So here's a story about roller derby, but it's maybe a story about something else.

Was a time in my career that we went and played in another team's house. Now, this was a team known for chaotic bouts, and unnecessarily rough play (one might even uncharitably say "cheap shots").

Anyway we got to their facility and learned that they were short refs (I think they had 4 instead of 7?) which was in violation of their contract, but they didn't care and we'd driven a long way to play this damn game, so we decided despite that we were gonna play them anyway.

And man, did they take advantage of that. They were teeing off on us, bending the rules, and whatnot and they weren't getting caught most of the time because the refs were just trying to keep score.

They were getting in our heads. Despite us being better, they pulled ahead.

Some folks said, "hey let's just chill out and play our game; we know we can beat these guys". But the fact was we didn't have all of our starters with us. Legitimately, the way the game was going, there was a chance "just playing our game" wasn't going to be enough.

So I did what I do *second*-best, which is enforce. I figured out who was doing the shady stuff and put every legal hit I could on them. And guess what happened? They backed off, we got our shit together, and we started pulling ahead.

Something that's important to note: I've spent a lot of my career learning to control my rage so that I'm always playing at a 3 instead of a 5, even when I'm laying down the law. When you get too hot is when you lose control and start hurting your own team.

Anyway, I won't say I single-handedly changed anything, but putting the fear of god into the other team definitely helped. Once we had control of the game, we *did* play our game the way we wanted to, and we won handily.

So the moral of this story is that in a situation where the other team isn't playing by the rules and the referees aren't enforcing the rules, a little controlled application of violence is sometimes the thing you need to get back on your game and claw your way to a win.