Derby Deeds Podcast™ – Episode #116
- July 13th, 2012
- Posted in Podcasts
- By Megatron
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QUICK HITS!
- 0:00:00 – Show Open & Shout Outs (with surprise guest!)
- 0:04:30 – Quick Hits!!
- 0:14:00 – Andi & Pitchit recap their weekend!
- 0:17:30 – Nerdgasm calls in about reffing at Pitchit’s game!
- 0:19:45 – Pitchit responds!
- 0:27:00 – More weekend recap action!
- 0:34:30 - Tré LeTrash joins us to respond to our commentary on Jet City!
- 0:40:25 – Andi talks about the new Canadian Rankings!
- 0:43:15 – A quick preview of Rat City vs Rose City!
- 0:43:15 – This week in the news – more WFTDA response about Minnesota vs Windy City!
- 0:51:20 – LADD & ACDG are featured in the new Aerosmith video!
- 0:54:00 – Week 4 of the Derby Supply Gear Review with Pitchit!
- 1:03:45 – Show Close
The whole damned cast is together again, with Dumptruck calling in from Windy City Rollers’ practice! Reunited and it feels so good! Tré LeTrash, coach for Jet City Rollergirls’ Bombers, calls in as well to respond to our commentary about Jet City during our Western region preview.
We asked y’all what you want us to talk about it, and then we talk about it! QUICK HITS! We even elaborate on some.
New Canadian rankings are up. The Derby Nerd has thoughts about them.
We quickly preview some upcoming action. Are you anywhere near Ventura, CA? Go see the West Coast Derby Knockouts take on the Bakersfield Diamond Divas this Saturday. Maybe you’re in New Orleans, LA? You should run with the “bulls!” If you find some spare change in your pocket, share it with Sacred City and help them get a new skating floor.
Have you seen the new Aerosmith video featuring a bunch of our friends from LA area roller derby?
Pitchit continues his 5-week skate review series with a review of his custom color Riedell 951s with PowerDyne Reactor plates!
This week’s cast:
- Jason Megatron Burrows
- Andi Struction
- Dumptruck
- Tré LeTrash
- and Pitchit!
Once you’ve listened to the show, CALL US! Let us know what you think! Call the Derby Deeds Phone Line – 864-372-9337
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Derby Deeds Podcast by derbydeeds.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
In regards to Canadian Roller Derby Rankings – I keep finding it so strange that Tri-City keeps getting ranked higher than Toronto, when Toronto clearly beat Tri-City in head to head action in April 2012. Recent head to head action (compared to common relative games comparison) is the best way to determine rankings.
- rev.ramirez
@Reverend Ramirez
The problem with head to head ranking is that it just doesn’t work, despite it’s immense fan popularity. Head to head ranking breaks when it’s confronted with the triangle, that is when A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A. This occurrence is not uncommon, it happened just last weekend at Roc City (Rochester, NY), when Roc City beat Rideau Valley, Rideau Valley beat Queen City, and Queen City beat Roc City, all happening the same day.
Life is not fair; and sports, being a part of life, is not fair either. This fact is often refused to be comprehended by fans. Upsets happen; the better team, on occasion, will lose. In fact without upsets, sports would be kinda boring.
Serious rankers have moved on to the concept of consistency. The problem is, consistency is a fuzzy concept. There is no generally accepted model or technique to measure consistency. As a result there are hundreds of ranking systems and their variations, each tuned to their owners’ taste.
The most successful systems use probability theory. Probability theory is a branch of advanced mathematics. Fans hate probability theory, because they don’t understand probability theory, even when it’s explained to them. Fans are no different from anybody else, people hate what they don’t understand and the explanations of probability theory sound like gobbledegook. But probability theory, when dealing with large sets of data, can be very precise.
The problem with applying probability theory to roller derby are two fold. First, is the small number of games the average roller derby team plays, it’s barely enough to get a 75 to 80 percent confidence rating in the formulas, about the same accuracy as a dedicated roller derby fan. The second is the fluidity of roller derby teams, that is the injuries and transfers that can significantly change the strength of a team over a season. At the end of westerns last year, who thought Arizona would have a chance of attending next year’s? Of course, probability theory is no different than other methods in that there are numerous formulas and variations that apply the theory, each to their owner’s taste.
Computerized ranking systems have their place, their not perfect, nothing can be. But they’re far better than head to head, despite fan’s preference for head to head.
@Southbay
while i can accept that fuzzy logic systems can produce difficult to understand results, even if run to the n’th iteration, and while i can also acknowledge that probability theory also has its place, i can not concede that roller derby as a sport, and most sports in general, should not be based around head to head action when possible.
if a team sport such as roller derby were to accept what you’re suggesting, then we wouldn’t bother with regionals, or championship finals for that matter. we’d just feed random game results into an accepted algorithm and then the mysterious black box would spit out who gets 1st place, who gets 2nd and who gets 3rd. i wasn’t posting about ‘fairness’ i was posting about a particular game that seems to have been overlooked.
regardless, as you mentioned, nothing is perfect. while you might not want to accept that head to head action is how we generally accept as ‘best’ practice for determining results and rankings, i doubt there will be many who will agree that competitive sports, such as roller derby, should be decided solely on probability theory vs. head to head action.
why not just take every athlete, determine their probabilistic performance through biometric, physiological, and neurobehavioural performance measures and then use probability theory or fuzzy c-means to establish their performance on a given team, and then use that information to produce game outcomes and then mail out trophies to the teams? i highly doubt its just the fans that prefer head to head action. i would say the athletes themselves would prefer to skate against another team to determine their fate/rankings rather than use a black box ranking system based on mathematical theory.