Skaters don't want to admit it (half the time all these new skaters don't even know there was another way), but the current style of play sucks to watch. Fucking sucks. Deal with it. Attendance around the country has been reflecting how poorly received this newer style of derby has been received and yet nothing has been done to fix it. And I don't give a single fuck about what's been "discussed" in committee derby. Fact is nothing has changed in years and that's a bad thing in this case. If WFTDA doesn't care about fans, that's fine I suppose, but at some point, one can only fall so far back down the mountain before they are back where they started at ground level.
This type of derby removes a tremendous amount of skill and excludes smaller, faster players more often than not. Every year sees more and more of the skill players retiring and moving on to something else rather than play this boring, toilsome style of play. Now I'll step off that soapbox because I assume you know that I think this style of play can eat a bag of dicks.
Here's the fix. It's all pre-jam positioning. 90% of skaters can't make even a two-wall off the start unless they get to line-up next to each other. So change this and the game changes significantly and for the better. One whistle start has always made sense so that stays. But assign starting positions to each team as crudely drawn below:
WP is White Pivot, BP is Black Pivot, W1 White Blocker #1, B1 Black Blocker #2, etc. By forcing packs to line up like this, you will remove all of the stupidity that occurs on the 1st whistle. It's gone guaranteed. It'll require smart and agile skaters to put together a wall of even two people in this set-up. This will also reward the average jammer by allowing them to have some speed upon pack entry and that is more likely to bring fans back and for leagues to retain skaters.
Additionally, I think a blocker that starts in the box is considered #3 for positioning purposes. Two blockers in the box means that team has no one starting in positions #2 or #3.
To summarize, same one-whistle start. Add set jam start positioning for every blocker. Pretty much done. Game will be faster, have a lot more skill, and the strategy will be far more interesting when two relatively equal teams match up with each other. And it will be more fun again; so, you may even get some casual fans back.
.JPG)
