Gotham is the defending champion and is currently the number one ranked team in the country, according to Derby News Network's power rankings (the Mile High Club is No. 3, behind Olympia, Washington's Oly Rollers, the team most likely to make it to finals from the other side of the bracket).
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Mile High Club beat Baltimore's Charm City Roller Girls 268-141 today (Friday) in the opening round of the 2012 "Grits and Glory" Women's Flat Track Roller Derby Association Championships in Atlanta, and will next face Chicago's Windy City Rollers on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET (noon around these parts) in the quarterfinals round.
The Mile High Club entered the tournament as the No. 2 team in the WFTDA West Region after a second-place finish behind Olympia, Washington's Oly Rollers in finals at the West Region Championships in September. According to the Derby News Network's power rankings, the team is ranked third overall heading into the tournament, behind New York's Gotham Girls -- the defending 2011 champs -- and the Oly Rollers.Windy City is ranked fifth and will be a formidable opponent, but the Mile High Club is expected to win Saturday's quarterfinal round. After that the women will have their work cut out for them: They'll likely face the Gotham Girls (the tournament favorite, Hurricane Sandy setbacks notwithstanding) in semifinals on Saturday night, and, if they can manage to upset Gotham, will almost assuredly earn a rematch against the Oly Rollers in finals on Sunday.
The tournament bouts are being webcast live at WFTDA.tv ($20 for the weekend package, audio feed is free), and local fans are gathering at Eden, 3090 Downing Street, to watch the action on the big screens for the official local viewing party hosted by the Denver Roller Dolls.
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