Let's retire these things with honors in the Derby Museum

Sometimes when I sit around and think about how things would be different if I ruled the world.  In my fantasy land, I would have a ceremony for things I feel should be retired from modern derby as we know it.  Here are a list of my favorites.

1.  My first nomination for the derby museum is numbers that are more than four digits or have letters in them.  I know, I know, you all have rad numbers and your letters spell out cute sayings, but it is damned hard to read them when you're  a ref.  Plus, if you're skinny, four numbers do NOT fit on your arm; no ref wants to read numbers up in your armpits! And please please please don't think that just because you have a complicated number, that means the ref won't call you out on a penalty; they will, they just may stutter first.

Yes, yes I am.  Now save the cleverness for your license plate and get a real number.

2.  Gross or inappropriate derby names.  Really?  Please stop ruining it for the rest of us.  I picked a name that was neither offensive or about my genitalia; please stop naming yourself after obscure sexual acts or vaginas.  If you have to skate with a black bar over your name, or you have to reference the urban dictionary to make any sense of it, it's TOO MUCH!  I'm not calling you out because you know who you are.

Not a derby name that I know of, but an actual He-Man character's name.  Look it up. (And if you want inspiration for awful derby names, just check out the list of supporting characters.)

3.  Belts.  I know, belts are great handles for jammers to grab in desperation, but if blockers actually were paying attention to where their jammers were, wouldn't an arm whip be so much better?  You can break your finger hooking it around a belt, and even though you don't need fingers to skate, you might need them in your real life.  I know blockers get pantsed at times by desperate jammers; I've had my outer shorts yanked down by a clutchy jammer in a game or two, but I SHOULD have been paying attention and given her a whip before it got to that point. 

Yeah, shirts get ripped, but they also stretch.

4.  Score keeping skater girls.  I haven't seen these in a while, but I do know some leagues used to have two skaters that acted like ring girls that skate by the crowd at the end of each jam with the scores in their hands.  It was cute, but we have awesome score boards now, and I really don't want to run into any of these score keepers while I have thirty seconds to get a team on the track!  Having to dodge the outside pack refs can be crazy enough, so it's time to retire this old derby routine.  I know, it gives a non rostered skater a chance to participate in a bout, but the audience can see the score on the projectors.  Let it go.

5.  Scrum starts.  This is derby, not rugby.  Scrum starts are boring as hell to watch and frankly, I'm tired of rules "strategery" in general.  Wouldn't it be refreshing if instead of trying to find the loopholes in the rules, we concentrated on becoming stronger players?  Is it just me?  Ok.  Moving on.

6.  Derby demos.  Honestly, I think derby demos were awesome when derby was in its infancy, but now I feel like it just slows down derby bouts now.  People will not learn what derby is in a four minute explanation; it takes watching a few games to "get it" so I really feel that you can have a brief "break down" of the game in your program and let the game explain itself.  A good announcer can also explain the game while it's happening, which is much more exciting in my book!

Announcers...they can explain stuffs!

So there you have my nominations for the first annual Retirement of Derby Museum awards.  Of course, I'm not in charge of anything but my own imagination, so none of that will actually happen, but it is fun to dream.  If you have any nominations, add them in the comments!