Scottish Roller Derby Blog (Posts about junior roller derby)

Australian Nationals 2019

aoanla — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 13:20:00 GMT

Entirely reasonably, Australian Roller Derby has tended to organise on the State level, more so than the National level. Almost every State has at least one State-level tournament (5x5 Roller Derby, Statewide Stampede, Boom State Clash!, and this year's Tasmanian Tournament etc), but a formal National tournament has been longer in development, on the WFTDA side of things. (The biannual Great Southern Slam, which remains the largest regular Roller Derby Tournament in existence, sort-of stood in for a National event, but we don't think it ever intended to.)

As such, Australia's unusual in that there's been an Australian Men's Roller Derby Championships since 2014; but no Australian National Tournament for WFTDA-policy teams until last year! Even then, the Australians do things differently: the new Australian National Roller Derby Championships is organised on a State level itself; with teams representing Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, and a team representing the First Nations (the indigenous peoples of Australia). In this sense, it resembles, perhaps, the USA-based "State Wars" more than most other National tournaments. (In addition, the Australian Nationals has both adult, and Juniors tiers, with state-level teams in both.) It's notable, and still disappointing to us, that the Northern Territory, South Australia, and Western Australia are still not represented in the "National" tournament (Perth Men's compete in the Australian Men's, and South Australia in the Juniors!), but we hope that with proper support, this can happen in time.

(By contrast, the Australian Men's is a more familiar design, with city-based teams competing for the Cup.)

In their first year of operation, the "Australian Nationals" was entirely separate from the "Australian Men's", but this year, the two events have co-located whilst maintaining separate branding and organisation. The venue supports two tracks, although the running order shows that only track 1 will be streamed. As Track 1 seems to mostly be hosting the AMRD games, this is unfortunate for anyone interested in the JRDA and WFTDA-gender State tournaments; only the first game in the WFTDA-gender event will be streamed, along with the finals of each. (The schedule does appropriately offset the games on each track, so that one is "playing" whilst the other is in half-time or end of game break).

There are other changes from last year: in the Men's, New Zealand Men's Roller Derby is competing for the first time (making this... not really a National tournament any more...) EDIT: we've been informed that NZMRD did participate in the first Australian Men's in 2014, and could potentially upset things as they play #1 seed, Victoria's Vanguard in their first game. We are confident that the Vanguard will win, but a National level team always has the potential to cause spoilers.

In the Nationals, the ACT team is new this year; with only two leagues in the ACT area (a bit like the USA's Washington DC, the ACT is essentially a tiny area surrounding the national capital, Canberra), it's pretty easy to guess who their skaters might be. (Even with their team's decision to go fully into a Duck theme, with every skater skating under the name of an anatine pun, their numbers remain the same.)

In addition, the team representing the First Nations has changed: in 2018, "Team Indigenous Dreaming" represented, whilst this year, a new team called "First Nations and Accomplices" is in their stead. Team Indigenous Dreaming have clarified that the two teams are not related; First Nations and Accomplices, unlike Team Indigenous Dreaming, is open to "allies" of First Nations people, as well as First Nations people themselves.

(We'd like to thank Team Victoria for being the only State team to label the league each skater comes from on their roster; this makes it much easier to see how diverse their intake was! Team VIC has skaters from 7 different leagues, and whilst VRDL are definitely represented, they're by far not the majority contributor.)

As a co-hosted event, all three National Tournaments share a THR, the very experienced Denominator, and a THNSO, Mama Panda.

Looking ahead to the tournament predictions: for the Men's side, it would be unwise to rule out another tournament victory for Victorian Men's Roller Derby. Since the AMRDC started, they've only lost once; in 2017 when Tasmania took a shock victory and broke their three-year streak. With a conventional single-elimination format (and two consolation games), the tournament design will tend to reinforce its own seeding, making it very likely that the Vanguard will win. The most likely team to upset them, based on current Flat Track Stats ratings, is the host league, Brisbane's Scartel. With only a smattering of rating points between the two teams, home team advantage could easily be enough to allow the hosts victory.

The WFTDA-gender and Juniors tiers are much harder to predict: State-level teams which exist for only a single event have very little history to base predictions on (and even a roster only gets you so far). In 2018, (WFTDA-gender) Team Queensland won, with a strong (222:125) victory over Team Victoria in the final, whilst for the Juniors, Team NSW/ACT took an equally striking victory over Team South Australia.

The WFTDA-gender tournament is structured as a double-elimination tournament; as such, we're not as concerned for the First Nations team, who are drawn against Victoria for their first game, as they will have a chance to progress in the lower bracket. (Interestingly, this is the same draw (switching FN&A for TI:D) that was determined in 2018, although with an additional team in the mix, the brackets are otherwise different.)

The Junior tournament, with only three teams - South Australia, Queensland and "New South Wales + ACT" - has an interesting structure which seems designed to give them as many games as possible. A three game round robin (which would ordinarily supply an unambiguous champion in itself) selects into a "Grand Final" for the top 2 teams; but even then, the loser in the Final plays the remaining team in a "2nd Place playoff". This structure returns from the previous year, but we still remain unsure as to why the competition isn't simply running a double round robin (which would give all the teams an equal number of games, for the addition of just a single scheduled bout).

The Australian National Roller Derby tournaments, all of them, will start on Friday 8th November, at the Mt Warren Sports Centre, 2 Milne Street, Mount Warren Park, QLD, Australia.

Weekend Highlights: 28 September 2019

aoanla — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 13:30:00 GMT

This is another really busy weekend, but weirdly less so in Latin America on Saturday [edit: this turned out to be just that the events were harder to find]. We have two 10th birthdays of leagues, several bootcamps and tournaments (including possibly our favourite one, the Hot Chilli Cup - providing both Junior derby bootcamp and tournament in Australia), and a bunch of exciting derby in Argentina. As there are so many deserving events, we'll be having an addendum to cover significant things in the Sunday-Monday period later in the week.

We've also switched to a better map projection (Eckert IV) for this edition, to more accurately represent the scale of the countries and continents of the world.

The rules are, as usual: highlights limited to 1 event per country, with an "extra" event allowed for a different kind of fixture (so, 1 tournament and 1 bootcamp), or if they involve Scottish leagues (since we are the Scottish Roller Derby Blog). Other notability might also allow the extra event - great posters, notable teams, etc. (League birthdays may count as "special" enough, at our discretion ;) )

We've bent the rules a bit this time, because it's important to highlight derby in regions which need more attention, and because it's quiet enough that we have the space.

In a bid to make this list as useful as possible, we've avoided links to Facebook except where noted. (Links to Teams are to non-Facebook resources - Instagram, or actual team pages - we'd strongly recommend that Teams get themselves an actual webpage [we can help host one if you need help]).

Locations are roughly organised East-West (with things before the weekend out sequence at the start).

Weekend Highlights: 06 July 2019

aoanla — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 18:00:00 GMT

This weekend's highlights are back to our two update format.

There's not one, but two national championships decided this weekend, as the finals of the Finnish National Championships and the first ever ARDE Spanish National Championships both fall here.

Locations are roughly organised East-West (with things before the weekend out sequence at the start).

Weekend Highlights: 16 June 2019

aoanla — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 07:00:00 GMT

This is the Sunday addendum edition of the highlights, for 16 June.

We're slightly breaking our usual rule this Sunday to allow two events for France. The French schedule of events is so dense, we end up overlooking many of them each weekend in only picking one, so we're selecting two equally important fixtures for this Sunday.

Locations are roughly organised East-West (with things before the weekend out sequence at the start).

Sun: Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Toowoomba City Juniors host a double scrimmage day for JRDA level 2 and 3 skaters: one scrim will be level 2 and one level 3. Skaters will also be encouraged to try officiating the scrim they're not competing in.

Event starts: 1000 Sunday

Venue: Gowrie Junction Progress Association and Community Hall, 24 Old Homebush Road, Gowrie Junction, QLD, Australia

Sun: Adelaide, SA, Australia

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Rockabellas Roller Derby League host that most Australian of fundraisers, a Sausage Sizzle, to help raise funds for their Juniors and Officials.

Event starts: 0800 Sunday

Venue: The Original Open Market inc, 121 Beach Rd, Christies Beach, SA, Australia

Sun: Helsinki, Finland

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Helsinki Roller Derby (or at least, those of them not in Canada) are part of "Jam in the Box"'s Skate Together open outdoor skate events, of which the first this year is today!

Event starts: 1700 Sunday

Venue: Jam in the box, Vaasankatu 6, Helsinki, Finland

Sun: Nijmegen, Netherlands

[FACEBOOK LINK]

The Roadkill Rollers host their inaugural "Small Teams Tournament", a one-day event aimed at giving smaller teams more opportunities to play in a tournament environment. This is an 8 team tournament, organised as 2 groups of 4, into a final between the top team in each group (for a total of 13 games in the day). Each game is 20 minutes long, based on the schedule. The tournament is OTA, but not all teams are.

Teams (Group A)
- Market Gardeners (Eindhoven, Arnhem and Nijmegen)
- Thunder & Lightning (Groningen)
- Jammer Slammers (Arnhem??)
- Roller Derby Twente
(Group B)
- Roadkill Rollers (Nijmegen)
- Keytown Roller Derby (Leiden-based exhibition team)
- Pink Peril Roller Derby (Limburg)
- Blacksheep Honey Rollers (Middelburg)

Games are not listed in FTS, as they are too short. (We'd still love to know the results, though)

Event starts: 1200 Sunday (first game)

Venue: Sporthal de Horstacker, Horstacker 1401, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Sun: Dunkirk, France

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK]

The Sirènes Hurlants of Dunkirk host a triple header of Roller Derby on the French coast, with two scrimmages (one MRDA-gender and one WFTDA-gender), and a full game.

Les Sirènes Hurlantes (Dunkirk) versus Les Nasty Pêcheresses (Montreuil B)
MRDA-gender Open Scrimmage
WFTDA-gender rookie Open Scrimmage

FTS lists only the first game, as scrimmages cannot be rated

Event starts: 1100 Sunday

Venue: Lycée de l'Europe, 809 Rue du Banc Vert, Dunkirk, France

Sun: Limoges, France

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK 1] [FTS LINK 2] [FTS LINK 3]

Limoges' Porcelain Dolls host a triple header of French roller derby for a less-than-quiet Sunday. This is a round-robin tournament between Limoges, Quads de Paris, and Toulouse!

Rainbow Furies (Toulouse C) versus Porcelain Dolls (Limoges)
La Carcasse (Quads de Paris C) versus Rainbow Furies
Porcelain Dolls versus La Carcasse

Event starts: 1000 Sunday

Venue: Gymnases Municipaux Beaubreuil Hau, 84 rue Rhin et Danube, Limoges, France

Sun: Loughborough, UK

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Leicestershire Dolly Rockit Rollers are also helping to give people more games, with their "Love at First Fight", a WFTDA-gender policy rookie & intermediate tournament. This is a three-team round-robin tournament with teams mixed up from the skaters signed up, with the three 30 minute games ending in a 40-minute final (presumably a rematch between the two highest ranked teams).

Event starts: 1200 Sunday

Venue: Loughborough Leisure Centre, Browns Lane, Loughborough, UK

Sun: Miramar, Argentina

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Atlántico Sur . Cobra Quads . MDQueens . Rebeldes del Asfalto Roller Derby and Sudestada Roller Derby Necochea are collaborating on a series of "Officials on the Atlantic Coast" referee and NSO clinics, designed to build and strengthen the officiating community along the Necochea to Mar del Plata area. (This is necessary to enable the proper support of Roller Derby in this area of Argentina, where, as you can see, there's a lot of teams already!). This first edition is hosted by Atlántico Sur in Miramar.

Event starts: 1700 Sunday

Venue: Club Defensores, Miramar, Argentina

Weekend Highlights: 15 June 2019

aoanla — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 09:00:00 GMT

This weekend's highlights are back to our two update format (partly because of the density of events in the UK and France, so we want to give more time to breathe).

The Scottish clause here gives us two updates for the UK, one in Scotland and one down south! Meanwhile, in general, this is obviously a weekend for bootcamps, with 3 of them in Europe, and two of those full weekend events!

Locations are roughly organised East-West (with things before the weekend out sequence at the start).

Sat: Whakatāne, New Zealand

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK]

Whakatāne Roller Derby host a single header event as part of this year's Top 10 NZ Roller Derby Championships series.

Brawl Stars (Whakatāne) versus Pirate City Rollers All-Stars (Auckland)

Event starts: 1600 Saturday (doors open)

Venue: Whakatāne War Memorial Hall, 7 Short Street, Whakatāne, New Zealand

Sat: Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Newcastle Roller Derby League is hosting a pretty unique fundraiser: they're hosting an art exhibition of digital portraits of each member (skaters and bench staff) of their Dockyard Dames (A team), each created, and signed, by Sammi Jurd. Each and every 40x50cm portrait will then be auctioned off to the highest bidder!

Event starts: 1830 Saturday

Venue: Newcastle ArtSpace, 91 Chinchen Street, Tighes Hill, Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Sat: Lardner, VIC, Australia

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Gippsland Ranges Roller Derby host the first ever Gippsland Pride Cup, in association with Pride Cup Australia. As well as an exhibition bout against the Australian trans-and-gender-diverse exhibition team, the Gender Ending Story (who also have one of the best team names in the sport), the event will also feature an Open-to-All genders low-contact scrimmage to start. (And the usual stalls, events and other ancillary features.)

Low contact rules scrimmage (OTA) (20 min periods)
Gippsland Ranges versus Gender Ending Story (trans and gender-diverse exhibition team)

Event starts: 0900 Saturday ("doors open")

Venue: Lardner Park, 155 Burnt Store Road, Lardner, VIC, Australia

Sat-Sun: Helsinki, Finland

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Helsinki Coast Quads host the return of their tendency to host end-of-season scrimmage events with knowingly silly themes. This time, they're memorialising the retirement of a certain Not-Safe-For-Work derby name, but we think this is probably just an excuse for a scrimmage followed by a sauna.

Event starts: 1400 Saturday

Venue: Viikin Monitoimitalo, Maakaari 3, Helsinki, Finland

Sat-Sun: Stockholm, Sweden

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Stockholm Roller Derby host a 2-day bootcamp, aimed at intermediate (1 year experience post mins), open to WFTDA-gender-policy conforming skaters. Coaches are drawn from Stockholm All-Stars' packed roster, and include: Thunder (one-on-one blocking), Party-O ("Spin-to-Win" for jammers), Slinky (working the outside line for jammers), Chaos (aggressive blocking), Maurine (transitions and backward skating for jammers), Foxen ("The Tripod puzzle" for blockers).

Event starts: 1100 Saturday

Venue: Vallentuna Ishall B-hallen, Parkvägen 3, Vallentuna, Sweden

Sat: Brno, Czech Republic

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Roller Derby Brno Freakshow host a bootcamp in the east of the Czech Republic, coached by Dublin Roller Derby's MuFasta (coach for Dublin C), and Holo-Whip. This is a post-min-skills intro to intermediate bootcamp, Open To All genders. As usual, it will end with a scrimmage for everyone to practice what they've learned.

Event starts: 0900 Saturday

Venue: Jana Babáka 5, Brno, Czech Republic

Sat-Sun: Ljubljana, Slovenia

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FACEBOOK LINK (BOUT)] [FTS LINK]

Roller Derby Ljubljana are part of the Ljubljana Pride series of events, starting this week, with two events on Saturday. Firstly, they will be part of an open round table on "The Role of Roller Derby in the Queer Community", where they'll be joined by representatives from Grenoble's Cannibal Marmots. They'll then go on to play the Cannibal Marmots in a free open bout as part of the Pride Parade.

Round Table Discussion
Roller Derby Ljubljana versus Cannibal Marmots Bééé (Grenoble B)

Event starts: 1730 Saturday (round table), 1900 Saturday (bout)

Venue: Športno društvo GIB, Drenikova 32, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Sat-Sun: Darmstadt, Germany

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK 1] [FTS LINK Bundesliga D2] [FTS LINK Bundesliga D1]

Riot Rollers Darmstadt host a whole weekend of Roller Derby, with 5 games across Saturday and Sunday. Of these, there's even a Bundesliga D1 bout, as Darmstadt play Dresden, and a Bundesliga D2 game as Bembel Town play Cologne!

Saturday:
- Dresden Pioneers (Dresden A) versus Namur Roller Girls
- Bembel Town Rollergirls (Frankfurt) versus Cologne Roller Derby [Bundesliga D2]
- Riot Rollers A versus Dresden Pioneers [Bundesliga D1]
Sunday:
- Riot Rollers B versus Köln Mixed team
- Roller Grrrl Gang (Frankfurt) versus Mixed Team

Sunday games are not listed on FTS as one team is unrateable.

Event starts: 1500 Saturday (doors open)

Venue: LZZ Darmstadt, Kranichsteiner St 86, Darmstadt, Germany

Sat-Sun: Zurich, Switzerland

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK 1] [FTS LINK 2]

Zürich City Roller Derby host an international double header of Roller Derby, facing teams from Sweden and England!

AllstarZ (Zürich A) versus The Royal Army (Royal Swedish A | Stockholm )
BruiseZ (Zürich B) versus Hellfire Harlots B (Nottingham)

Event starts: 1500 Saturday (doors open)

Venue: Sportanlage Fronwald, Fronwaldstrasse, Zürich, Switzerland

Sat: The Hague, Netherlands

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK 1] [FTS LINK 2]

Parliament of Pain end their season with a triple header of Roller Derby. This is particularly exciting, as it includes an OTA gender policy bout!

Aces of Pain (PoP O | The Hague) versus One Hit Wonders (Suck City O | Breda)
Queens of PoP (PoP A) versus Holy Wheels Menace (Liège A)
Mysterious third bout

Event starts: 1300 Saturday (doors open)

Venue: Oranjeplein, Slicherstraat 11, The Hague, Netherlands

Sat-sequence: Brussels, Belgium

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Brussels Roller Derby League host a two-day bootcamp-and-scrimmage weekend, with an evolving schedule. The Saturday beginners skater bootcamp is coached by: Hell Freya, Mardisturbia, Bundy Nelson (Team Belgium + Brussels A) and Meta Cagole (Brussels A), plus Kenny Jean coaching off-skates sessions. The Sunday is a day of various scrimmage events, including "Special rules" games - and a sneak-preview of Brussels' new C team! The entire event is to raise money for Brussels Derby Pixies' trip to California for the Deep Blue Derby Tournament in September.

Saturday:
- Bootcamp (Mins-passed Skaters, Referees and NSOs)
Sunday:
- Beginners mins-passed scrimmage versus Brussels C
- Brussels A/B versus The World (short-format scrimmage with fun rules)
- Three team round robin tournament scrimmage.

Event starts: 0900 Saturday (bootcamp)

Venue: Unknown, Brussels, Belgium

Sat-Sun: Pertuis, France

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK (pending details from organisers)]

Marseille Roller Derby Club host "Paca l'eau, bientôt la bagarre", a "Regional Tournament" for the teams of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Thank you to Lise Bonvalot for help with the schedule here.

Teams involved:
- Les Amazones (Pays d'Aix)
- "Les Morues du Sud" (Nice Roller Derby/Sisters in Arms (Gap)/Toxic Ladies (Toulon))
- Mars Invaders: Marseille Roller Derby Club
- Rabbit Skulls B (Avignon B)
- Rolling Castagne: Roller Derby Club Bastiacciu (Bastia)
Schedule (Sat - 30 min, single period games)
- Nice/Toulon/Gap versus Avignon
- Marseille versus Aix
- Nice/Toulon/Gap versus Bastia
- Avignon versus Aix
- Bastia versus Marseille
- Aix versus Nice/Toulon/Gap
- Avignon versus Marseille
- Aix versus Bastia
Schedule (Sun - 30 min single period, unless noted)
- Marseille versus Nice/Toulon/Gap
- Bastia versus Avignon
- 3rd Place game : 3eme versus 4eme (2 x 30 min)
- Men's open subscription game (2 x 20 min)
- artistic roller skating demo
- Final : 2eme versus 1er (2 x 30 min)

Event starts: 0915 Saturday (doors open)

Venue: "Stade Verdun" Pertuis, Avenue de Verdun, Pertuis, France

Sat: Windsor, UK

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK]

Royal Windsor Roller Derby host a single header just for Glasgow Roller Derby. (The two teams last played back in 2016, when Glasgow hosted, and managed a close win - there's been a bit of change for both teams since, so this return bout will be interesting.)

Event starts: 1600 Saturday (doors open)

Venue: Windsor Leisure Centre, Clewer Mead, Stovell Rd, Windsor, UK

Sat-Sun: Dalkeith, Scotland

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK 1] [FTS LINK 2] [FTS LINK 3] [FTS LINK 4]

Auld Reekie Roller Derby host a Summer Tournament over this weekendm with a bunch of international and national bouts. With teams from the UK, Sweden, and within Scotland itself, and a rookie game.

Saturday:

Birmingham Blitz Dames versus Auld Reekie All Stars (Edinburgh A)

New Skaters Debut Game

Gothenburg Roller Derby versus Birmingham Blitz Dames

Sunday:
- ASTROs (Edinburgh C) versus Bonnie Colliders (Dundee B)
- Auld Reekie All Stars versus Gothenburg

New Skaters game is not listed in FTS, as the teams are not rateable

Event starts: 1030 Saturday (doors open)

Venue: Dalkeith Community Campus, 4 Cousland Road, Dalkeith, Scotland

Sat: Buenos Aires, Argentina

[FACEBOOK LINK]

2x4 Roller Derby host a double header of scrimmage, with both B/C level WFTDA-gender policy, and ABC level "mixed" (Open To All) options. This scrimmage raises funds for 2x4 Team C to attend the second edition of the Impakto Mixto tournament in La Rioja in July.

BC level WFTDA-policy scrimmage
ABC level OTA scrimmage

Event starts: 1500 Saturday (first game)

Venue: Curapaligüe 1406, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sat: Bogotá, Colombia

[FACEBOOK LINK]

Rock N Roller Queens [link to Facebook, as website link down] and Combativas Revoltosas are just one of the skating-related clubs participating in the 3rd annual Fiesta Roller Dance Bogotá, a celebration of all kinds of skates-related things in the city. (This edition is branding itself as "Urban", so we expect a different focus to previous editions.)

Event starts: 1800 Saturday

Venue: La k-zona Galería Comercial Cultural, Calle 15 # 9-64, Bogotá, Colombia

Sat-Sun: Queretaro, Mexico

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK (pending actual details)]

Rock City Roller Derby (previously known as Queretaro Roller Derby) are hosting a "cuadrangular" tournament against their neighbours in central Mexico. Given this is a two day event, we'd imagine it's a full round robin, with 6 games in total. At present, "La Mala Copa" has no complete announced schedule, but we know teams are:

Teams:
- Rock City Roller Derby (Queretaro)
- Minervas Roller Derby (Guadalajara)
- Discordias Roller Derby
- Mexico City Roller Derby

Event starts: 1200 Saturday ??

Venue: UAQ Campus Juriquilla, Av. de las Ciencias Sin Número, Campus Juriquilla, Juriquilla, Queretaro, Mexico

Additionally, these events in North America are of interest due to the attendance of other teams:

Thurs-Sun: Montreal, QC, Canada

[FACEBOOK LINK] [FTS LINK]

Montreal Roller Derby host the 2019 edition of La Classique Georgia W Tush. This is a three-legged tournament, with (WFTDA Sanctioned) A team division, a B team division (for much of the same leagues as the A teams), and a smaller Juniors division! This is of interest to us because of the attendance of Helsinki Roller Derby (A and B), and Victorian Roller Derby League (A).

Teams attending:
- Victorian Roller Derby League (VIC, Australia) [A]
- Gotham Girls Roller Derby (NY, NY, USA) [A,B,Juniors]
- Arch Rival Roller Derby (St Louis, MO, USA) [A,B]
- Montreal Roller Derby (QC, CA) [A,B,Juniors]
- Jacksonville Roller Derby (FL, USA) [A]
- Helsinki Roller Derby (Finland) [A,B]
- Tri-City Roller Derby (ON, CA) [Juniors]

Event starts: 1830 Thurs (doors open for semi-private single bout.) 0900 Friday (doors open for main event)

Venue: Arena St-Louis, 5633 Rue Saint Dominique, Montreal, QC, Canada

The MacIntyres Take Over Roller Derby

aoanla — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 06:50:00 GMT

It's often said that the junior part of any sport is the most important part, as it contains its future. Scottish Junior Roller Derby's first club, Fierce Valley Roller Cubs, is no more, but two of its graduates are now starting to make waves in Scotland, and the UK.

We thought it was a good time to talk to Skye ("Bee"), and Callie ("Cal-amity") MacIntyre; earlier this year, Skye (guest) bench-coached the victorious Lincolnshire Bombinos away against Newcastle Junior Roller Derby, with Callie awarded Best Jammer in the same bout. They both have a lot of past experience, and ideas for the future, of Roller Derby, so what better people to talk to?

Lincolnshire Bombinos, with Callie (#999) and Skye (Bench, right). [Photo: incidentlight]

So I guess we'll start with a bit of history: how long has it been since you two started derby?

Skye: Callie and I both started in about June 2014, through Fierce Valley [Roller Cubs] and we haven't stopped since! Callie had a wee few months break between Cubs disbanding and Rollerstop opening up, but that hasn't swayed her in any way. Roller derby is one of the main sports that both of us have picked up and kept at as there is so much appeal for us 😁😁

So, let's talk about the appeal for each of you: why did you start playing... And why are you still playing now?

Callie

I started to play because it was a different kind of sport: it wasn't like anything that I had played before, and I though it was really interesting. Now I play because I love to meet new people when I play against different teams, and I gain new experiences when I play with different teams because everyone is taught differently.

Skye

Roller Derby is appealing because there is such a lovely community, that's the main thing for me. Granted, there's some competition between skaters/teams but that's present in any sport. I have always loved roller skating, ever since I was wee. I'd love to continue with derby and have loads of new experiences like trying for Team Scotland and maybe playing for the World Cup.

Nothing has really changed for us as we were still juniors (except the rules, haha) but the changes make Derby. We can adapt to it and grow from learning all these new things that are being introduced. I love that derby is becoming more mainstream and the sport that we love and spend most of our time playing, is becoming bigger and more people are growing to love Roller Derby too 🙂

So, for you, Skye, you're now on the Bairn City Rollers, was that a big change for you, moving from Juniors to the BCR training and bouting ?

Skye

It was a scary jump as a junior because I'd seen all these adult Derby games and been thinking "wow... this is intense..." but, when I finally made the jump, the only difference was that everyone else was physically bigger (as in stronger and more skilled). It was still the same game, it was still the same rules, and I still loved it. I'd really urge anyone who's been in Juniors and is about to age out to make the jump, it's so worth it! It may be daunting but go for it.

Callie is itching to move up to adult derby 😂

Callie, before the game we're going to get onto, you had a previous practice & Scrimmage with the [Lincolnshire] Bombinos - how did that happen, and do you have memories / thoughts about it?

Callie

Initially I went to Team GB [Junior Roller Derby] training in Oldham, where I met some of the Bombinos.

That's where I got my foot in the door... My mum struck up a friendship with one of the Bombinos coaches (Beverley Gormley) who has been fantastic, sending us links for games we might be interested in. I then went to a mixed game in Sheffield and I met the rest of the Bombinos there.

I have become really good friends with Eve (Lady Macdeath) and a few of the other Bombinos. At the game the children's parents, who have never met me, were supporting me all through the game and I won best jammer too.

I was feeling really accomplished: I've been playing Roller Derby for a very long time, and to get an award for a very exciting game was so good. To hear the Bombinos shouting encouraging words was a fantastic feeling, too.

Skye [Photo: David Prentice]

So, let's talk about the game in more detail! How was it being benched by / benching your sister?

Callie: I thought it was really fun because I know her very well and I respect her, so it was easy listening to her and everyone in the team respected her . She was really supportive towards the whole team and never gave up which made everyone respect her more. She was so enthusiastic which I loved about her.
Skye: It was really fun as I have played against, and alongside, Callie but never benched her in a game situation. I've never had a chance to take a step back and see her get her "game face" on and see her play as an independent skater. She listened to me as well (which she never does!) which was amazing and just seeing her having fun meant a lot 😊

So, this was also your first time benching a public game, Skye... How much practice had you had previously? (and would you do anything different next time you bench?)

Skye

I've had previous experience coaching Juniors and benching internal scrims but in all honesty, I was still asking questions about effective benching when we got to Newcastle 😂 . As it was a junior game, though, I felt confident benching the game for them. I've been looking to bench a public Juniors game for ages and amazingly this opportunity popped up, and I'm super grateful to the Bombinos for allowing me to bench.

As for doing anything differently; I hadn't trained with [the Bombinos] so I didn't know what their tactics were and how they played, so I'd try and do a bit more research 😊.

But the feedback I got from the Bombinos was great! They all enjoyed my benching and how I handled it: they felt that I was very relatable as I am about their age, and was very relaxed and not intimidating. They also said that I was very supportive when shouting "you've got this!" And "keep going!" etc. as they passed the bench. So much so that they commented on the [Bairn City Rollers] page that they liked me so much that they were wanting to steal me and take me to Lincolnshire 😁😁

All I wanted to do was help lead them to victory, and they did us proud with an over 100 point lead 😊😊

And are you tempted to try more non-competitive roles in future (announcing? Refereeing?) (Callie: how do you feel about trying a non-skating role? Anything tempt you?)

Callie

I would love to bench a game once, maybe refereeing. I've always been interested in benching as it is something I feel like I would be strong at. I always have experience when I'm training as I am usually captain when we are doing scrims.

Skye

I would potentially look at refereeing as I got older. I would happily do the cake stall at derby games again though 😂

I would love to bench again and I would be more than happy to help out as an NSO, but coaching, benching, and skating is where it's at for me at this exact moment in time. I'm even thinking about attending the Coaching bootcamp in York later this year [ ], because I know there is a lot of junior skating talent that is ready to be developed and I want to be one of the people that could help 😊😊.

Callie, jamming [Photo: incidentlight]

So, Callie: what interests you about benching?

Callie: I'd really like to bench because it gives me better leadership experience, I also have some more re games under my belt than the newer kids. I would love to guide them and use the skills and tactics I have learned through my previous games with Fierce Valley Roller Cubs and the more recent games with Lincolnshire and the Sheffield and Newcastle juniors to take other juniors to a win. Although, its not the winning that counts really, its that everyone feels good and enjoys themselves

That's a very positive attitude to have!

Callie: That's what Derby has taught me: we lost at our Sheffield game, but I came away with a lot more friends I would never have met if I hadn't been there

Speaking of all the contacts you guys now have, what're your plans for the future in general, as skaters?

Skye: For me, trying for Team Scotland and the World Cup. That's the dream 😁😁

For 202x?

Skye: Yeah 202x. I've made friends with Eve who is about to age up to the adult teams and she may potentially try out as well 😊
Callie: For me, it's attending more games with the other Juniors, aiming for Team GB: I would love to represent Scottish Junior Derby as part of that. I want to help my sister coach and develop other kids, as well as me, until I am 16 and can move to an adult team. Then I want to push myself as far as I can with that. Team GB is a huge focus for me for the future.

Do you feel that it would help to have more Junior Derby in Scotland, or is the Rollerstop team in Glasgow enough to keep new talent coming?

Callie

Personally, I think we we need more. There are new teams out there but games are few and far between at the moment. I am travelling to England to get games on my level because I have been skating for years whereas some others are very new to it. Once they are all up and running it will be great but a larger number of teams over the Scotland area will encourage more teams to travel to play.

Hopefully there will be other leagues who see the value in a junior team and maybe start some up.

The talent we have in Scotland is there, it just needs a helping hand 😀

Skye is coaching the kids [at Rollerstop] right now but I know she has an idea that I hope she can develop. It's doing concentrated training for level 3 skaters with a view to getting them ready for going to an adult team. Also for Junior British Champs if it happens and for trying out for Team GB. Right now it's just an idea, but it would let kids like me train on a level that perhaps some newer skaters aren't at yet, and would hopefully give them drive to get there and join in.

Skye [Photo: Dave Moore]

Skye, do you want to talk a bit about that plan too?

Skye

My mum was talking to a few people who wanted to discuss the idea of a Junior British Champs for the future and the options for that, and it came to mind that whilst the kids are training, why not "up the level" for the kids who want to take that next step. The "tweens" who aren't old enough for adult teams but are ready for the next level of game play which is essentially adult games.

What do they do in the inbetween times? I know, I have been there and it's tough. Adults want to help train, but the idea of maybe full contact scrimmage with people who are legally still children can be offputting.

So, in Australia, there's a whole multi-level thing for modified contact scrimmage and so on, which might help with that, too.

Skye

If that would help then yeah, all for it and looking at it. Anything to bring more people to the sport and keep them with it.

I would love to talk with coaches for adult teams, see if there can be some sort of programme of skills that can be shared, best practise maybe to keep the kids inbetween Junior and Adult leagues active and keen and looking forward to their next steps.

Mum and I honestly just talked about it 2 days ago. It made sense because when I was in limbo, before the Bairns took me on, I nearly quit and it would have been a mistake to have done that.

It was very difficult for junior derby in Scotland in general, about then

Skye

We thought we were losing it altogether, no one's fault, but we are so glad it didn't disappear totally

I owe a lot to Coach CB and the rest of the Fierce Valley team, and the Bairns as well 😊

Callie, what about you - how did you manage in the gap between FVRC closing, and then your current Rollerstop + sort-of-guest-Bombinos-skater position?

Callie: I kept up skating at Rollerstop in general, just to keep me moving. Rollerstop Derby lessons came at the right time, although we even looked at the logistics of going to Newcastle for Derby if need be, but it just wouldn't have worked long term.

I know your mum's been very committed to helping you keep going in Roller Derby...

Callie

Haha, she hasn't been at home for the last few weekends because of derby, always driving us to games, supporting us, washing our kit (!) (the most important part) and meeting more Derby parents to get us out there.

She sees the benefits in Derby to us, confidence, health, experiences and new friends 🙂

It's a really good relationship you three all have 🙂

Skye: Mum has been a huge support in our derby career, she's been our taxi driver to games and a massive help. She continues to support us through our derby lives 😊

So, this has been a great interview, really: but I want to hand over the mic to you guys, if there's anything you want to add that we've not covered?

Skye

Both Callie and I think that Junior Roller Derby needs to be spoken about and put out there a wee bit more and we are glad that there is more recognition about the sport.

I'm also super glad about the fact that (some) teams are opening up to 16-17 year olds as it's giving Juniors more of a chance to train.

Callie

[I] would love to see more Junior teams in Scotland so there are more teams to play and gain more experience, and that some games between teams across the border and here become more frequent 😊

Non-US/Canadian Derby Roundup: 8th/9th December Edition

aoanla — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 16:31:46 GMT

We’re bringing you another roundup of the upcoming Roller Derby this weekend from across the world. As always, we’re using Flat Track Stats for much of this information – for regions with less good coverage, we also do a bit of intensive searching using a tool which scans the Facebook events of Roller Derby leagues known to Derby Listing.

Predictions of bouts are from FTS, if possible, and from our own SRD Rank where FTS cannot make predictions (for example: Latin America, or non-MRDA men’s bouts). (SRDRank also has recent WFTDA rankings, including the 31st June ranking, as well as SRDRank, and allows you to make predictions from them.)

If we’ve missed you from our roundup, please let us know! [Or add yourselves to FTS and/or Derbylisting]

We're trying a new colour coding this week, to differentiate BOUTS from RECRUITMENTS and OPEN SCRIMs, and BOOTCAMPs.

Scotland

Scotland is a little quieter this weekend, as Christmas approaches. There's still a chance to get some track time in Aberdeen on Thursday though.

Wed, Edinburgh: Edinburgh's first Junior Derby team, the Boardwalk Bombs practices and recruits at The Boardwalk, every Wednesday [EVENT]
Thurs, Aberdeen: Granite City Roller Derby host an Open (WFTDA-gender) Scrim, free for first time attendees. Visiting officials also welcome. [EVENT]
Thurs, Dumbarton: Chicks in Bowls Scotland host Quad Meet sessions [6-10pm, Unit23 Skatepark][EVENT]
Fri, Dundee: Dundee Roller Derby host their annual Christmas Party, celebrating the end of the year and season, including a quiz! [EVENT]
Fri, Edinburgh: Auld Reekie Roller Derby host their end of year Awards Night for 2018! [EVENT]
Fri, Glasgow: Glasgow Men's Roller Derby's ongoing new skater intake continues every Friday, for the foreseeable future! [EVENT]
Fri, Grangemouth: Bairn City Rollers rolling recruitment continues in their Friday sessions. Open to all genders. [EVENT]
Glasgow: Resistance Roller Derby, Glasgow's Junior Roller Derby club for queer and trans young people continue their training sessions open to new skaters and existing. [EVENT Flyer]
Sun, Aberdeen: Chicks in Bowls Scotland host a Sunday Skate followed by a park skate outside [Transition Extreme Sports] [EVENT]
Tues, Aberdeen: Chicks in Bowls Scotland host a regular Quad Meet (Transition Extreme) [EVENT]

United Kingdom

Across the rest of the UK, there's a host of bouts, even a week into December, even if most are charity style events.

Thurs, Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Newcastle Roller Girls host a Christmas Movie Pub Quiz [EVENT]
Fri, Lincoln, England: Lincolnshire Bombers Roller Derby also host a festive event, with their Christmas Party closing out the year [EVENT]
Fri, Bridgend, Wales: Bridgend Roller Derby host a "Christmas Family Skate" [EVENT]
Oxford, England: Oxford Roller Derby host their "Grinchmas Games", a pair of open-subs games, raising funds for SAFE [EVENT]
- WFTDA-gender Rookie game
- OTA Intermediate/advanced game
Portsmouth, England: Portsmouth Roller Wenches host their last fixture of the year, an A/B double header [EVENT]
- Portsmouth Roller Wenches A versus North Devon Roller Derby A [FTS]
- Portsmouth Roller Wenches B versus North Devon Roller Derby B [FTS]
Merthyr Tydfil, Wales: Merthyr Roller Derby host a pre-Christmas Roller Derby Sevens tournament to close out the year. (No real details on teams yet...) [EVENT]
- teams?
Wrexham, Wales: North Wales Roller Derby complete the year with their regular Christmas Scrim event, a double header of scrims [EVENT]
- OTA Rookie Scrim
- WFTDA-gender Intermediate/Advanced Scrim
Sun, Birmingham, England: the Crash Test Brummies host "A Smashing Good Time", a festive open scrimmage, Open To All genders. [EVENT]
Sun, Cambridge, England: Cambridge Rollerbillies have a stall at the Last Gang's Alternative Xmas Market, a closed market supporting local and home-grown vendors. [EVENT]
Sun, Eastbourne, England: Eastbourne Roller Derby host their annual Christmas Scrim, with three different scrim types [EVENT]
- OTA scrim
- WFTDA-gender scrim
- Juniors scrim
Sun, Guildford, England: Surrey Roller Girls host their 7th Birthday Bash, especially open to all people in the community who've played SRG this year. Event includes roller disco, party games, stalls, potluck picnic and more! [EVENT]
Tues, Whitchurch, England: Basingstoke Bullets host a Tuesday Xmas Fun Skate event, Open To All, fancy dress encouraged [EVENT]
Wed, Swansea, Wales: Swansea City Roller Derby host their Christmas open scrim, open to WFTDA-gender-policy, mins-passed skaters [EVENT]

Europe

The French National tournament continues to roll on, with the second Nationale 1 fixture of the current season this weekend. There's also huge amounts of Roller Derby across all of Europe, especially in Helsinki and Stockholm... a German Bundesliga fixture, and a pair of Belgian Champs fixtures. There's even two big bootcamps! [And Derby in Moscow is recruiting!]

Thurs, Prague, Czech Republic: the Hard Breaking Dolls host the first of 5 open training sessions, for interested potential competitive skaters, referees or NSOs. (Skaters limited to WFTDA-gender policy.) [EVENT]
Thurs, Helsinki, Finland: Chicks in Bowls Helsinki host a Shred Day in collaboration with Helsinki Roller Derby. This includes multiple sessions, with beginners' and more advanced workshops, gear talk, and "games and competitions". [EVENT]
Thurs, Moscow, Russia: Rollerciraptor Roller Derby Moscow host their first open-recruitment into a training series! Open under WFTDA-gender to all interested skaters. [EVENT Flyer]
Fri, Tallinn, Estonia: Tallinn Roller Girls continue to host their open training sessions on Fridays for all interested attendees. [EVENT]
Fri, Tartu, Estonia: Tartu Roller Derby also continue their open training sessions for all interested attendees. [EVENT]
Fri, Karlsruhe, Germany: Roller Derby Karlsruhe host the last of their Scrimmage Nights, open to "female only" skaters. [EVENT]
Fri, Rome, Italy: the She-Wolves of Roller Derby Roma are giving a demonstration at the Love 80s 90s 00s event hosted by Free Unicorns events. [EVENT]
Fri, Rotterdam, Netherlands: Rotterdam Roller Derby host an "Open Holiday Scrimmage", the first of three (one each Friday before Christmas). We think these are OTA, and are also open to NSOs. [EVENT]
Fri, Farsta, Sweden: Stockholm Roller Derby host their Christmas home teams finale, with a Harry Potter theme [EVENT]
- Death Eaters versus Aurors (home teams)
Vienna, Austria: Vienna Roller Derby host an A/B Doubleheader to close their season and year [EVENT]
- Vienna Beasts (Vienna B) versus Liverpool Roller Birds B [FTS]
- Vienna Oysters (Vienna A) versus Liverpool Roller Birds A [FTS]
Gent, Belgium: Go-Go Gent host a single header event, as part of the Belgian Championships! [FTS tournament][EVENT]
- Go-Go Gent versus Holy Wheels Menace (Liège A)
Prague, Czech Republic: Prague City Roller Derby host their regular pre-Christmas open charity event. As always, Open To All genders, and to all skill levels (mins-passed). [EVENT]
- Santas versus Grinch
Aalborg, Denmark: Aalborg's Combat Bullies bring a festive double header to celebrate the season and a new venu [EVENT]
- WFTDA-gender open-subs bout : All The Jingle Ladies versus The Fa La La La La Llamas
- OTA open-subs Sevens game: Pain Deers versus The Tree Rex´s
Helsinki, Finland: After their ramp work on Thursday, Helsinki Roller Derby host an end of year Tournament, the Best Hits 2018! [EVENT]
- Helsinki ALpakka (Helsinki X) versus Åbo B-ajas (Dirty River B | Turku) [FTS]
- Helsinki Juniors (Helsinki J) versus Vakaat aikuiset ( )
- Åbo B-ajas versus HC Ässat (Kallio Rolling Rainbow + Lappeenranta)
- Helsinki ALpakka versus HC Ässat
Sat-Sun, Grenoble, France: The Cannibal Marmots host the next Championnat de France Nationale 1 fixture [FTS tournament][EVENT]
- Cannibal Marmots (Grenoble) versus Faux Soyeuses (Lyon United)
- Bloody Skulls (Marseille) versus DDCLM All Stars (Montpellier)
- Les Harpies Braqueuses (Pibrac) versus La Horde (Orcet)
- Cannibal Marmots versus Bloody Skulls
- Faux Soyeuses versus DDCLM All Stars
- Bloody Skulls versus Les Harpies Braqueuses
- Cannibal Marmots versus La Horde
- "Demo and signup for Handi-hockey"
Sat-Sun, Saint-Etienne, France: The Green Harpies and Green Go host the "Green Winter Bootcamp", a two-day bootcamp with intermediate skater sessions (coached by Pepe Le Punch and Paris' YAS), NSO beginners sessions (coached by Paris' Polo Kiwi), and Referees intermediate sessions (coached by Paris' Watze). [EVENT]
Nancy, France: Wheel Spirit Roller Derby host a festive double header [EVENT]
- Wheel Spirit (Nancy) versus Les Flèches Revêches (Dijon) [FTS]
- Roller Derby Metz Club versus Les Baronnes von Schlass (Lille B) [FTS]
Darmstadt, Germany: Riot Rollers Darmstadt host a Double Header, including a Bundesliga Division 2 bout [FTS tournament][EVENT]
- Riot Rollers Darmstadt A vs Zombie Rollergirlz (Münster) [Bundesliga D 2]
- Riot Rollers Darmstadt B vs Splatter Fairies (Marburg) [FTS]
Frankfurt, Germany: Bembel Town Rollergirls host an OTA, Advanced-level, bootcamp, run by Glasgow Men's Roller Derby's Rosie Peacock and Optimus Grime! [EVENT]
Stuttgart, Germany: Stuttgart Valley Roller Derby host a single header to finish the year [EVENT]
- Bad Seeds (Stuttgart B) versus Bloody Wheels (Torino/Turin) [FTS]
Padova, Italy: The Criminal Bullets co-host their regular "Festival of the Madonna" event with ASD Quadrato Meticcio Women's Football. This is a party event but also includes a debate on "women for sport, sport for women", and celebrates feminist sport in general. [EVENT]
Vicenza, Italy: The Anguanas host a double header to finish their season, with two games for their B team in one event! This is also being run as a Pride event. [EVENT]
- The AnguanASS B-side (Vicenza B) versus Fearless Bruisers (Innsbruck) [FTS]
- The AnguanASS B-side versus Bone-Crushing Hyenas (Bologna) [FTS]
Heerlen, Netherlands: Roller Derby Liège and Les Vî-Kings host a Belgian Championships Men's tier fixture across the border... [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
- Vî-Kings (Liège M) versus Manneken Beasts (Brussels M)
Farsta, Sweden: The Royal Swedish Roller Derby host their final fixtures of the season, with both intra- and inter-league games [EVENT]
- The Royal Brigade (Royal Swedish B | Stockholm) versus Nerike Knockouts (Örebro) [FTS]
- Brass Knuckle Harlots versus The Slayer Sisters (home teams)
Halmstad, Sweden: Chicks in Bowls Halmstad host a Meet Up at the Halmstad Skateboardkubb [EVENT]
Sun, Aix-en-Provence, France: Les Amazones host a festive double-header "Star pass ou ça casse" [EVENT]
- Les Amazones (Aix A) versus Lutéce Destroyeuses (Lutéce B | Paris) [FTS]
- Les Valkyries (Aix B) versus Gap/Montpellier mixed team
Sun, Angers, France: Anjou Derby Girls host Jingle Beigne, a Roller Derby Sevens tournament, with four festive teams [EVENT]
- teams:
Sun, Besançon, France: The Voodoo Vixens host a "Bootcamp à la fresh" - that is, a bootcamp aimed at pre-mins and rookie skaters [EVENT]
Sun, L'Houmeau, France: Roller Derby La Rochelle host a triple-header event to end the year [EVENT]
- Cheeky Dolls (La Rochelle A) versus UB (open subs team)
- Sombres Héros ( ) versus Rillettes Chili Peppers (Le Mans) [FTS]
- Charogne Maritime ( ) versus Mortale Condate (Rennes B) [FTS]
Paris, France: les Gueuses de Pigalle host an open scrimmage event with extras for the season [EVENT]
Sun, Arnhem, Netherlands: Arnhem Fallen Angels host a double header event [EVENT]
- Arnhem Fallen Angels versus Rockcity Rollers High Voltage (Eindhoven B) [FTS]
- Black v White mixed teams
Mon, Warsaw, Poland: Worst Warsaw's Open recruitment continues for interested potential members in any roles! [EVENT]
Wed, Ostrava, Czech Republic: Trojhali Ostrava Roller Derby continue their open training and rolling recruitment [EVENT]

Pacific

Australia and New Zealand host mostly Christmas events, with Japan also hosting their regular seasonal scrim.

Fri, North Hobart, TAS, Australia: Convict City Roller Derby League host the 7th and final home season bout for the year. [EVENT]
- Debut skaters game?
Fri, Tauranga, New Zealand: Moana Roller Derby host their Christmas Open Scrim, limited to WFTDA gender policy (and with Christmas costumes encouraged). Donations to Tauranga Women's Refuge will be collected. [EVENT]
Urangan, QLD, Australia: the Red Hot Chilli Rollers host a family Christmas skate party with "very special guest", and all the accoutrements of an Australian party (including sausage sizzle). [EVENT]
Devonport, TAS, Australia: Van Diemen Rollers host "Wreck The Halls", a double header to bring the season to a close [EVENT]
- United Tasmanian Roller Derby Mixed-gender (OTA) bout
- Gangster Wrappers versus Ho Ho Hos (Van Diemen Home Teams bout)
Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Chicks in Bowls Melbourne host the third of their Beginners Ramps Workshops. [EVENT]
Albany, WA, Australia: Albany Roller Derby League end their season with a single header and fun [EVENT]
- "Potluck" open-subs WFTDA-gender game
- Food, bar, awards (end of year awards?)
Sun, Gladstone, QLD, Australia: Gladstone Roller Derby host a relaxed season closer with BBQs heavily featured. [EVENT]
Sun, Carrum Downs, VIC, Australia: South Sea Roller Derby host their Christmas Special edition of Derby & Chill, their regular multi-level open scrimmage and social skate events [EVENT]
- Christmas-themed social skate
- Red (no-contact) scrimmage
- Amber (low-contact) scrimmage
- Bouting full-contact scrimmage
Sun, Zushi, Kanagawa, Japan: Yokosuka Sushi Rollers host the 2018 Season's Beatings, their annual scrimmage / mini-bouts event for the end of the year! Open to All genders [EVENT]

Latin America

There's derby in Costa Rica, Brazil and Argentina this weekend, at least (we find it hardest to keep up with events in Latin America, so we appreciate being told what we've missed].

Thurs, San José, Costa Rica: Roller Derby Costa Rica host their Último Partido (Final game) for the year. [EVENT]
- Reindeer versus Elves themed bout.
Sat+Sun, Río Gallegos, Argentina: Fénix Roller Derby host a two-day open bootcamp and scrimmage. The Bootcamp is on Saturday, the Scrimmage on the Sunday. [EVENT]
Sun, Buenos Aires, Argentina: Buenos Aires Conspiracy, and Chat Noir, co-host a quadruple header! [EVENT]
- Buenos Aires Conspiracy (Buenos Aires M) vs Facones Galacticos (Buenos Aires M)
- "Low calorie" mixed scrimmage
- Space Jam (?) vs Buenos Aires Conspiracy
- Chat Noir intraleague: Black versus White
Sun, Blumenau, Brazil: the Iron Ladies of Blumenau host an exciting challenge bout [EVENT]
- Iron Ladies (Blumenau) versus Brasil Roller Derby Masculino (Brasil M) !
~~Sun, Santos, São Paulo, Brazil: Thunder Rats Derby Squad host a single header to close 2018 [EVENT]~~ CANCELLED DUE TO RAIN STORMS
- Thunder Rats (Santos, São Paulo) versus Sugar Loathe Roller Derby (Rio de Janeiro) [FTS]
Sun, Morelia, Mexico: Roller Derby Morelia play Amour Roller Derby in a "friendly" [EVENT Flyer]

Africa and Middle East

How to help Team GB Juniors make history for JRDA Championships!

aoanla — Wed, 23 May 2018 15:10:37 GMT

2018 is a great year for World Cups in Roller Derby. Not only has it featured the 3rd Roller Derby World Cup itself, in Manchester; and the 3rd Men's Roller Derby World Cup, in Barcelona... but it will also see the first truly international Junior Roller Derby World Cup, as JRDA extends its Championships to include an National Teams tournament, including European representation for the first time..

Great Britain will be one of 6 National or Quasi-national teams competing in the event, taking on Europe (also debuting), and the returning Teams of Canada, Australia, USA East and USA West for the JRDA World Cup Trophy, between 23rd and 24th July (the two days following JRDA Champs), in Philadelphia, PA, USA!

You'll recognise some of the skaters involved in Team GB from the Roller Derby World Cup's Junior Roller Derby exhibition bout (and some of the others in that exhibition are in Team Europe, competing against them!); in fact, Team GB and Team Europe's mastermind, Phil Rutter, was responsible for organising that as well! (He's also the JRDA "European Regional Coordinator".) Team GB Juniors has a host of other talent behind it, however: Head Coach, Toots, is a long established member of Lincolnshire Rolling Thunder + England Men's Roller Derby; also repeat members of England Men's are two support Coaches, Reaper (also of Southern Discomfort), and Tom-A-Hawk (also of Lincolnshire Rolling Thunder); the third support coach being England Roller Derby and London Roller Girls' equally skilled and experienced Beth Lord. Beyond the coaches, there's a huge organising committee you can see here.

Enough about the adults, though, you'll want to see the actual skaters! If you've missed the announcements, then here they are:

Running a National team is expensive - and it's especially expensive when you have to fly intercontinentally, and even more so when you're a Junior team (and thus need adults around for legal reasons too) - costs for Team GB Juniors will be at least £20000 overall...

As such, Team GB Junior Roller Derby have been raising funds for some time - supported by some excellent teams across the UK in providing events! This way, you can both support the UK's Junior Roller Derby community, and also experience awesome Derby too...

Team GB Juniors logo by Jen Smith

First up: Peterborough's Borderland Brawlers Roller Derby host a double header (2 June 2018), combining some all-gender roller derby with the best of UK junior derby.

2 June 2018, Peterborough: [EVENT]
- Borderland Brawlers (Open To All, Peterborough) versus Mustard City Rollers (Open To All, Norwich) [FTS]
- Team GB Junior Roller Derby versus The World (UK Junior skaters): Level 3 Junior Derby Exhibition!

If you'd like to learn something as well, Team GB Juniors also have you covered, as Rainy City Roller Derby are generously providing the Thunderdome to them to host a combined adult/junior bootcamp!

16 June 2018, Oldham: Brutecamp, with Rosie Peacock and Optimus Grime. [EVENT]
- Team Scotland / Glasgow Men's Roller Derby's Rosie Peacock, and Power of Scotland / Glasgow Men's Roller Derby's Optimus Grime host an all day bootcamp event:
  - Morning: Adult intermediate skill bootcamp + scrim
  - Afternoon: Juniors Level 3 bootcamp + scrim
- Learn from two national squad level skaters and coaches with extensive international experience!

But that's not all! Eastbourne Roller Derby's annual Outdoor Roller Derby festival, Eastbourne Extreme, will also be featuring an exhibition bout from Team GB Juniors, and opportunities to help support the team!

15 July 2018, Eastbourne: [EVENT]
- Eastbourne Extreme Outdoor Roller Derby Tournament
  - Team GB Juniors Exhibition Event.

That will be your last chance to see Team GB Junior Roller Derby before all the skaters jet off to represent their combined nations at the Junior Roller Derby World Cup!

If you can't make it to any of these events, and missed the chance to donate to Team GB Juniors at other events in the last few months - don't worry! You can also help the team entirely via the Internet by:

Donating to the Team Crowdfunder: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/teamgbjuniorrollerderby
Donating to individual Skater Crowdfunders (a bunch of these show up as "related crowdfunders" at the bottom of the Team fundraiser page)
Buying Team GB Juniors Merch: https://teamgbjuniorrollerderby.org/shop/
Buying tickets in the Team GB Juniors Prize Draw (with prizes including signed national teams merchandise from USA Roller Derby, Team Wales Men & Power of Scotland's Optimus Grime, tickets to the Men's European Cup, fantastic artwork and more) https://teamgbjuniorrollerderby.org/prize-draw/
Volunteering your time to support any of the events above!

Fierce Valley Roller Cubs needs you!

camelondiaz — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 10:47:00 GMT

Are you interested in being involved in the future of roller derby in Scotland? Now’s your chance; Fierce Valley Roller Cubs is looking for guest coaches from the wider world of Scottish roller derby.

Based in Falkirk and training every Sunday, Fierce Valley Roller Cubs is open to all between the ages of 5 and 17, and currently has a range of skaters from beginners to advanced level. Cubs skaters have taken part in several intraleague games, the first of their kind in Scotland, and last year crossed the border to take part in their first external game.

If you could spare a couple of hours to share your knowledge and skills with the next generation of derby players and help take Fierce Valley Roller Cubs to the next level, please get in touch for more information: cubs@fiercevalleyrollercubs.co.uk.

Fierce Valley Roller Cubs was the first junior roller derby league in Scotland, and began training in September 2013.

2016 in Review

aoanla — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 14:21:53 GMT

Whilst on a general level, 2016 has been labelled a bad year (perhaps unfairly - it's been a mixed bag, it's just that the negatives have been big and prominent, and the positives less so), for Roller Derby, in Scotland and World wide, it's been pretty good.

We're capping off the year by talking about the things that happened in the past 12 months, first in Scotland (page 1) and secondly across the World (page 2), before rounding up our hopes for 2017 (page 3).

Scotland

Scottish Roller Derby continued to Grow: several new leagues popped up, which we recently brought to you [Inverclyde Roller Derby, Orkney ViQueens, West Lothian Roller Derby, Glasgow Men's Roller Derby and Resistance Roller Derby] and others continued to grow. Ayrshire Roller Derby had their first public bout (against Lothian Derby Dolls) as did Granite City Brawlers and GMRD, and Helgin Roller Derby and the renewed Fair City Rollers have scheduled their (joint) first bout for next year (if we were to bet, we'd expect Doonhame Roller Derby to be the next to be bout-ready). Scotland's only bouting junior derby team, Fierce Valley Roller Cubs, also played their first ever interleague bout, against a mixed team from Sheffield and Newcastle. Even the larger leagues continued to expand, with Auld Reekie Roller Girls' ASTROs founded this year, and taking the number of ARRG travel teams to 3. As our Auld Reekie review shows, the whole league had a pretty good year, with the All-Stars qualifying for WFTDA Division 2 playoffs (after an impressive performance at The Big O in the USA), and sensibly declining in favour of working on longer term goals.

Further north, both Dundee Roller Girls and Granite City Roller Derby had very good years as well. Both leagues' A-teams performed impressively in their Divisions at British Champs (Granite City qualifying for promotion to Tier 3 from Tier 4, and Dundee just missing out on the promotion to Tier 2 at the Tier-3 playoffs). Whilst Dundee has withdrawn from Champs to focus on their national and international game (especially after playing their first international away, in Tenerife, just scant weeks ago), Granite City will indeed be in Tier 3 of Champs next year, alongside Auld Reekie's Reserves! The two leagues' B-teams also had very good years, with Dundee's Bonnie Colliders winning basically every bout they played until ARRG's ASTROs late in the year, and GCRD's Fight Hawks playing three times as much derby as they did in 2015.

In the Central Belt, Bairn City Rollers' Skelpies managed a few bouts, despite many of them also making Power of Scotland, which prevented them taking fixtures in the first half of the year!. Alongside GMRD, they'll be joining the British Champs Men's T3 in 2017, and we expect good things of them. Meanwhile, BCR's Central Belters continued their own upward rise in the rankings - a win against the newly-reformed Furness Firecrackers sealing that trend for the year, and setting the Belters the challenge of maintaining expectations in 2017 (the problem with upward growth is that people start expecting it to never stop!). The open-gender Belter Skelpers had a much quieter year, taking on just Mean City's coed-team and then hosting Granite City Brawlers and friends for BCR's 4th Anniversary event.

Speaking of Mean City, they were also extremely busy this year, hosting a vast range of events, including double-headers supporting Power of Scotland. With the growth of coed leagues in Scotland (several of our newer non-bouting leagues are open), hopefully Mean City will have an even busier year next year!

Of course, the Scottish Men's National Team, Power of Scotland also had a very big year, representing well at the Men's Roller Derby World Cup in Calgary, placing a creditable 10th, just below the tournament's surprise unseeded upset of Mexico. Several members of the 2016 team are also now involved with Team Scotland Roller Derby, who will be hoping (along with PoS) to represent the nation strongly in 2018.

That's not to say that there weren't some wobbles in Scottish Derby: due to an unfortunate series of retirements, Glasgow Roller Derby has spent the season with a very different roster to 2015, resulting in the 2015 British Champs Champions placing near the bottom of the Premier Division in 2016. They'll be aiming to pull back their WFTDA ranking position over 2017... although they've retired from British Champs to focus their team on this goal. Similarly, a series of transfers and other movements lead to Fierce Valley Roller Girls performing less well than they would have liked in the Champs Tier 3, resulting in potential relegation to Tier 4 in 2017. (Despite this, both FVRG and GRD have been drivers of many Scottish events in the past year - Fierce Valley hosting a pair of massive Sur5al tournaments and hosting an international against Zurich, and Glasgow hosting Charity events and playing all over Europe themselves, as well as hosting Berlin, and playing a big part in Vagine Regime UK.)

Another growing trend in Scotland (and the UK) this year was "cherry popper" or "rookie" bouts, with almost every league in Scotland hosting at least one such event this year, including Livingston's New Town Roller Girls .

But we shouldn't just talk about the Leagues themselves. Scottish Referees and NSOs also continued to represent at the highest levels of the sport, with Dundee's Righteous Oxide particularly visible at international level events like MRDWC and ; but many other referees like , and NSOs (many of whom were nominated in the TDTM Listener awards) travelled huge distances and devoted much time to supporting the sport. Scottish photographers were also supporting international events this year, with Dave McAleavy and Laura MacDonald being both ubiquitous at Scottish games, but also travelling to Tenerife in Dave's case, and to the Men's World Cup in Laura's. (As the two are, between them, the photographers for the two national teams, we expect even more travel in their future.) Our Announcers didn't do too badly either, with Helliverence near-ubiquitous across UK events, Bairn City's man of many names Graeme "Archie" McPhail supporting MEC [and announcing two tournaments in Scotland without a break in each], MRDWC media director Chasing Katy appearing at several events, but especially MEC, and Granite City's sMACklemore doing both MEC and Track Head Announcing at MRDWC itself. The latter two also helped to push on the Scottish contributions to Roller Derby media, with the Talk Derby To Me podcast [also hosted by King Crazy] going from strength to strength over the year (especially with their excellent coverage of tournament-level events), culminating in a rather huge Listener Awards.

(For us at the Scottish Roller Derby Blog, it's also been a good year - we've expanded our coverage again, introduced our own rankings, and even managed to expand into some new fields of video and audio interviews. We also covered the Men's Roller Derby World Cup in more depth than we have any previous event. In order to handle this, we launched our own annex to the blog, which hosts links to content which doesn't work well with Wordpress. We also managed to hit more then 1500 likes on our Facebook page just a few days ago, which was our own goal for 2016!)

Back to Scotland (page 1) , forward to "The Future" (page 3).

UK and Europe

Obviously one of the most exciting developments of 2016 was the announcement of so much International Derby coming to Europe in the next two years. Both World Cups will be in Europe - the Men's in Barcelona and the Women's in Greater Manchester - in 2018; but before that, one MRDA playoff and the Championship itself will be in Europe as well. With so many Europe-wide international tournaments already happening in Europe (ERDT, The Road to..., SKOD, MEC, European Smackdown and so on... with Newcastle's EuroClash joining the set in 2017), this was almost inevitable at some point, but no-one expected everything but WFTDA to happen at once.

Another positive development in the UK was the coming together of Coaches at the Derby Stance Coaching Summit (followed by the Summit at the Ramps, which brought together skaters from multiple disciplines) organised by Rule 56 and the Female Coaching Network. We're very much in favour of people working together to progress the community...

...which is also why we were cheered by the announcement very recently that Leeds Roller Derby had formed from fusion of Hot Wheel and Leeds Roller Dolls. We'd love to report on more "collaborations" rather than the politics which leads to splits in Roller Derby, and hope this can be a trend for 2017.

Finally, Roller Derby media also had some growth in the UK as well, with two new podcasts - Hell Yeah! Roller Derby [Croydon and elsewhere] and the Good Arrows Podcast [Nottingham Roller Derby] both launching this year, with good content already!

International

Internationally, the most exciting places for Roller Derby are always where growth and development is still raring ahead.

So, in East Asia, the Japan Open Tournament was possibly the most significant event of the year - the first ever international tournament in the region, hosted in Okinawa and with attendees from the Pacific Region, Australiasia and beyond (Alaska and Copenhagen!). We're very excited to see what the sequel (now managed directly by a consortium of the Japanese leagues) tournament - the Tomodachi in March 2017 - manages.

Also in East Asia, after literally years of development, the first ever public bout in China happened, with Beijing Roller Derby hosting a mixed team from the rest of the Asian leagues. This was also a great example of the still-political purpose of Roller Derby, as the event was in promotion of the UN HeForShe project.

Growth has also continued in other regions, with Latin America now hosting a huge number of teams (although their terminology for leagues and teams differs from the USA and Europe), including 3 now in WFTDA (as full members, with more Apprentices). Across Europe and the Middle East, increasing number of countries are growing not just one, but multiple teams - and in the more established countries we've seen huge growth in national level tournaments (the French Nationale is a mighty thing), and other regular events (for ex. the Finnish Pohjola Cup now trans-national as it includes Russia's White Night Furies this year).

In terms of National Teams representation, 2016 has seen continued growth in both the Men's and Women's parts of the sport - MRDWC 2016 saw a massive surge in teams attending, filling out Europe and Latin America [Colombia having a last-minute technical hitch which prevented this being even more impressive]; and there are already at least 5 new Nations for the 2018 Roller Derby World Cup in Manchester.

Finally, we were very pleased that WFTDA has started adopting positive policies such as releasing the (alpha) of their new bout stats management tool, bouttime, as an open-source project, truly for the community.

And International Derby Media has also continued to grow, with the startling appearance of The Derby Apex earlier this year, and their meteoric rise to popularity. We're sure we'll see more good things from them in 2017 and beyond. (Derby Central, of course, continued to do great work, covering all of the international things above, and many more.)

Back to Scotland (page 1) and back to the World (page 2).

The Future

So, what would we like to see in 2017?

National Teams leveraging PR to promote growth in their "home" nations.

Whilst Teams Korea, Philippines and West Indies are all representing their nations, none of them have any leagues in those nations to draw skaters from. With all three declaring their intent to use their existence to promote the sport, we'd love to see this bear fruit. (Korea has a league, but like most leagues in East Asia [except Kamikaze Badass in Tokyo, and Tokyo Roller Girls' Neon Roller Monsters team] it is almost entirely composed of non-nationals.)

The Derby Apex's "Stat Rataissance" actually happening.

One of The Apex's high points of the year has been the improved availability of stats for WFTDA bouts, alongside the promotion of bouttime. We're a little more skeptical of this as a global phenomenon - Roller Derby is not just WFTDA teams [in fact, they're still a minority, especially if you include the fact that only A teams count for WFTDA member leagues], and stats availability for the sport as a whole is still relatively poor, despite the best efforts of Flat Track Stats and others. We'd like to see this happen, though, and still have some hope. (Our own effort in this regard - the SRD Rank rating system - is still very much dependant on FTS's own records, which are themselves dependant on both the site's few volunteers and the Roller Derby community itself.)

Increased openness, transparency and collaboration.

One reason why stats are an issue feeds into this next wish: Roller Derby still has problems with openness and transparency. The bouttime release was definitely a positive step from WFTDA, but we think that most Derby bodies (international and national) could improve on their transparency (the MRDA gets points for having a public forum!) and communication. Alongside this, we'd also like to see positive elements of collaboration continue to grow - more things like Derby Stance, more mergers of leagues to make stronger bodies, and generally more "derby spirit".

A WFTDA Playoff outside North America (and a non-US team winning Champs).

As The Apex noted, WFTDA is now the only major entity with "international" contests not to have some component held outside North America. It would be great to see some movement on this, especially with the increasing number of ranked European teams at D2 and even D1 level. (We'd also love to see a non-US team win the WFTDA Championships - Victorian have come ever so close twice now [and they've beaten Rose on neutral ground this year], so 2017 could still be it.)

But what would you like to see in 2017 - from us, or from Roller Derby? Let us know via our Facebook page, Twitter or just email (scottishrollerderbyATgmailDOTcom)!