As is traditional, 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). Our new SRD Rank for July will be out after this weekend – the fifth for this year, with this years’ redesigned interface, allowing you to browse historical rankings for the last 10 years, view a map of all the active teams, select by any combinations of country, gender, and get predictions of scores. (It also has some WFTDA rankings, including the 31 May ranking, as well as SRDRank.)

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

Scotland

This weekend Scotland has all the action at home:

• Dundee: Dundee Roller Girls host the Skate Tay Victory bootcamp, for pre-mins and newly passed skaters, with Jammer, Blocker and Tactics sections [EVENT]
• Sunday, Edinburgh: Auld Reekie Roller Girls host British Champs Tier 3 North: the All-Star Reserves playing Halifax Bruising Banditas, and Harrogate's Spa Town Roller Girls bouting Aberdeen's Granite City Roller Derby [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Sunday, Transgression Park: Chicks in Bowls Scotland are hosting a Quad Skate Rank and Rink Night at the popular venue [EVENT]

UK

British Champs is having a busy time:

• Wirral: Tier 2 Mens sees hosts Wirral Pack Animals play Bristol Vice Quads, and the Super Smash Brollers of Nottingham bout Barrow Infernos [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Neath Port Talbot: Tier 2 South, hosted by Swansea Roller Derby, slightly complicatedly; Swansea play Kent Rollergirls, whilst Taunton's South West Angels of Terror take on High Wickholm's Big Bucks Roller Derby [FTS Tournament] [EVENT]
• Durham: Tier 4 North is hosted by Durham City Rolling Angels, who play Grimsby's Grim Reavers; whilst York Minxters take on Mansfield Roller Derby [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

Outside of Champs there’s not a lot going on, outside of one big event!:

• Belfast, Northern Ireland: Belfast City Rockets make history as they host their first ever Coed/Open-to-All game, a hybrid team formed with Harland Wolves Roller Derby to be taking on a mixed team of all-comers! [EVENT]

• Nottingham: Nottingham Hellfire Harlots are hosting a double header - they take on London C [FTS], whilst Nottingham Roller Girls play Hulls Angels Roller Dames [FTS] in something of a first having both Nottingham leagues in the same event! [EVENT]
• Sunday, Leicester: Roller Derby Leicester are hosting an intake day! [EVENT]
• Monday, Loughborough (actually Whitwick): the Sox Pistols, Roller Derby Loughborough are hosting an intake/learn to derby day [EVENT]

Europe

In Europe, the only “national tournament” with fixtures is the German Bundesliga... but there's another big event we should mention first:

• Gent, Belgium: Derby Revolution 2017 - the 5th edition of the Roller Derby convention - is underway from Thursday to Sunday. [EVENT]
• Munich, Germany: Munich Rolling Rebels play a Bundesliga div 1 bout against Ruhrpott Roller Girls [FTS tournament] as part of this double header, with Munich B, the Municorns playing Regensburg's Rolling Rat Pack [FTS] [EVENT]
• Borås, Sweden: the 2017 SM-veckan tournament continues - FTS suggests that the bouts will be Gothenburg's Dock City versus Luleå, and Norrköping versus Crime City of Malmö (with their SM-veckan challenge team) in the two semi-finals. [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

• Coimbra, Portugal hosts the "Quad Cup 2017", a two-day, four-team tournament featuring hosts Rocket Dolls Roller Derby Coimbra,  Liberty Rebellion (a mashup of Liera's Black Rebels and Almada's Liberty Dolls), Roller Derby Black Thunders Derby Dames Madrid and Gones N'Roses Roller Derby Lyon! [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

• Erfurt, Germany: Roller Derby Erfurt are hosting their first ever home games, a co-ed/open-to-all bout with Rolling L.EF.DD-Overs (Erfurt/Dresden/Leipzig) versus Waterkant Hardcore Rollerderby of Kiel [FTS], followed by Erfurt A hosting Dresden B, the Trackoons [FTS], all as part of a wider extravaganza involving longboards, ramps, and other skatery! [EVENT]
• Brest, France: B.M.O Roller Derby Girls are hosting a double header: B.M.O A versus the Caen Mixed A/B team which has previously played [FTS], and Brest B playing Le Havre [FTS] [EVENT]
• Pibrac, France: Roller Derby Pibrac host a triple header!, as Roller Derby Toulouse' Barons Cathars play men's derby v the Unnamed Basterds [and "friends" who can sign up to play], Toulouse C (the Rainbow Furies) take on Marseilles Mars Invaders [FTS], and Pibrac's Harpies Braqueuses scrimmage Toulouse B! [EVENT]
• Porto, Portugal: Roller Derby Porto are hosting Stuttgart Valley Rollergirls [FTS][EVENT]
• Sunday, Darmstadt, Germany: Riot Rollers Darmstadt are holding a "mikro-tournament" - which basically seems to be Sur5al, but without the branding! No details on team names or anything to date. [EVENT]
• Sunday, Épinal, France: Roller Derby Épinal are hosting a double-header, as their rookies take on Dijon's Must'Hard, and the main Reaper's Crew play Nancy's Wheel Spirit [FTS] [EVENT]

• Sunday, Graz, Austria: Dust City Rollers are holding a newbie intake day! [EVENT]

• Sunday, Paris, France: Lutece Destroyeuses are also holding an intake day! [EVENT]

• Vannes, France: Les V'hermines, Roller Derby Vannes, are hosting skater and NSO bootcamps over the weekend, run by Abby Hide and Red Volta of Team France, and prominent NSO Breizh Pam. Places limited! [EVENT]

• The Hague, Netherlands: In an effort to improve officials numbers in the Netherlands, the Parliament of Pain is holding an officials bootcamp, followed by an open coed/open-to-all scrimmage to let the officials put into practice what they have learned. [EVENT]

• Friday, Dublin, Ireland: Dublin's home season begins with a Father Ted themed Eoin McShoves v Whack Hacketts game! [EVENT]

Pacific

In Australia and New Zealand:

• Thursday - in the Americas, Sydney City SMASH play their final game on their American tour, taking on the San Diego Aftershocks [FTS]
• Whangarei, New Zealand: the Northland Nightmares host their first game in the New Zealand "Top 10" National Tournament, playing Auckland Roller Derby [FTS Tournament] in a double header with Junior derby [EVENT]
• Whakatane, New Zealand: also hosts a Top 10 game, as Whakatane Roller Derby take on Dunedin Derby [FTS Tournament] [EVENT]
• Rotorua, New Zealand: the Sulphur City Steam Rollers' Motley Crew host Hellmilton Roller Ghouls (of... Hamilton) 's Raggedy Angst [FTS][EVENT]

• Sydney, Australia: Sydney Roller Derby League host a double header, as B team the Snipers take on Inner West Roller Derby  [FTS], and (SRDL C) The Mercenaries play Western Sydney Rollers [FTS] [EVENT] 

• Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia: Newcastle Roller Derby League are hosting Round 4 of their home teams series, as the Fort Smashleys play the Bogey Rollers [EVENT]

• Adelaide, South Australia: Adelaide Roller Derby are hosting a mixed Red v Black scrimmage [EVENT]

• Albany, Western Australia: Albany Roller Derby are hosting an Officials Weekend - with officials bootcamp on Saturday, and a scrim (where they can put those skills into practice) on Sunday [EVENT]

• Sunday, Tasmania: Convict City Roller Derby League are hosting their inaugural Monthly Sunday Open Scrim, as they invite skaters from, well, everywhere, to come skate with them [EVENT]

• Sunday, Campbelltown, South Australia: Murder City Roller Girls are hosting a mid-season intake day [EVENT]

Latin America

In Latin America, it currently seems oddly quiet:

• Bogotá, Colombia: the 4th District Tournament continues in Bogotá, with this weekend's hosts Maquina del Mal seeing Combativos Revoltosas play Maquina del Mal Feminino, and BX3 B (Baby Breakers) bout Fugitivas in the womens' tier; Rock N Roller Kings versus Combativos in the Men's tier [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

• Sunday, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina : Chat Noir Roller Derby host a triple-header round robin (popularly now called "Triangular" tournaments) against Moron Roller Derby and Bastardas Roller Derby Tigre [FTS 1,2,3] [EVENT]

• Sunday, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Sugar Loathe Roller Derby are running "learn to skate" sessions at the train station at Engenhão [EVENT]

• Late addition (because the event was up late): Córdoba, Argentina's Hiedras Roller Derby are hosting their 5th Birthday event this Saturday [EVENT]
• Late addition (also because the event was up late): Sunday, São Paulo, Brazil: Ladies of HellTown host an "open games" day, which looks like a "try derby out" type event. [EVENT]

Africa and Middle East

We're delighted to have an update for this, from the south of Africa:

• Cape Town, South Africa: Cape Town Rollergirls host the first bout of their home season this year, as the Scrim Reapers play The Rev'ettes [EVENT]

 

Since its inaugural run in 2015, the UK's "National Tournament", British Champs, has run on a complex hierarchical tiers and divisions system - with 4 (or 5 in 2016) ability-binned tiers, each subdivided into a variable number of geographically-binned subdivisions (depending on the number of teams in the tier, the number of geographical "divisions" is selected to give 5 to 6 teams per division).

If a team ends the year at the top (or bottom) of its tier, it is promoted (or relegated) to an adjacent tier - but the destination division must also be selected, which causes complications.

Running a geographically split tournament division structure is, arguably, making a rod for one's own back. Quite apart from the geopolitics of "north" and "south" in the British psyche, the additional splitting constraint makes it almost impossible to balance relegation and promotion whilst keeping the bounds of the regions sensible.

This is increasingly hard for the UK's British Championships, as the tournament is, in fact, shrinking year-on-year. In 2015, there were 72 competing women's teams; in 2016, 66, and this year there are just 61. British Champs themselves claim to be growing, but this is purely because they had no men's tier in 2015 - adding the 20 men's teams in 2016 makes the tournament "bigger", but only in a technical sense, as there's no cross-over between the men's and women's British Champs tiers. (The Men's British Champs has not changed in size between 2016 and 2017, so overall, Champs has still declined overall in the last year.)

We've plotted the shapes of the various British Champs Tiers + Divisions over the years to illustrate how they've changed shape - both from teams leaving and (less so) joining the tournament; and from promotion and relegation. (The Tier 5 is not animated, as it only existed for 2016.) On these plots, the dotted straight lines mark the North-South and East-West centrelines of the UK, so you can judge how well Champs manages to represent the geography of the UK in its divisions each year.

As can be seen, there are some very odd phenomena caused by the strict tier-and-geographical-division format. We can also see where excessive travel - remember, at least one pair of teams in a given fixture is hosted at another venue in their tier+division - can be a wear on opponents. One interesting phenomenon is the general migration of several of the South divisions towards the south-west, as promotion and relegation (which is uneven in Champs) requires more central teams to be added to the East divisions.

Solutions

One should, of course, prefer to critique than criticise. In this spirit, we have some suggestions (drawn from work ongoing for the Roller Derby World Cup 2018) as to how British Champs could improve its efficiency, whilst still providing the core benefit of giving a guaranteed, structured, 4 or 5 games to each participating team. Our suggestions also allow matching teams to close-by opponents, of similar strength; and provided a UK-wide "ranking" and "rating" of the participants.

Firstly: throw away the strict categories - not just the divisions, but also the tiers. Strict boundaries are the enemy of efficient matching - the teams at the bottom of Tier X should be able to play the top of Tier X+1, and the eastmost teams in West division should be able to play the westmost teams in East division. Teams in any tier should be able to host games for any other tier. [The German Bundesliga allows this already, for example.]

Secondly: match each team to 5 opponents, on the basis of their proximity and strength relative to the team in question. There are well-understood algorithms for doing this: the minimum-weight, maximum-width matching algorithm has been used for much larger problems than this for decades (and is used by RDWC2018 for scheduling). [We actually have one additional constraint here: we want the network of teams connected by bouts to span the entire set of competitors. This is easily ensured by using an alternate matching approach for one or two of the picks for each team.]

Thirdly: scheduling of bouts should be arranged so that every team hosts 1 double or triple header. Importantly, none of the games they host should involve them competing - this avoids home team advantage - but instead should be drawn from matches where both teams are closeby. [Because we have no Tiers, there's an ample supply of such matches here.] We assign bouts to hosts by total travel distance, using maximum-weight matching again.

Fourthly: thanks to the constraints in matching above, we can produce a ranking for the teams via any reasonable rating algorithm - Flat Track Stats' Elo-derived rating, either of the SRDRank mechanisms, or others - on the basis of all of the games played over the season. The published yearly rating can be used to establish "Champions", and also to inform the matches for next year.

Example - 2017

As an example, we present how the 2017 British Champs would have looked, if run as we propose. In this case, matches have been made using SRDRank ratings from February 2017, if they existed - there are 3 teams which are problematic here (Durham City Rolling Angels, Riverside Rebels Roller Derby, Arcadia Roller Derby) for which we assigned an "average" ranking as a placeholder. We stand by the bouts themselves as the best matches possible.

The resulting assignments of bouts to hosts would be the following fixtures (these don't take into account the size of the hosting venue, which obviously may be significant for some fixtures - a more polished version that was written in less than a day would include other considerations, but the bouts themselves would be the same):

• Riot City Ravens hosts:
  • Swansea City Roller Derby vs Bristol Roller Derby (Women's)
  • Birmingham Blitz Dames vs Tiger Bay Brawlers
  • Reaper Roller Derby vs Oxford Wheels of Gory Roller Derby
• Leeds Roller Derby hosts:
  • Wakey Wheeled Cats vs Spa Town Roller Derby
  • York Minxters Roller Derby vs North Cheshire Victory Rollers
  • Preston Roller Girls vs Hereford Roller Girls
• Royal Windsor Roller Girls hosts:
  • London Rockin' Rollers vs Big Bucks High Rollers
  • Hertfordshire Roller Derby vs Wiltshire Roller Derby (Womens)
• York Minxters Roller Derby hosts:
  • Spa Town Roller Derby vs Lincolnshire Bombers
  • Grim Reavers vs North Cheshire Victory Rollers
  • Cambridge Rollerbillies vs Whippin' Hinnies
• London Brawl Saints hosts:
  • London Rockin' Rollers vs Cambridge Rollerbillies
  • Vendetta Vixens vs Killa Hurtz Roller Girls
• Wolverhampton Honour Rollers hosts:
  • Birmingham Blitz Dames vs Tender Hooligans
  • Bristol Roller Derby (Women's) vs Tender Hooligans
  • Leeds Roller Derby vs Tiger Bay Brawlers
• Middlesbrough Roller Derby hosts:
  • Hallam Hellcats Roller Derby vs Durham City Rolling Angels
  • Grim Reavers vs Durham Roller Derby
• Cheshire Hellcats Roller Derbyhosts:
  • Wolverhampton Honour Rollers vs Riverside Rebels Roller Derby
  • Bath Roller Derby Girls vs Preston Roller Girls
  • Middlesbrough Roller Derby vs Swansea City Roller Derby
• Mansfield Roller Derby hosts:
  • Nottingham Roller Derby (Women's) vs Hallam Hellcats Roller Derby
  • Roller Derby Leicester vs Wakey Wheeled Cats
  • London Brawl Saints vs Middlesbrough Roller Derby
• Nottingham Roller Derby (Women's) hosts:
  • Dolly Rockit Rollers vs Sheffield Steel Rollergirls
  • Lincolnshire Bombers vs Vendetta Vixens
  • Manchester Roller Derby (Women's) vs Cambridge Rollerbillies
• Tiger Bay Brawlers hosts:
  • Reaper Roller Derby vs Riot City Ravens
  • Dorset Roller Girls vs Hereford Roller Girls
  • North Cheshire Victory Rollers vs Plymouth City Roller Derby
• Sheffield Steel Rollergirls hosts:
  • Spa Town Roller Derby vs Mansfield Roller Derby
  • Leeds Roller Derby vs Birmingham Blitz Dames
  • Cheshire Hellcats Roller Derby vs Grim Reavers
• Cambridge Rollerbillies hosts:
  • Rebellion Roller Derby vs Hertfordshire Roller Derby
  • Vendetta Vixens vs Suffolk Roller Derby (Women's)
• Rebellion Roller Derby hosts:
  • Milton Keynes Roller Derby vs Hertfordshire Roller Derby
  • Suffolk Roller Derby (Women's) vs Roller Derby Leicester
  • Dolly Rockit Rollers vs Kent Roller Girls
• Bath Roller Derby Girls hosts:
  • Dorset Roller Girls vs Wiltshire Roller Derby (Womens)
  • Riot City Ravens vs Oxford Wheels of Gory Roller Derby
  • Big Bucks High Rollers vs South West Angels of Terror
• Swansea City Roller Derby hosts:
  • Reaper Roller Derby vs North Devon Roller Derby
  • Neath Port Talbot Roller Derby vs Wirral Roller Derby
  • Cornwall Roller Derby vs Riverside Rebels Roller Derby
• Grim Reavers hosts:
  • Lincolnshire Bombers vs Mansfield Roller Derby
  • Norfolk Roller Derby vs Nottingham Roller Derby (Women's)
  • Sheffield Steel Rollergirls vs Norfolk Roller Derby
• Hallam Hellcats Roller Derby hosts:
  • Mansfield Roller Derby vs York Minxters Roller Derby
  • Nottingham Roller Derby (Women's) vs Arcadia Roller Derby
• Halifax Bruising Banditas hosts:
  • Tender Hooligans vs Leeds Roller Derby
  • York Minxters Roller Derby vs Cheshire Hellcats Roller Derby
• Severn Roller Torrent hosts:
  • Wiltshire Roller Derby (Womens) vs Wolverhampton Honour Rollers
  • Bath Roller Derby Girls vs Roller Derby Leicester
  • Swansea City Roller Derby vs London Brawl Saints
• Hertfordshire Roller Derby hosts:
  • Cambridge Rollerbillies vs Big Bucks High Rollers
  • Roller Derby Leicester vs Killa Hurtz Roller Girls
• Roller Derby Leicester hosts:
  • Nottingham Roller Derby (Women's) vs Dolly Rockit Rollers
  • Milton Keynes Roller Derby vs Wolverhampton Honour Rollers
  • Tender Hooligans vs London Rockin' Rollers
• Riverside Rebels Roller Derby hosts:
  • Wirral Roller Derby vs Manchester Roller Derby (Women's)
  • Furness Firecrackers (Women's) vs Halifax Bruising Banditas
• Bristol Roller Derby (Women's) hosts:
  • Hereford Roller Girls vs Bath Roller Derby Girls
  • Wolverhampton Honour Rollers vs Dorset Roller Girls
  • Neath Port Talbot Roller Derby vs Big Bucks High Rollers
• Dolly Rockit Rollers hosts:
  • Sheffield Steel Rollergirls vs Nottingham Roller Derby (Women's)
  • Sheffield Steel Rollergirls vs Rebellion Roller Derby
  • Royal Windsor Roller Girls vs Manchester Roller Derby (Women's)
• Cornwall Roller Derby hosts:
  • Plymouth City Roller Derby vs Reaper Roller Derby
  • Severn Roller Torrent vs Plymouth City Roller Derby
• Surrey Roller Girls hosts:
  • Royal Windsor Roller Girls vs London Rockin' Rollers
  • Big Bucks High Rollers vs Kent Roller Girls
• Neath Port Talbot Roller Derby hosts:
  • Tiger Bay Brawlers vs Swansea City Roller Derby
  • Severn Roller Torrent vs Reaper Roller Derby
  • Cheshire Hellcats Roller Derby vs Plymouth City Roller Derby
• Birmingham Blitz Dames hosts:
  • Wolverhampton Honour Rollers vs Hereford Roller Girls
  • Vendetta Vixens vs Severn Roller Torrent
• Norfolk Roller Derby hosts:
  • Killa Hurtz Roller Girls vs Suffolk Roller Derby (Women's)
  • Lincolnshire Bombers vs Killa Hurtz Roller Girls
• Vendetta Vixens hosts:
  • Rebellion Roller Derby vs Dolly Rockit Rollers
  • Oxford Wheels of Gory Roller Derby vs Lincolnshire Bombers
  • London Brawl Saints vs Leeds Roller Derby
• Lincolnshire Bombers hosts:
  • Mansfield Roller Derby vs Grim Reavers
  • York Minxters Roller Derby vs Grim Reavers
  • Suffolk Roller Derby (Women's) vs Halifax Bruising Banditas
• Arcadia Roller Derby hosts:
  • Halifax Bruising Banditas vs Preston Roller Girls
  • Wakey Wheeled Cats vs Furness Firecrackers (Women's)
• Wakey Wheeled Cats hosts:
  • Halifax Bruising Banditas vs Spa Town Roller Derby
  • Middlesbrough Roller Derby vs Birmingham Blitz Dames
• Granite City Roller Derby hosts:
  • All Star Reserves vs Whippin' Hinnies
  • All Star Reserves vs Durham City Rolling Angels
• Whippin' Hinnies hosts:
  • Durham Roller Derby vs York Minxters Roller Derby
  • Durham Roller Derby vs Cheshire Hellcats Roller Derby
  • Granite City Roller Derby vs All Star Reserves
• London Rockin' Rollers hosts:
  • Cambridge Rollerbillies vs Royal Windsor Roller Girls
  • Kent Roller Girls vs Rebellion Roller Derby
• North Cheshire Victory Rollers hosts:
  • Manchester Roller Derby (Women's) vs Liverpool Roller Birds
  • Riverside Rebels Roller Derby vs Hallam Hellcats Roller Derby
  • Middlesbrough Roller Derby vs Tiger Bay Brawlers
• Spa Town Roller Derby hosts:
  • Halifax Bruising Banditas vs Wakey Wheeled Cats
  • North Cheshire Victory Rollers vs Durham Roller Derby
• Reaper Roller Derby hosts:
  • South West Angels of Terror vs Neath Port Talbot Roller Derby
  • Hereford Roller Girls vs North Devon Roller Derby
• Durham Roller Derby hosts:
  • Durham City Rolling Angels vs Arcadia Roller Derby
  • Liverpool Roller Birds vs Whippin' Hinnies
  • Hallam Hellcats Roller Derby vs Granite City Roller Derby
• North Devon Roller Derby hosts:
  • South West Angels of Terror vs Swansea City Roller Derby
  • Neath Port Talbot Roller Derby vs Cornwall Roller Derby
• Manchester Roller Derby (Women's) hosts:
  • Arcadia Roller Derby vs Hallam Hellcats Roller Derby
  • Mansfield Roller Derby vs Cheshire Hellcats Roller Derby
• Liverpool Roller Birds hosts:
  • Preston Roller Girls vs Furness Firecrackers (Women's)
  • Furness Firecrackers (Women's) vs Spa Town Roller Derby
• Oxford Wheels of Gory Roller Derby hosts:
  • Wiltshire Roller Derby (Womens) vs Milton Keynes Roller Derby
  • Milton Keynes Roller Derby vs Dorset Roller Girls
  • London Brawl Saints vs Bristol Roller Derby (Women's)
• Big Bucks High Rollers hosts:
  • Surrey Roller Girls vs Milton Keynes Roller Derby
  • Roller Derby Leicester vs Surrey Roller Girls
• Tender Hooligans hosts:
  • Preston Roller Girls vs Wakey Wheeled Cats
  • Riverside Rebels Roller Derby vs Durham City Rolling Angels
• Kent Roller Girls hosts:
  • Killa Hurtz Roller Girls vs Surrey Roller Girls
  • Surrey Roller Girls vs Suffolk Roller Derby (Women's)
• Wiltshire Roller Derby (Womens) hosts:
  • Severn Roller Torrent vs Oxford Wheels of Gory Roller Derby
  • Bristol Roller Derby (Women's) vs Royal Windsor Roller Girls
  • London Rockin' Rollers vs South West Angels of Terror
• Milton Keynes Roller Derby hosts:
  • Oxford Wheels of Gory Roller Derby vs Vendetta Vixens
  • Birmingham Blitz Dames vs London Brawl Saints
• All Star Reserves hosts:
  • Durham City Rolling Angels vs Granite City Roller Derby
  • Arcadia Roller Derby vs Granite City Roller Derby
• South West Angels of Terror hosts:
  • Plymouth City Roller Derby vs Riot City Ravens
  • North Devon Roller Derby vs Bath Roller Derby Girls
  • Cornwall Roller Derby vs Wiltshire Roller Derby (Womens)
• Killa Hurtz Roller Girls hosts:
  • Kent Roller Girls vs Hertfordshire Roller Derby
  • Hertfordshire Roller Derby vs Norfolk Roller Derby
• Durham City Rolling Angels hosts:
  • Leeds Roller Derby vs Middlesbrough Roller Derby
  • Whippin' Hinnies vs Manchester Roller Derby (Women's)
  • Granite City Roller Derby vs Sheffield Steel Rollergirls
• Furness Firecrackers (Women's) hosts:
  • Liverpool Roller Birds vs Wirral Roller Derby
  • All Star Reserves vs Liverpool Roller Birds
  • Wirral Roller Derby vs All Star Reserves
• Plymouth City Roller Derby hosts:
  • North Devon Roller Derby vs Cornwall Roller Derby
  • Cornwall Roller Derby vs Dorset Roller Girls
• Wirral Roller Derby hosts:
  • Arcadia Roller Derby vs Riverside Rebels Roller Derby
  • Preston Roller Girls vs Hereford Roller Girls
  • North Devon Roller Derby vs Furness Firecrackers (Women's)
• Preston Roller Girls-hosts:
  • Liverpool Roller Birds vs Tender Hooligans
  • Whippin' Hinnies vs Wirral Roller Derby
• Suffolk Roller Derby (Women's) hosts:
  • Norfolk Roller Derby vs Kent Roller Girls
  • Rebellion Roller Derby vs Norfolk Roller Derby
• Dorset Roller Girls hosts:
  • Tiger Bay Brawlers vs Bristol Roller Derby (Women's)
  • Bath Roller Derby Girls vs Surrey Roller Girls
  • Royal Windsor Roller Girls vs South West Angels of Terror
• Hereford Roller Girls hosts:
  • Riot City Ravens vs Severn Roller Torrent
  • Riot City Ravens vs North Cheshire Victory Rollers
  • Dolly Rockit Rollers vs Neath Port Talbot Roller Derby

As is traditional, 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). Our new SRD Rank for June is out – the fourth for this year, with this years’ redesigned interface, allowing you to browse historical rankings for the last 10 years, view a map of all the active teams, select by country, gender, and get predictions of scores. (It also has some WFTDA rankings, including the 31 May ranking, as well as SRDRank.)

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

Scotland

This weekend Scotland has all the action at home:

• Thursday, Aberdeen: Granite City Roller Derby host their open scrims. [EVENT]
• Friday, Dundee: Dundee Roller Girls host their open scrims. [EVENT]
• Glasgow: Glasgow Roller Derby's home season begins with last year's winners the Bad Omens facing the Death Stars [EVENT]
• Blackburn, Scotland: Glasgow Men's Roller Derby run the third of their Jammer Club focussed bootcamps [EVENT]
• Kirkwall, Orkney: Orkney ViQueens host a Rule56 / Missy Rascal Bootcamp [EVENT]
• Monday, Glasgow: Resistance Roller Derby, the LGBTQIA-inclusive Junior Derby club, are running their second "Room To Grow" open event inviting adults to come along and skate (non-contact) with the team, and later an adults-only scrimmage.[EVENT]

UK

British Champs is having a busy time:

• Cwmbran, Wales host the Tier 3 South as Riot City Ravens play Dorset Roller Girls, and host Cornwall Roller Derby bouting North Devon Roller Derby [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Birkenhead hosts Tier 4 South, as Riverside Rebels play North Cheshire Victory Rollers; and Roller Derby Leicester compete against Cheshire Hellcats Roller Derby [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Leeds sees the (postponed) Tier 1 Mens hosted by Lincolnshire Rolling Thunder (who play Birmingham's Crash Test Brummies), along with Manchester's New Wheeled Order completing with Sheffield's The Inhuman League, Newcastle's Tyne and Fear bouting South Wales Silures [FTS Tournament] [EVENT]

Outside of Champs there’s not a lot going on, outside of one big event!:

• Friday, Portland, Oregon: London Rollergirls are playing Los Angeles' Angel City [FTS] hosted by Rose City Rollers [EVENT], and also running a bootcamp. 
• Cardiff, Wales: Tiger Bay Brawlers are hosting Dublin's finest Dublin Roller Derby in a WFTDA Sanctioned bout [FTS][EVENT]
• Clwyd, Wales: North Wales Roller Derby host a double header - an open subscription "rookie" bout [subscriptions full], followed by North Wales Roller Derby B facing Liverpool Roller Birds' Yellow Shovemarines [FTS][EVENT]
• Hull, England: Hull's Angels B team host Aberdeen's Granite City Roller Derby B (The Fight Hawks) [FTS][EVENT]
• Manchester, England: Rainy City Roller Derby host a double header against London Rockin' Rollers, with Rainy C versus LRR B [FTS] and Rainy B playing LRR A [FTS] [EVENT]
• Surrey, England: Surrey Rollerboys host Dorset Knobs in a closed bout.
• Sunday, Coventry, England: Coventry Roller Derby host Birmingham Blitz Dames B as part of a double header with a rookies bout [FTS][EVENT]
• Sunday, Lincoln, England: Lincolnshire Bombers B host Rebellion Roller Derby of Bedfordshire [FTS][EVENT]
• Sunday, Blackpool: Blackpool Roller Derby have an intake/open day [EVENT]

Europe

In Europe, the only "national tournament" with fixtures is the German Bundesliga:

• Dresden, Germany: Roller Derby Dresden host a Bundesliga div 1 bout against Munich Dynamite [FTS] followed by Team Germany versus Team Germany! [EVENT]

• Darmstadt, Germany: the Riot Rollers host a double header - a Bundesliga div 2 bout against Frankfurt's Bembeltown Rollergirls [FTS], and their B team playing Mainz's Maniac Monsters [FTS] [EVENT]

• Leipzig, Germany: the Riot Rocketz host Bremen's Meatgrinders for a Bundesliga div 3 bout [FTS][EVENT]
• Kaiserslautern, Germany: the Roller Girls of the Apocalypse are celebrating their 7th birthday with Birthday Brawl 2017, seven bouts over two days, featuring (as well as the hosts) [FTS Tournament][EVENT]:
  • Stuttgart Valley Rollergirls
  • Karlsruhe's Rock'n'Rollers
  • Roller Derby Metz Club (France)
  • and, Okinawa Roller Derby (Japan!)
• Vienna, Austria: Vienna Roller Derby are hosting a double header, with their A team (Oysters) facing Berlin's Bear City Roller Derby B [FTS], and their B team bouting Luzern's Hellveticats [FTS] [EVENT]
• Toulouse, France: Roller Derby Toulouse host a two day derby extravaganza, with quadruple header on the Saturday: [EVENT]
  • Belfort's Knee Breakers on Wheels v Roller Derby Toulouse C, the Rainbow Furies[FTS]
  • Paris' Quedalles versus Toulouse B, Blocka Nostra[FTS]
  •  ?? vs Nothing Toulouse [FTS]
  • and ?? v the Quad Guards [FTS]
    • Plus, on Sunday, a Sur5al tournament, with what sounds like "novelty Harry Potter themed" contests as well as the derby.
• Charleroi, Belgium: Blackland K-Rollers host a triple header, as they take on Dom City B [FTS], the Junior team Blackland Teenage Terrors play a bout, and men's team Blackland Randy Rebels play Namur's Glorious Basterds [FTS] [EVENT]
• Madrid, Spain: Roller Derby Madrid host a double header, with their A team facing Brussels Derby Pixies [FTS], whilst their B team play Dublin Roller Derby C [FTS][EVENT]

• Friday, Madrid, Spain: Black Thunders Derby Dames host a fundraising party to raise travel funds to attend the Quad Cup International tournament in Coimbra 1st July [EVENT]

• Prague, Czech Republic: Prague City Roller Derby's B team, the Bad Wolves will be facing Rotterdam B, The Killer Bees [FTS][EVENT]

• Le mans, France: Roller Derby 72 are hosting a 2 day tournament - "NEVER TRACK DOWN" featuring 72's Missfeet, Passeuses Dâmes of La Roche sur Yon, and Cherboobs of Équeurdreville-Hainneville, alongside rookie bouts and others. [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

• Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy: Alpn'Rockets host "The Italian Roller Derby Tournament", "Skate Im Ring" on Sat and Sunday. There's no events in FTS yet because no published schedule. [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

• Sunday, Poitiers, France: Poitiers Roller Derby are hosting a triple header, with the Broyeuses du Poitou (rookies) playing Saintes / Cholet, the Broyeuses du Poitou (advanced team) bouting Les Puces'Hells of Orléans and Limoges , and a mixed scrimmage [EVENT]

• Sunday, Kassel, Germany: Kassel Roller Derby are holding an intake day [EVENT]

• Paris, France: La Boucherie de Paris are celebrating their 5th birthday [EVENT]

• Lille, France: Lille Roller Girls are hosting a bootcamp for NSOs and Referees, with both theory and practice elements. [EVENT]

• Lille, France: Roller Derby Lille ("Switchblade") are also holding an event - a Roller Disco and Roller Dance event in collaboration with Skatepark de Lille [EVENT]

• Sunday, Chalon, France: Roller Derby Chalon's Rolling Storms are opening a junior derby tryout/experience for children over the age of 8 [EVENT]

• Sunday, Paris, France: Panam Squad are hosting a mixed gender bootcamp with spaces for NSOs and skaters [EVENT]

• Special mention to:

  • ECDX, where Gothenburg, Sweden's Dock City Rollers compete amongst a host of USA/Canadian teams [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
  • Sibling Rivalry, where Australia's Sydney City SMASH compete in the men's tier [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
  • Monday, St Louis, X: Sydney City SMASH are finishing off their tour of the USA by taking on the St Louis Gatekeepers as Sibling Rivalry finishes... [FTS][EVENT]

Pacific

In Australia and New Zealand:

• Gladstone, Queensland, Australia: Gladstone PCYC host a triple header; a black v white bout from Gladstone Juniors; Rockhampton's Rocky Roller Derby taking on the Brisbane City Rollers [FTS], and a coed/open-to-all finisher as two mixed teams with skaters from Gladstone Haul Stars, Toowoomba City Rollers, Rum City Derby Dolls, Rocky Roller Derby and Brisbane City Rollers[EVENT]

• Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia: Darwin Roller Girls host a home teams game, as the Arafuries bout the Psyclones[EVENT]

• Canberra, Australia: Canberra Roller Derby League host their 4th home teams game of the season, as Red Bellied Black Hearts take on Black ‘n’ Blue Belles. [EVENT]

• Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: Inner West Roller Derby League host the 4th round of the 5x5 Roller Derby Tournament 2017: Central Coast, Newcastle Roller Derby League, Maitland, Blue Mountains, Western Sydney, Sydney, hosts Inner West and Hawkesbury compete  [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

• Denmark, Western Australia: Albany Roller Derby League host a black and white scrim [EVENT]

• Brunswick, Victoria, Australia: Victorian Roller Derby League host a trivia night! [EVENT]

• Campbelltown, AC, Australia: Murder City Derby Dames host a double-header as Light City Derby of Adelaide's home teams Galactic Guardians and Medic Mayhem play, and Murder City home teams Dames of Hazard bout Valkyrie Storm [EVENT]

• Nelson Bay, New Zealand: The Sirens of Smash play Wellington's Convicts [FTS][EVENT]

• Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand: Bay City Rollers host a double header - with their entire lineup facing Hellminton Roller Ghouls of Hamilton - bouts between the A teams [FTS], B teams [FTS] and even their junior teams on the schedule [EVENT]

• Otaki, New Zealand: Kapiti Coast Derby Collective host Swamp City Roller Rats B of North Palmerston [FTS][EVENT]

• Christchurch. New Zealand: Otautahi Roller Derby's newly graduated rookies play Timaru Roller Derby's new graduates as a mutual graduation bout [EVENT]

• Sunday, Caloundra,Queensland, Australia : the Coastal Assassins host a Roller Disco [EVENT]
• Sunday, Sydney, Australia: South Side Derby Dolls host an intake day [EVENT]

Latin America

In Latin America, it currently seems oddly quiet:

• Polideportivo Aranjuez, Costa Rica: Liga Roller Derby Costa Rica host their first bout of the year, with home teams Panties Dinamita and Gatas Callejeras [EVENT]

• Montevideo, Uruguay: Pájaros Pintados Roller Derby (the "Painted Birds") host a "Heaven" v "Black" bout, as teams Celeste and Negro play [EVENT]

Africa and Middle East

This section is quiet again…

Dundee Roller Girls are hosting their first ever bootcamp on the first of July in Manhattan Works, Dundee! Open to all, this bootcamp is welcoming pre mins skaters as well as recently passed individuals looking to cement their derby skillz! This event boasts four hours (11am - 3pm) of minimal contact training, with on skates tickets selling out on day 1 - spectator tickets are left for a mere £10 a head!

Breaking the day down into sections: the five DRG coaches are Goldginger #77, G-Wrecks #713, Hubs #88, Landsborough #792 and Liston #07! Attendees can look forward to the following lessons:

♥ Wall work with Hubs and G-Wrecks! ♥

"We can't wait to get started on our block for the bootcamp! Sharing skating skills with newer skaters and encouraging everyone, no matter their skating levels, to engage with the core skills needed to further roller derby in Scotland is something we both really want to be a part of! It's really the best way to start the summer!!"

♥ Jammer work with Landborough and Goldginger ♥

"Our league has really benefited from specific jammer drills and discussions on how to approach the Star. Being able to share our experiences not only on a skills level but also a coaching level is a really exciting prospect! We'll work you hard but it'll be worth it!"

♥ Footwork with Liston ♥

"The building blocks for good wall work always starts with footwork! Lateral movement, recaptures and even jammer work relies on skaters having a strong base of footwork! I'm hoping to break down some of the more daunting skills for skaters to work on before bringing them into the wall! If you're stronger as one, you're stronger together."

Due to on skates tickets selling out on the first day, the DRG have added extra off skates spectator tickets to allow more to attend! Spectators will be welcomed in discussions of skills and drills throughout the day, to ask questions to any of the coaches as well as take notes, pictures and videos. As this bootcamp is aimed at post/pre mins, the coaches are hoping that skaters will take their newly polished skills back to their leagues to extend the learning process around Scotland (and further afield!).

---

For more information please visit the event page: here Link for off skates tickets (£10) can be found: here

Recently, Papa Whisky published an article on how the WFTDA Ranking system works.

This was a good introduction to the system, but perhaps missed a few technical points, which we feel are important. In addition, we think it might be useful to introduce other rating systems used in Roller Derby for comparison.

This article aims to address these two issues, and should be read in concert with the above linked article.

In this article, there is some maths. In this maths, we use: Pu to mean "the points scored by your team", Po to mean "the points scored by the opponent", as well as some other values later on.

Other Ranking systems - FTS

While Papa Whisky implies that Flat Track Stats does ranking and rating in a similar way to WFTDA's own official ratings and rankings, in fact the FTS algorithm is somewhat different.

FTS ratings are a variant of Elo ratings - named for Arpad Elo, who developed them for Chess in the late 1950s. Rather like WFTDA Ratings, FTS Ratings are an indication of how well you should do, but with a different basis - Elo Ratings are logarithmic, like Richter factors for earthquakes, or decibels for sound, so every 400 (or so) difference in Elo Rating is a ten-fold (or so) factor in expected score ratio. [FTS probably doesn't use the number 400 exactly.]

FTS ratings also update based upon how well you do, versus your expected performance. FTS measures performance in terms of what they call "difference over sum" (DoS) - this is the ratio of the point spread (your points minus their points) to the total points (your points plus their points) in the game:

(Pu-Po) / (Pu+Po)

 Essentially, every game you play adds points to your rating, based upon how well you beat the expectation from your relative ratings. (The actual calculation used by FTS is not published, but classical Elo ratings give you a bonus based on the sum of your opponent's rating and a factor proportional to the fraction of the score you got.)

At any given time, a team's FTS Rating is the sum of all of the bonus points they have gotten over the team's entire history. [In fact, most teams will have more than one FTS Rating - FTS maintains multiple ratings; for WFTDA, MRDA, Europe, North America etc - which differ mostly in which games count towards a teams' total points.]

Other Ranking systems - MRDA

The MRDA also does not use WFTDA ratings or rankings for their quarterly ratings. In fact, non-members have no knowledge of how the MRDA Rankings are calculated.

This also means we can't say much more about it here, which is extremely problematic.

Other Ranking systems - SRDRank (v1,2)

Our own rating system, SRDRank, is the most different in principles to the rating systems here.

Every other rating system works on pairwise comparison - a given game affects only the ratings of the two teams which play, and the rating of Team A will be the sum of all the effects from the games in its history.

SRDRank is based on global optimisation: every game doesn't just tell us something about the two teams which played, but also something about every other team which has played them recently, and so on.

SRDRank v1 and v2 perform this calculation in slightly different ways, but in both cases they care about the points ratio:

Pu/Po

in any given game. (Technically, we use log(Pu/Po), but that doesn't affect understanding.)

SRDRank v1 models each game as a "spring" between the two teams (which has a natural length proportional to the result of the game) - we run a simulation of the system with all the springs in place, and see where it ends up putting all the teams. The relative positions of the teams as the result of the springs tensioning against each other give their "ratings", and "Rankings".

SRDRank v2 uses least-squares linear regression to do the same thing. This is a technique to find the values for a set of unknowns (in this case, the team strengths) which "best fit" the observations (in this case, the ratio of scores in the games played) by minimising the distance between the results in reality, and the results predicted by the rankings.

Both SRDRank v1 and v2 adjust the importance of games so that older games are less significant than newer ones (by making the springs "weaker", or by allowing more distance with less penalty) - the amount we do so has been optimised itself by analysis of the history of the sport.

SRDRank v2 also attempts to detect teams which have changed suddenly in strength (because, say, their roster completely changed at the start of the season), by performing statistical tests on the predictions it makes. Teams which do change suddenly are "split" into a new and an old team, at the point of the change - which means both that the new roster can be given a different rating to the old one; and also that the history of the team doesn't contaminate our predictions for teams which play them in future.

SRDRank v1 and v2 are included in our github repo for prediction code, here.

Pros and Cons of Rating Systems - WFTDA

In his article, Papa Whisky notes that one of the weaknesses of the WFTDA rating system is that it is currently slightly opaque - the magic "median" value isn't what you'd expect it to be from the published results, because the WFTDA median is calculated from a longer list which is not published.

However, that isn't the real problem with WFTDA ratings - although it is related. To explain their issues, we'll need to do a little bit of simple mathematics.

As you know from the article, WFTDA ratings award you points for any sanctioned games based on the result of the calculation:

300 * Pu * So / (Pu+Po)

where So is the Strength Factor of the opponent. Given that a Strength Factor is just the WFTDA Ranking Points divided by the median Ranking Points, we can write this as

300 * Pu * Ro / ( Pu+Po) * Rm

where Ro is the opponent's ranking points, and Rm is the median of them.

In order to "keep the same rating", a team needs to score equal to its current WFTDA Ranking Points. So, we can write the condition for retaining Rating as:

300 * Pu * Ro / ( Pu+Po) * Rm = Ru

This relationship is the source of all of the issues with the WFTDA Rating system.

Firstly, let's rearrange this to give the fraction of points the team needs to score to maintain rating, in terms of everything else:

Pu/(Pu+Po) = (Ru/Ro) * (Rm/300)

So, the first thing we notice is that the "fraction of points" you need is proportional to the ratio of the two teams' WFTDA Ranking Points. This is the source of those "weird results" which Papa Whisky notes for bouts between teams of very different strengths.  In particular, it can mean that there's simply not enough available points for a team to retain its ranking, even if it got 100% of the points.

To see that that's true, let's imagine that our team gets 100% of the points, so Pu/(Pu+Po) is 1. That implies that

(Ru/Ro) = (300/Rm)

or

Ru = (300/Rm)*Ro

300/Rm is a bit more than 2 (we'll come back to this later), so our team needs a 100% blowout to break-even against a team with about twice its Rating. In the example Papa Whisky uses, Gotham had a SF (and thus rating) more than twice that of Windy: there was no possible way for Gotham to benefit from that game, as they would need to score more than 100% of the points!

The other problem is that teams need to continually beat expectations in order to retain ranking. To see that this is the case, let's assume that the two teams have identical WFTDA Ranking Points, Rx. In that case, the formula gives:

Pu/(Pu+Po) = (Rx/Rx) * (Rm/300) = Rm/300

where the final step is straightforward. If a team plays a team with exactly the same strength as it, we would expect the points to be divided equally, so Pu/(Pu+Po) should be 0.5 ... which implies

0.5 = Rm/300  ⇒ Rm = 150

Of course, Rm does not equal 150 - it's set to the median WFTDA Ranking Points, which is currently around 141.

The result of this is that teams need to beat their own expectation by about 7% in every game, just to stay where they are. In a case where two well matched teams perform as expected... not only does the losing team lose ranking, but so does the winning team. (This does balance out a little, in that it affects all teams, so there's a general "deflation" in scores one month to the next... but it is still counterintuitive.)

The Pro of the WFTDA rating system is that it's very easy to understand, and you can calculate expected scores and so on with just a piece of paper and some mental arithmetic (as long as you know the median Ranking Points). However, with computers ubiquitous nowadays, it is not clear how much of an advantage this is - DerbyOnToast (and our own SRDRank visualiser) can both automate ratings calculations for you, so you don't need to be able to do them yourself.

Pros and Cons of Rating Systems - FTS

The FTS Rating system has all the problems that Elo systems have in general.

In particular, Elo ratings consider that all results are relevant, even years after they happened. Rating changes only happen as a result of new games being played - so if you don't play any games for a year or two, you'll just keep the same FTS rating regardless.

This has the counter-intuitive result that it's sometimes better to just not play games, rather than lose rating. (If Gotham had decided not to play any games at Champs or later, they'd still be top of the leaderboard... more strikingly, the Oly Rollers retained a significant FTS rating for several years, despite not entering any scores at all.)

Related to this, FTS ratings take time to adjust to sudden changes - if a team suddenly becomes much weaker or strong (due to, say, a complete change of roster), it takes quite a lot of games for FTS to catch up, as there's only so much change FTS can accommodate in a single bout. Additionally, while this adjustment is taking place, all of the opponents have unfair rating changes - FTS changes are symmetric, so for team A to gain rating, team B must lose rating, even if the cause is entirely due to a change in team A.

FTS's advantage is that, like WFTDA Ratings, FTS ratings are quick and easy to calculate. So quick, in fact, that FTS recalculates all of its ratings at least once an hour, to guarantee that predictions are as up to date as possible.

FTS also does not suffer from either of the problems of WFTDA Rankings - there is no combination of teams for which either team "can't win".

Pros and Cons of Rating Systems - SRDRank

SRDRank, being a different class of rating system to the other two, has entirely different issues.

SRDRank's main issue is its relative complexity. Whilst least-squares regression, and statistical tests, are no more advanced than first year undergraduate level, this is still a significant increase in complexity over the other two.

SRDRank's other issue stems from the global nature of its calculation. As with FTS, an undetected sudden change in team strength can cause unwanted effects in the ratings of other teams. As SRDRank is a globally optimised rating, this effect can make (small) changes in rating even for teams which never play the team in question. We attempt to minimise this effect via the statistical test and splitting step, but there will always been a short period where there's not enough evidence to detect a sudden change, and where ratings will be somewhat affected.

Finally, SRDRank is limited by the depth and quality of information available to it. Because it uses FTS's own records as a data source, it can only use information that FTS consider relevant. Because of this, there a several uncontrolled sources of error which reduce SRDRank's accuracy - we don't always know if there's a "home" team, as FTS doesn't track the host of a bout, and assumes that one team must be a "home" team regardless - and for tournaments, FTS is poor at assigning hosts for tournament type events which run over many fixtures; we don't know the length of a bout (which affects the reliability of a rating); we don't know rosters for most games (because most bouts don't upload statsbooks), so we can't model expectations based on players who are missing or present - and so on. We also, of course, as with all rating systems, can't rate teams for whom there is no information at all. If your team doesn't upload stats or scores to FTS, then FTS and SRDRank can't rate you. Historically, this has affected Mexico and Latin America as whole more than most other reasons, which is extremely problematic, as it also decreases visibility of the fantastic amount of derby happening in those areas.

In comparison, SRDRank can rank and rate the entire world's roller derby teams, not just subsets of them. It also allows detection of cliques within the community - groups of teams which play each other more than others, and thus are better rated relative to other members of the group than the outside world - and selection of ratings based on geographical location.

Summary

Knowing a bit about possibilities for rating systems is important in judging how to use them (and which ones are good at which things).

If you're interested in gaming your WFTDA rating, it's best to avoid playing teams with less than 70% of your rating (to avoid matchings where you simply can't score enough to improve your rating, regardless of what you do); and preferably play teams closer in rank to you, but who you think you can beat by more than 10% of the score...

As is traditional, 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). Our new SRD Rank for June is out – the fourth for this year, with this years’ redesigned interface, allowing you to browse historical rankings for the last 10 years, view a map of all the active teams, select by country, gender, and get predictions of scores. (It also has some WFTDA rankings, including the 31 May ranking, as well as SRDRank.)

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

Scotland

This weekend Scotland has all the action at home:

• Dundee sees Dundee Roller Girls host a double header, DRG A playing the Dolly Rockits of Leicestershire[FTS], and Dundee B taking on Scarborough Slammers, in the latters' first ever public game! [FTS] [EVENT]

UK

British Champs is having a quiet time, with just one fixture:

• Bristol hosts the Tier 1 fixtures with a triple header: the hosts versus Tiger Bay Brawlers, Birmingham Blitz Dames against Leeds Roller Derby, and London Rollergirls B playing Middlesbrough Roller Derby. [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Sunday, Norwich, Norfolk hosts the Tier 3 East, with hosts Norfolk Brawds playing Bedfordshire's Rebellion Roller Derby; Surrey Roller Girls playing Hell's Belles of Hertfordshire [FTS Tournament][EVENT] - this event is a late addition, as no-one had added it to FTS.
• Sunday, Milton Keynes, and the Concrete Cows host the Tier 3 West, playing Hallam Hellcats, whilst Sheffield Steel Rollergirls bout Nottingham Roller Girls [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

Outside of Champs there’s not a lot going on, outside of one big event!:

• Manchester: all four Greater Manchester leagues (Manchester Roller Derby, Rainy City Roller Derby, Knights of Oldham and Arcadia Roller Derby) are coming together for a massive derby event in support of the victims of the Manchester bombing, via raising money for the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund [EVENT]
• Portsmouth: Portsmouth Roller Wenches are hosting a double-header against Oxford Roller Derby: A v A [FTS] and B v B [FTS] [EVENT]

• Newcastle: Tyne and Fear Roller Derby host (we assume the Men's) Team Nederland for a double header, as the Netherlands team plays Tyne and Fear A and B! [EVENT]

• Queensferry, Flintshire: North Wales Roller Derby invite everyone to a skate party at Deeside Skate Park! [EVENT]

• Sunday, Bradford: Aire Force One host a small, private artistic skating session, with limited numbers. We guess this might be sold out now, but it sounds interesting! [EVENT]

Europe

In Europe, with the French National Tournament ended for the year (Toulouse taking the championship for the first time, last weekend), there's less tournaments this weekend:

• Jyväskylä, Finland: Jyväskylä Roller Derby host the Final for the Pohjola Cup 2016/7 

  • Kuopio Roller Derby and Seinäjoki Roller Derby play for Bronze
  • Jyväskylä Blockbusters and Ylivieska's Riverdale Rollers play for the Gold and the trophy!
  [FTS Tournament][EVENT] (FTS favours the Blockbusters for the Championship) 
• Friday, Le Havre, France: Roller Derby Le Havre host an intake and introduction to roller derby day [EVENT]

• Lille, France: Roller Derby Lille host an amazing quadruple-header! [EVENT]
  • Lille Men's (Les Barbiers de Sevices) play Rennes' Bonhommes [FTS]
  • Roller Derby Arras' Purple 2.0 play Rennes B, Les Villaines [FTS]
  • "Sbrrraronnes von Blade" (Switchblade Lille A/B mix) play "Déferlaines" (Rennes A/B mix)
  • Lille C (Smashing Machetes) play Rennes C (Mortal Condates) [FTS]
• Annecy, France: Annecy Roller Derby host a double header, Annecy Brütales Deluxe against the exhibition team Les Mères-Royaume of Leman'Wheels/GVA Roller Derby [FTS], and Les Sales Gosses of the Rhône-Alpes playing Team Friends, an exhibition team [EVENT]
• Gent, Belgium: GO-GO Gent Roller Derby are holding an end-of-season triple header, with Gent B (the Cubs), Brussels Derby Pixies B (Atomium Kittens) and Antwerp's One Love B (Pack of Destiny) all playing each other. [FTS 1,2,3][EVENT]
• Essen, Germany: Ruhrpott Roller Derby host Namur Roller Derby (in a change to their scheduled event). [FTS][EVENT]
• Limerick, Eire: Limerick Roller Derby host their own triple header round robin, with the hosts, Belfast Roller Derby and Brighton Rockers Roller Derby all playing each other. [FTS 1,2,3][EVENT]
• Örebro, Sweden: Örebro Roller Derby host a double header, with Stockholm's C-Stars visiting to play the hosts [FTS], and Norrköping B (Blockwork Orange) taking on Västerås Roller Derby [FTS] [EVENT]
• Cork, Ireland: Cork City Firebirds are hosting a double header open-subscription scrimmage (the two bouts being "Cherry Popper" and "Advanced"). [EVENT]
• Borås, Sweden: Stitch City Rollers are hosting a "syjunta" - a meeting where people sew, knit and embroider whilst also discussing topics and socialising. The topic of the syjunta is LGBTQIA inclusion in sports, especially with reference to Roller Derby. [EVENT]
• Sunday, Chambery, France: Les Chamber'Hyennes host a triple header round robin, against Lyon Association Roller Derby B, and the Taxider'biches (Thonon B) [FTS 1,2,3][EVENT]
• Sunday, Paris, France: La Boucherie de Paris host a double header, La Carcasse (Boucherie C) vs Les P'tites Frappes (Lutece Destroyueses B) [FTS] and La Barbaque (Boucherie B) against Paris Roller Girls' "Recruits" [EVENT]
• Sunday, Amiens, France: The Rolling Candies host a mixed open scrimmage, with Amiens A and B, plus skaters who apply, forming two teams to play out the end of the season. [EVENT]
• Sunday, Växjö, Sweden: Växjö Roller Derby host an intake day for those wanting to join. [EVENT]
• and on Monday (19th), Lisbon, Portugal: Lisboa Roller Derby Troopers have their open day [EVENT]

• Special mention to:

  • Philadelphia, USA: Philly Roller Derby host Stockholm Roller Derby, who are touring the USA starting with this game. The bout seems to be closed?, but has an entry on [FTS]. (FTS and SRD Rank think this is pretty close, with the hosts advantage)
  • Seattle, USA: Rat City Rollergirls are hosting London Rollergirls [FTS] as part of a double header (also featuring junior derby from Seattle Derby Brats). [EVENT] (FTS and SRD Rank strongly favour London.)
  • Monday, Salt Lake City, USA : Wasatch Roller Derby host Trondheim, Norway's Nidaros Roller Derby ![FTS][EVENT] (FTS favours the hosts significantly; SRD Rank thinks it's closer.)

Pacific

In Australia and New Zealand, it’s pretty quiet…:

• Hong Kong, China: Hong Kong Roller Derby host their first ever public bout, against the Pan-Asian Spring Rollers. We wrote a bit about this here. [FTS][EVENT]
• Wauchope, NSW, Australia: Port Macquarie Roller Derby host a bout, with their Breakwall Brawlers competing against Northern Beaches Roller Girls' Sirens [FTS][EVENT] (FTS favours the hosts)
• New Plymouth, New Zealand: Taranaki Roller Corps host a bout, with their Rumble Bees taking on Whanganui's West Coast Bombers [FTS][EVENT]
• Friday, Runaway Bay, Queensland, Australia: East Coast Derby Dolls hold their regular recruitment/intake night (also on Wednesday) [EVENT]
• Saturday, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia: Coastal Assassins Roller Derby are holding an intake day [EVENT]
• Adelaide, Australia: Adelaide Roller Derby are holding a bingo night! [EVENT]
• Sunday, Footscray, Victoria, Australia: WestSide Derby Dollz are also holding an intake/tryout day [EVENT]

Latin America

In Latin America, there’s only a few things going on, but one of them is a tournament, and we all know how big tournaments are in Latin America:

• Temperly, Argentina: Dirty Fucking Dolls host the Torneo Sucio (II), a 4 day tournament from Saturday to Tuesday! The tournament has Men's, "B", and "C" tiers, featuring: [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
  • Mens: Thunder Quads (Buenos Aires), Wonderclan (Men) (north Buenos Aires), Coquena's Fighters (Jujuy), Jimmy Rustlers (Buenos Aires) and Survival Crew (Córdoba, Argentina)
  • B: Dirty Fucking Dolls (Temperly), Alianza Rebelde (La Plata, Buenos Aires), Hiedras Venenosas (Córdoba), Pibas (2x4 Roller Derby B) (Buenos Aires), Lado Oscuro (Mendoza) , Volcanicas (south Buenos Aires), NERD
  • C: Hienas de la Calle (Neuquén), Motherfuckers (Pergamino), Mortal Kollas (Jujuy), Cosmicclan (Wonderclan B), Brujas (Bahía Blanca), Santa's Hell (Santa Fe, Argentina), Desalmadas (Avellaneda), Fawkes (Merlo, Buenos Aires), Mandrágoras (General Roca), Barderas Insurrectas (Neuquén), Rotten Vicious Dolls (DFD B) and Maldita Lisiadas (Salta)!
• Caleta Oliva, Argentina: Oliva Salvaje Roller Derby are hosting their own triple header round robin, against Comodoro Roller Derby (of Comodoro Rivadavia) and Puerto Madryn Roller Derby [FTS 1,2,3][EVENT]
• Sunday, Bogota, Colombia: the 4th District Tournament continues, with Bogota Bone Breakers hosting: Rock N Roller Queens play Bogota Bone Breakers, and Central Derby D.C. play Queens B in the Women's tier; Maquina del Mal play Legión in the men's. [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

Africa and Middle East

This section is quiet again…

Returning to our series on the 11 teams new to the Roller Derby World Cup 2018 in Manchester, and we're staying in Europe for this one.

Poland, despite having one of the largest populations in Central Europe, has only recently developed a significant Roller Derby population. We talked to one of Team Poland's organisers, Ewa Kaczyńska, about the formation of the National Team.

The Polish Flag (standing in for Team Poland's logo)

With Roller Derby having only come to Poland in 2013 - the first league in Poznań quickly followed by Warsaw, then Wrocław, Szczecin and Gdańsk - there was little possibility to compete in the 2014 World Cup. Since then, Polish Derby has grown considerably, to the point of holding their first Derby Sevens tournament this year, as well as hosting one of Scald Eagle & Lady Trample's WinTourOpe bootcamp dates. Whilst not all the leagues are huge at the moment (there's a preference for mixed team events and scrims to cover the numbers for the smaller teams), Polish derby is still growing and in a strong position in the Central European vanguard.

As is often the case, inline skating is more popular in Poland than Quads, although, Ewa notes: "[interest in quad skates] is growing, here is a better access to quads in shops. However, not that much luck with roller derby related skate shops, as there are just 3 or 4 with limited offerings." It's perhaps the growth of Chicks in Bowls, which also has a Polish branch, which is helping to drive this interest, helping out Roller derby with the cross-over, as it does elsewhere. "Yes, they definitely [help]. It's good that girls are taking over the skateparks!"

For more derby related help, the community surrounding has been supportive, with bootcamps and shared bouts popular.

"Thanks to skaters from all over the World we are able to organize bootcamps led by experienced coaches," Ewa told us. "That is so much different from learning from the book - as we did at first! 'Roller Derby 101: The Fresh Meat Training Manual ' was our first derby bible... Now, we get a lot of help and support from Czech and German teams - I guess it's just the thing with neighbours! We also get  lots of help from Polish (and other) skaters from all over the World."

As the intent to participate applications opened for the 2018 World Cup,  Poland were actually the last team to sign up, as Ewa notes: "There’s been a discussion about founding Polish National Roller Derby Team going on since November 2016 in Poland. [...]No decisions were made until the very last moment before the registration period ended. We formed a Founding Committee and acted! I think [the decision] was just about not letting people miss the opportunity to represent Poland."

Ewa also had personal reasons for pushing for the decision to commit, "I believe that sometimes people need to be pushed a bit. Sometimes no decisions are made simply because of the lack of courage, or ability to take responsibility for one's actions. I started derby three years ago and I started it to compete later on.

At first I thought that Polish skaters are not yet ready to compete on such level as World Cup. Since last November, we had numerous discussions with more experienced skaters. We got a lot of encouragement and support and then it suddenly became clear to us: things like forming a National Team need to be done to push things further, to make teams grow, to create opportunities for development. We cannot just sit doing nothing!"

Despite the last-minute decision, Poland's size and population have immediately produced results, with more than 50 skaters registered to try out or otherwise be involved, with around 50% from the existing Polish teams, and the rest from across the World. Poland has many nationals, and descendants of nationals, spread across the world - in Europe and in the USA - and many of them feel just as much pride for their country as those who live there.

"After we decided to found Team Poland we got a massive response from other parts of the World, which is just amazing; [...] it is truly touching when we get messages from people that 'want to do it for their Grandpa', although we would [also] love Team Poland to have lots of Polish girls living in Poland!"

As for all National Teams, and especially the newer ones, Team Poland are driven by more than simply patriotism. With National teams comes the chance of better visibility for Roller Derby as well - and a chance to combat myths and prejudice. "What really pushed us to form TP is a bigger picture," explains Ewa. "We know that all the teams went the same way at the beginning: rented vintage skates, no proper protection, no coaches, no places to skate. Also most of people think about roller derby as of 'rugby on quads' or an aggressive sport for punk girls with piercings and tattoos.

Surely, we do have them, but taking a part in such a big event could be an eye opener for people here! We would love them to acknowledge this sport as an athletic discipline, not only for 'outcasts'..."

And part of growing that athletic image is, of course, better training. As we discussed with Team Austria, the advantage of  National Teams is also in the sharing of experience and skills, and Ewa agrees. "We all think that apart from World Cup, the following months will let us all benefit from the joined training sessions.

It is a big step for Polish roller derby, that's for sure!"

---

There is no Team Poland website or Facebook page yet - interested people should email the team at team.Poland.roller.derby@gmail.com or message Ewa Kaczyńska on Facebook.

If Spring is the time when new growth happens, how appropriate it is that East Asian Roller Derby is just now bursting into life and catalysed by the Pan-Asian Spring Rollers!

Readers may remember our coverage of Japan's second-ever Roller Derby Tournament, the Tomodachi Derby Tournament, in Okinawa earlier this year. The Pan-Asian Spring Rollers were one of two "exhibition" teams founded to attend - comprising of skaters from Beijing Roller Derby, Shanghai Roller Derby, Hong Kong Roller Derby (the three Chinese leagues), and Bangkok Roller Derby for Thailand.

Originally, the plan was for them to simply exist for the one tournament - a chance for those 4 leagues to share costs and make a more competitive roster together - but the Spring Rollers have quickly become something more.

Only a few weeks ago, Shanghai Roller Derby held their first ever public game, enabled by the existence of the Pan-Asian Spring Rollers as a team to play against them.

In a few weeks' time, Hong Kong Roller Derby also hold their first public game, ever, once again enabled by the Pan-Asian Spring Rollers.

The Pan-Asian Spring Rollers are represented by reps from each of their source teams, and we spoke to their Hong Kong Rep, Willow Whips (who also Captained PASR at Tomodachi), and their Bangkok Rep, Jean Claude van Slam about the new aims of PASR.

JC:"We all got on amazingly well [at the Tomodachi Derby Tournament], some of us meeting for the first time just hours before our first game. I think we all felt sad to depart afterwards partly for the awesome experience but also as new found friends. It was after I chatted with members of Okinawa Roller Derby that the idea came to try and maintain the PASRs.

Beijing and Bangkok had talked before about the importance of maintaining the relationship between our teams as the key to growing this sport in Asia and so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to harness that enthusiasm and drive this new partnership into something long standing."

WW: "We have been working on a set of regulations and things like that, so the aim is that each team will try and host one event (a training session or a scrim) per year. Bangkok is planning on hosting a boot camp and scrimmage at the beginning of October, which will be open to anyone affiliated with Pan-Asian Roller Derby"

JC: For BRD, it's given members a new motivation for the sport, knowing that all that effort each week of learning and practicing drills has a chance to be put into real action, in addition to attracting new people to our team.

One of the issues for BRD being out further than the rest, is the travel costs. However, one of PASRs conditions for being a team member is to host at least one event per year so this should make for plenty of opportunities to choose from.

We hope that this will also help us to build recognition of the sport in Thailand and encourage more people to join. Just having those opportunities that has already made such a difference [to the team]"

WW: "The [long term] aim is to head back to Japan next year for the [next Japanese] tournament, now that we have played together a few times we will hopefully be even more badass!"

JC:"I hope that with the extended reach out to lone players in parts of Asia who don't currently have a home team, the PASR team might encourage new leagues to start in other Asian countries. That's yet to be seen but fingers crossed!!"

Willow: "If any teams want to join they just have to be in the region and put forward one representative from the team. If any individual skaters are in the area they are also welcome to sign up and train and play with us!"

---

The next fixture in this new East Asian derby calendar is against Hong Kong Roller Derby on the 17th June.

Hong Kong Roller Derby, which started out when founder Buffy SlayHers moved to Hong Kong from the USA in 2013, was inspired by an article listing "Top 5 Reasons HK Needs a Roller Derby Team" after realising that her new destination had no derby at all. As Buffy put it, "So I decided the best way to start was to "recruit " my friend, and roommate at the time, Glenda by having a roomie night and watching, yes, you guessed it, 'Whip It!' Now, before you start hating, and as cliche as it I, I think all of us love 'Whip It!' whether we have accepted the facts or not."

The team has had a bumpy ride - despite a huge amount of effort, the original Hong Kong Roller Derby collapsed in 2014, "I'm sure you all know the common difficulties many, if not all derby players face, but being in HK, made it that much harder. From difficulty in securing practice venues, to people moving away, and misunderstandings, our team fell apart and remained that way for over a year and a half."

Reformed now, for another go since 2016, the new Hong Kong Roller Derby has managed to grow to a healthy 19 skaters!  Buffy has drawn the following lesson from the two experiences: "It still seems like a dream, but [HKRD] is finally happening and has opened my eyes to why we had failed before. It all comes down to the people and the passion. Without community and support, we are nothing. But now our team is a family, and we realize we won't always agree but we will always have each others' backs and remember that in the end, we all want the same thing."

HKRD's A Team, the Yau Ma Titties, have put a huge amount of effort into organising this first bout (thanks to the previous derby experience of their founder, it's been easier than it might have been).

You can follow the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1240708282693458/

If you want to join the Pan-Asian Spring Rollers as another Asian team, you can find their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/Pan-Asian-Spring-Rollers-448887468791803/  which also links to all of their member leagues, including Hong Kong.

Don't stop believing - that's the tune blasting out at Glasgow Men's Roller Derby HQ where the Irn Brn are plotting a derby escape act which would make Houdini hop the apex with delight.

This Saturday, GMRD play host to the final fixtures in the British Championships' Men's Tier 3 - Regional North group (at Glasgow's ARC Sports Centre).

GMRD will be taking on their Celtic cousins, Men Behaving Derby (MBD), while Bairn City Rollers' Skelpies will be setting blasters to stun against Teesside Skate Invaders.

In a decidedly Scottish-type twist, only a specific combination of results can now see GMRD qualify for the play-offs.

For the uninitiated, here's the short story:

In April, GMRD travelled to Dublin to play the Skate Invaders, winning by 234 points to 167. GMRD were later denuded of victory due to an eligibility malfunction, with the score becoming 200-0 in favour of the Invaders.

GMRD's next game against the Skelpies was then forfeited by the Falkirk team due to lack of numbers - a 200-0 win in favour of GMRD - leaving the table looking like this:

Basically, GMRD need to beat MBD on Saturday - that's a pre-requisite if GMRD want a play-off place.

Regardless of what flavour that victory lollipop is, the Irn Brn need to be sucking on it by Saturday evening.

If the Skelpies win against the Invaders then victory of any variety will be enough for the Glasgow mob.

However, if the Invaders win and GMRD win then the three top teams will be tied on six points and it goes down to scores.

GMRD would need to have a better points differential than MBD to qualify for the play-offs.

Don't worry about crunching the numbers, SRD Blog has done it for you - GMRD need to beat MBD by over 123 points to be certain of a play-off place.

That isn't going to be any kind of easy as MBD have already beaten both the Skelpies and the Skate Invaders this season, the latter with just 6 players!

That's why Hugs & Kisses - GMRD's President - is sounding the rallying horn to the Irn Brn faithful.

"We need everyone in the West of Scotland and beyond to come out and support Saturday's double-header," he said.

The Irn Brn - photo by Laura MacDonald

"This is an amazing first for our city - a British Champs men's game at the home of Glasgow derby, the ARC sportscentre.

"You are going to see two gallus games of roller derby, with the fate of three teams hanging in the balance.

"Come out and support the Irn Brn as we attempt the great escape. We're confident we can put on a great show - don't stop believing, ken?"

* Doors open at the ARC sportscentre, Glasgow, on Saturday (10 June) at 11.30am. Tickets cost £7. Click here for more information.

• Teeside Skate Invaders vs Bairn City Skelpies - first whistle at 11:45
• Glasgow Men's Roller Derby vs Men Behaving Derby - first whistle at 2pm

As is traditional, 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). Our new SRD Rank for June is out – the fourth for this year, with this years’ redesigned interface, allowing you to browse historical rankings for the last 10 years, view a map of all the active teams, select by country, gender, and get predictions of scores. (It also has some WFTDA rankings, including the 31 May ranking, as well as SRDRank.)

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

Scotland

This weekend Scotland has action at home and away (away is in Europe):

• Glasgow hosts the British Champs Tier 3 Mens' as hosts Glasgow Men's Roller Derby play Dublin's Men Behaving Derby, and Falkirk/Stirling's Skelpies take on Teeside Skate Invaders [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• On Sunday, there's a closed triple bout, as GMRD take advantage of Men Behaving Derby being over to play them again, and also let Newcastle's Tyne and Fear in on things.
• On Sunday, Aberdeen sees a closed bout, as Granite City Roller Derby's Fight Hawks play Inverness City Roller Derby, in the latter's first ever bout. [FTS]

UK

British Champs is back this weekend (after a break for the bank holiday last weekend):

• Dorset hosts the Mens T3 South, with hosts Dorset Knobs playing Oxford Men's Roller Derby, and Grimsby's Brothers Grim facing Sons of Icarus [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Liverpool hosts the Tier 2 North, hosts Liverpool Roller Birds against Cambridge Rollerbillies, and Manchester Roller Derby playing Rainy City Roller Derby B [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Neath Port Talbot hosts the Tier 4 South, hosts NPT Roller Derby bouting Swansea's Reaper Roller Derby, and Plymouth facing Severn Roller Torrent of Gloucester [FTS Tournament] [EVENT]

Outside of Champs there’s not a lot going on, as far as we can see:

• Penryn, Cornwall hosts an amazing bootcamp, with Team Scotland Head Coach Rosie Peacock and Power of Scotland's Optimus Grime [EVENT]
• Birmingham hosts a Birmingham Blitz Dames intake "learn to skate" day [EVENT]

• and on Sunday, Sheffield also hosts an intake day for Sheffield Steel Rollergirls [EVENT]

Europe

In Europe, there’s a few national tournament with fixtures, and several other big events:

• Nantes, France hosts the Grand Final of the French National Tournament, Elite Stage. Competing for the championship are: hosts Nantes Derby Girls, Caen's Leopard Avengers, Amiens' Rolling Candies, La Boucherie de Paris, SAM Roller Derby of Mérignac, Lille's Bad Bunnies, Paris Rollergirls and Roller Derby Toulouse (Nothing Toulouse). Every previous Championship has come down to a tight Paris/Toulouse bout... and Paris has won every time, in the final jam. This year, Toulouse will want to show they can take the win. [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Thonon, France: the Taxider'biches are hosting a two-day event, with bootcamp in Saturday, and a bout between les Biches and Les Amazones of Pays d'Aix [FTS] on the Sunday [EVENT]
• The German Bundesliga is also still ongoing this weekend, with
  • Hannover hosting a Tier 2 bout, hosts Demolition Derby Dolls playing Bembeltown Rollergirls of Frankfurt [FTS Tournament], in a double header with men's derby team, DHR Roller Derby [of Kiel, Germany and Aarhus, Denmark] take on Team Poland Men's Roller Derby! [FTS] [EVENT]
  • Hamburg hosting a Tier 1 bout, with Harbor Girls Hamburg playing Munich Dynamite [FTS Tournament] in a double header with Hamburg B playing Roller Derby Twente (Eastside Rock'n'Rollers) [FTS] [EVENT]
• Barcelona, Spain: Barcelona Roller Derby hosts their spring/summer tournament, Brawlcelona 2017, with Tenerife Roller Derby, Stockholm Roller Derby (B) and pan-French exhibition team Les Patins du Cœur competing with the hosts over Saturday and Sunday [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Clemont-Ferrand, France: the Auver’Niaks host a double header, playing Belfort's Knee Breakers on Wheels [FTS] and the Red Valentines of Valence [FTS][EVENT]
• Porto, Portugal: Roller Derby Porto's Dragons play Nidaros B [FTS][EVENT]
• Milan, Italy: the Harpies of Roller Derby Milano are hosting Rotterdam Roller Derby [FTS][EVENT]
• Warsaw, Poland: the Warsaw Hellcats host a triple header round robin, with Malmö's Crime City Rollers C, and Bristol Roller Derby B the other competitors. [FTS 1,2,3][EVENT]
• Graz, Austria: and Dust City Rollers are hosting Linz Roller Derby for a scrimmage (so it's not on FTS at the moment)[EVENT]
• Berlin, Germany: Berlin Rollergirls are playing the Fat Cats of Potsdam [EVENT]
• The Hague, Belgium: The Parliament of Pain host a double header, with B team the Jokers facing Utrecht's Dom City B [FTS], and PoP A taking on "The World", an open subscription challenge team (signup still open) [EVENT]
• Luzern, Switzerland: Roller Derby Luzern host the Rolling Furies of Lausanne [FTS][EVENT]
• Nijmegen, Netherlands: the Roadkill Rollers host Namur Rollergirls C [FTS] in a triple header with Rockcity Rollers of Eindhoven playing Arnhem Fallen Angels [FTS] and men's derby as Eindhoven/Nijmegen/Arnhem's Market Gardeners play the Glorious Basterds of Namur [FTS][EVENT]
• Norrköping, Sweden: Norrköping Roller Derby host a home teams event! [EVENT]
• Porvoo, Finland: Porvoo Roller Derby host a double-header - Porvoo playing the combined forces of Vili Pohjola - the northern Finnish teams, before two exhibition teams (Black Metal v Disco) [EVENT]
• Sunday, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam Roller Derby host a double header; their A team facing Glasgow Roller Derby [FTS], and their B team playing Munich B, the Municorns [FTS] [EVENT]
• Sunday; Avignon, France: the Rabbit Skulls host a double header, playing Les Harpies Braqueuses of Pibrac [FTS], whilst their new men's team, Warren Track Fighters, take on the Unnamed Basterds [FTS] [EVENT]

Pacific

In Australia and New Zealand, it’s pretty quiet... except for the giant tournaments:

• Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia: Paradise City Roller Derby hosts the Royal Rumble Roller Derby Tournament - a three day event (Saturday through Monday) seeing two tiers - a WFTDA-Sanctioned tier with hosts Paradise City, Adelaide Roller Derby, Light City (of Adelaide too), Canberra Roller Derby League, Dunedin Roller Derby (New Zealand),  South Side Derby Dolls (Sydney), Northside Alliance of Melbourne and Convict City (Glenorchy); and a non-Sanctioned round with Victorian Roller Derby B, Ballarat Roller Derby, Adelaide B, Toowoomba Roller Derby and Mackay City; plus a challenge bout (Crazy Cat Ladies v Unicorns) [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Tauranga, New Zealand: Mount Militia Derby Crew are also hosting a two day tournament, the War of the Wheels, with two tiers. Competing, as well as MMDC's A and B teams, are Timaru Derby Dames, the Space Invaders of (), the Huka Dolls of Taupo; Pirate City Rollers B of Auckland, Sulphur City Steam Rollers of Rotorua and Dead End Derby's Living Dead Rollers of Christchurch [FTS Tournament] [EVENT]

• Townsville, Queensland, Australia: Towns Villains Roller Derby are playing Reef City Rollergirls of Cairns [FTS] [EVENT] 

• Christchurch, New Zealand: not content with playing in a tournament this weekend, Dead End Derby is also holding a fresh meat "graduation event" with Otautahi Roller Derby - both leagues' newly bout-ready skaters facing each other on track. [EVENT]
• Late addition: Auckland, New Zealand: Pirate City Rollers are hosting a Dogs v Cats home game on Friday. [EVENT]

Latin America

In Latin America, there’s only a few things going on, a mix of fundraising and bouting:

• Peñalolén, Chile: Metropolitan Roller Derby host the second fixture in their home teams games this season, as Hot Chili play Cannibales Dolls, and Anfetamina play Histeria [EVENT]
• San Jose, Costa Rica: Costa Rica Roller Derby are hosting a band night, with "Child in Time" and Analogico, where you can also meet the team and learn about derby [EVENT]

• Sunday: Santa Fe, Argentina: Santa's Hell Roller Derby are hosting a bingo fundraiser, doubling as a "learn about roller derby" event. [EVENT]

• Sunday; Santos, Brazil: Men's team, the Thunder Rats are raising funds too... with an Open Fry event! Essentially, if you like fried potato, you will love this event. [EVENT]

• Celaya, Mexico: Roller Derby Celaya host their 4th bout of 2017, their Delicious Wheel taking on the Furiosas of San Luis Potosí [FTS][EVENT]

• Late addition (because the event didn't exist a day ago): Sunday: Mexico City, Mexico: the Catrinas host a game against Querétaro All Stars [FTS], we're told that there is also a men's bout on this date, but have no info so far.[EVENT]

Africa and Middle East

This section is quiet again…

Other Tournaments

Despite being in the USA, some Tournaments there also feature teams from across the World. We call these out here.

• Greely, Colorado, USA sees Slaughterhouse Derby Girls host the 2017 Mayday Mayhem, a three tier (WFTDA, MRDA, JRDA) tournament. As well as a host of US and Canadian teams, this year the WFTDA tier also features the UK's Newcastle Roller Girls, and Central City Rollergirls (Birmingham). [FTS Tournament][EVENT]
• Rockport, Maine, USA sees Rock Coast Rollers host the 2017 Coastal Chaos, a single-tier WFTDA-sanctioned event. As well as a host of US teams, this year the tournament also features Sweden's Gothenburg Roller Derby! [FTS Tournament][EVENT]

Upcoming Events

Our upcoming events for this week is:

the return of Geneva's Track'lette Sur5al tournament. Organised by GVA Roller Derby and LeMan'Wheels, this is a Sur5al tournament with a twist - as the name implies, post-tournament, everyone goes and eats raclette!

• Sept 23 - Geneva, Switzerland https://www.facebook.com/events/2013525985542074/