In January, Tank published an entry detailing the case for removing minor penalties from the sport of roller derby. This past weekend at the 2011 East Coast Derby Extravaganza (ECDX) in Feasterville, the WFTDA held its first round of public “No Minors Beta Test” sanctioned games. ECDX is a high profile event and had excellent live streaming coverage (High Definition archives and DVDs of all games available here) so many eyes across the derby universe were on these games. RDIT has compiled some initial impressions on the game from various sources, and hopes that readers will continue to share their thoughts in the comments.

Prior to this past weekend’s Official No Minors Beta Test Games, a handful of teams around the nation have been experimenting on their own, and some feedback is floating around the internet already. For example, check out this recap from Potomac Ripper of the DC Rollergirls.

Tank, Announcer and Roller Derby Inside Track contributor:

After Watching two beta bouts, my faith in roller derby has been fully restored. It’s awesome, the game is so much better. WFTDA did a brilliant job with who they picked for the three bouts (two teams that have never played at regionals, two teams that have played at regionals and two teams that have played in a championship tournament).It makes a big difference getting rid of that big stupid penalty board in the middle of the track and getting rid of outside white boards, trimming down the NSOs that are out there and just having the refs, it looks a lot better and you have better sight lines. When it’s a foul, you know it’s a foul- there’s no trying to figure out “is that an elbow, it it a fourth minor?”

During the Steel City-Maine bout I went over and talked to the NSOs and asked what the penalties are like right now, and they said it’s on par with what we normally see for trips to the box, or actually a little less, suggesting that intensity and penalties weren’t heightened at all. I asked some of the high-level refs about it and they loved it. It’s so much easier to do, you don’t have to watch and see if a situation escalates (no impact, minor impact, major impact) you just assess if it is a penalty or not. This way you can watch something and call it as a penalty or not, you make the call and move on, or not.

Varla Vendetta, Windy City Rollers

There’s a few things that probably need tweaking and loopholes to be closed. But as an overall idea, I think it’s much easier for spectators to understand. That’s a plus for the growth of an engaged audience. A person commits a foul and they go out because of it. No more ambiguous accumulation that delays when a person serves time for doing something that is against the rules.

Athena, Steel City Derby Demons

Loved No Minors as a Player! Let’s get rid of ‘em. I had already felt I was going to like it. After playing the game against Maine, I feel everything was much more transparent, aggressive and fast paced. You really had to be a bit more strategic. Also, I felt more freedom on the floor.

Janessa “TheKraken” Kent (via Facebook)

[]4 No minors = more fun! Less stress about the little crap eventually sending you to the box. And, I love the one player track cut majors! Makes jammer TO more effective cause she can’t just cut you cause you’re a single blocker.

Nathan Cappallo (via Facebook)

Ugly. Refs were focused on the rules that were different and forgot to call things that went unchanged. For example: 6.5.10.2 – Use of hands or forearms to grab or hold an opposing skater, either impeding that skater’s mobility, causing that skater to lose advantage, or forcing that skater to the ground. There was egregious grabbing of wrists and jerseys to keep the opponents from skating that I never saw called.

The All-Knowing Derbytron (via email- who knew? Robots have opinions):

I don’t think there should be any doubt that WFTDA should eliminate minors after this weekend. The Charm City/Windy City game was by far the most entertaining physical game I’ve seen since last year’s championship. The skaters weren’t holding anything back because they didn’t have to worry about ticky tack penalties. With the current rulebook, skaters are required to use half their brainpower to think about avoiding minors. A game shouldn’t be about avoiding penalties. Penalties should exist to penalize bad behavior. Minor penalties just penalize normal gameplay. For the first time, I watched a roller derby game where the skaters went out there and just played the freakin’ game without any hesitation. And it was awesome.

That’s not to say the beta rules are perfect in their current form. A couple things need to be reworked but the obvious one is track cuts, especially track cuts around one opposing blocker. Is that really deserving of a minute in the penalty box? In the current rules, track cuts seem to account for too high a percentage of power jams and that has only increased under the beta rules. I don’t think power jams are evil like some people but rules shouldn’t be added to cause more of them. Track cuts should be treated just like false starts. A skater cuts another skater (or more) of the opposing team and they should have the opportunity to yield position (and jammers lose the point) before a box trip is given. Being forced to yield position is a penalty that fits the crime. A minute in the box for cutting one blocker is like giving someone twenty years for jaywalking.

Hymen Heaven, Philly Roller Girls and ECDX Video Production Manager (via email)

From a video production perspective, the “No Minors” Beta Bouts at ECDX 2011 offered Philly Roller Girls a major risk that ultimately paid off. Terrifying? Absolutely. These “No Minors” bouts could have easily come to a screeching halt at any time—as bouts immediately following any rules change will often do—requiring time to sort out calls, points and penalties.

But Professor Murder helped put together an officiating crew who kept the spirit of the rules change: Monitoring and gauging loss of position, as opposed to the focus on impact that the current rules provide. At the start of the weekend, the video production crew, announcers and Head Ref went over the proposed rule-set, to chat about the differences, and both stream and house mouths felt confident going into the weekend.

So…what did we see? A smoothly-flowing, well-communicated and fluid, exciting game. The majors (or, technically the ONLY penalties called) were easy to spot on camera, and nearly every play within the frame was visible. Although each of the Beta Bouts were exciting for their own reasons, the first of the weekend–Windy v. Charm–was played by two notoriously physical teams. With the loss of smaller impact penalties, each team skating under the proposed rule set is in the position of weathering sustained small impact over the course of a bout. And by the end of the second half, the exhaustion from Charm’s withered offense could be easily seen by the camera lens, adding to the drama and overall emotional impact of the game.

Grant ‘Snark’ Enfield (via Facebook):

…while I’m all for moving to simply “penalties,” it seemed to me that the beta rules pretty much just changed all the current minors to no penalty, and I think better discretion needs to be used there.

Vince Hannity, Announcer and Roller Derby Inside Track contributor:

Having called the Lehigh Valley-River City bout right at rinkside on Sunday, I did note that three or four skaters from Lehigh Valley were in serious foul trouble at the half. In fact, one of their skaters had five trips to the box by halftime. River City had maybe about 6 skaters (if not more) who had at least three trips to the penalty box. However, no one fouled out of the bout.

I don’t think it was necessarily sloppy play or such causing this.

Image courtesy of Captain Gorgeous