As usual when a Saturday is busy, we float the Sunday events over to a separate addendum. Sunday seems to be the preferred day for things in Latin America, with two events in Bogotá (including a collaboration exercise between 4 of the local leagues), one in Mexico, and the previously mentioned Patagonian bootcamp in run by Vendaval in Argentina.

The UK, meanwhile is full of bootcamps and mini-bootcamps for all those not at British Champs over the weekend...

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).

Read more…

For the last few years, the National teams bouts have become a fixture of Rollercon. Founded in 2017, before the last Roller Derby World Cup, they've been a great way for newer, or less visible National teams to be seen; and for raising awareness of the globally diverse nature of Roller Derby in general.

This year was a particularly important point in the tournament's history, as two borderless nations - Team Indigenous Rising (link to Facebook), and the new Jewish Roller Derby - competed in the tournament, and even played each other. (In fact, even the styling of the series of games as a true, all-day, tournament was a change this year, as previously there had not been enough competitors to realise this.)

Speaking for Team Indigenous, Jumpy McGee explained the importance of this to both teams:

Team Indigenous is extremely grateful to have this platform to bring our teams together and highlight that not all humans are defined by borders or citizenship. There are centuries of displacement, violence, and oppression that have occurred causing people indigenous to their homeland to create home elsewhere. We believe it was critical then to create a space where players identifying as a member of a nation had a place to belong. And when WE talk about nation, we're talking about nation in the sense of a collection of humans who have the same cultures, beliefs, languages and traditions who cannot be contained or defined by borders.

The 2019 Nations tournament was run as an efficient double-elimination bracket, with seedings voted on by the competing teams. This means that each team could lose once in the tournament - that loss knocking them out of the "winners" bracket, and into a sudden-death bracket against other teams with a single loss. The eventual survivor of that sudden death bracket, having proven themselves the best of the teams, other than sole unbeaten team, gets to play in the final against that undefeated remainder. In this case, for time, all games were single period WFTDA-rules bouts, except for the final, run as a full-length WFTDA-rules game.

As well as the two borderless nations, there were also three Asian nations represented: Team Philippines, Team Korea, and Team "Japan-fam" (so named because they did not have a tryout and offered this opportunity to all skaters of Japanese heritage). This is also an important aspect of the event, and has been since it began, with Philippines and Korea founding members in 2017.

Action from Korea versus Philippines (Photo: Tristan King [see link for license])

As ShortStop noted for Korea, in particular:

As a small nation, with relatively low representation in Roller Derby, [we] submitted an initial roster that included 8 Koreans, two skaters from OH Roller Derby Team (the only roller derby league in South Korea), and skaters from China, Vietnam, Thailand and Hong Kong. All of our non-Korean Asians are currently involved in building their own nations teams, and we thought it was a wonderful way to include them as start to gather their own teams.

For Philippines' Electric PIRANHA, it's an equally strong, and personally important opportunity:

I have played sports throughout my whole life and have been playing roller derby now for four years. I never once in my life thought I would be able to represent a national team, a team that represents my heritage and culture. I had the opportunity to represent Team Philippines at the World Cup in Manchester and just recently in the Nations Tournament at RollerCon. Words cannot describe the feeling I get skating for Team Philippines. I am surrounded by smart, beautiful, athletic Filipinas. When we are together, there is an extraordinary and undeniable bond we have, like we've been skating together as a team for years when we only have had the chance to skate together a handful of times. We represent a country that has gone through colonization, war, and the fight for independence. I skate for my cultural heritage and I skate for my family. #pamilypirst #poweredbylumpia #poweredbyrice

Even for Japan, where there has been derby in some form for more than a decade, visibility is low, as we've discussed before on this blog. Kris Rago, for Japan-fam noted to us that this was a factor in their participation here:

Japan Fam was unique in the sense that roller derby is present in Japan and that some of our skaters from both Japan and Hawaii were able to fly over and join our U.S. Japanese skaters. It was really wonderful to be able to come together and work together to represent our heritage and do amazing things on the track. My hope is more opportunities like this will help to strengthen the relationship between our U.S. Japanese skaters and skaters and leagues in Japan.

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Even though it's the "post-season" still, officially, it's the pre-season in France and other parts of Europe (and the season is still ongoing in Germany), whilst current season is just closing in Australia's state-level tournaments, so this is a busy weekend. Queensland's state tournament has its Grand Final this Saturday; as does British Championships, with their Playoffs deciding the winners in both divisions. There are several leagues celebrating reaching their 1st decade of existence in various ways, an exciting bootcamp in Cancùn, Mexico, and a lot of roller derby in Argentina.

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).

Read more…

We have another article tantalisingly close to publication, but whilst we wait for the final sign-offs, we'd like to take the time to remind everyone that we're open to article pitches from any person in roller derby, anywhere in the world, in any language (or languages). If you have something you want to say about Roller Derby, then we're happy to work with you to say it - as we have, for example, with Vendaval Roller Derby just this week. Vendaval contacted us to work on this article, and we thought that it was important enough to share.

In the next few weeks, we're hoping to have a few more guest articles - written entirely by others - as well some features and catchups on more exciting events across the world, returning to some of the national tournaments we covered last year, and some new events for this year.

But we're always open for more articles: we'd like to help amplify the voices of the entire roller derby community, regardless of the language they speak, the country they're in, or the divisions they play in. So, please, get in touch with us, by Facebook, email, Instagram message; or even WeChat (we can't link to WeChat directly) or WhatsApp. (We're thinking about a VK account, but don't have one yet.)

We don't normally allocate a whole article to signifying the anniversary of a league, but this one is a bit special for other reasons.

Vendaval Roller Derby are one of the newer teams hailing from the Argentinian part of Patagonia, in their case, Comodoro Rivadavia. In fact, the 22nd of September will mark only their first year of existence... and for most leagues, that first year doesn't have much in it but building up. Vendaval have certainly been doing that, and they want to spend their anniversary helping do the same for the rest of the Patagonian community.

In fact, that community has been working together as a closely-allied group, transcending team boundaries for some time now. Indeed, despite the challenges of the region, Patagonia has hosted the southern-most roller derby tournament for several years running now.

As such, this first anniversary is also a center for more developments in this area: the anniversary event is somewhere between a bootcamp and a convocation for Patagonian leagues. As well as theoretical sessions on dealing with injuries and proper exercise, run by coaching service LP Deportes en Patín, there will also be physical training sessions, and a large shared lunch designed to encourage sharing and connection between the attendees.

Collaboration is essential, but holding games also needs infrastructure and resources. Vendaval will be hosting the first ever public exploration of Short Track Roller Derby in Argentina in aid of this.

As we've written about before, Short Track Roller Derby is a version of the sport created by Rolla Skate Club to enable derby to be played with less space, time, resources and officials than the more established versions do. As such, it's an excellent additional tool to help Roller Derby develop and progress in regions, like Patagonia, where recruitment may be harder, and finding suitable spaces for a full-size WFTDA-standard track impossible.

Vendaval Roller Derby's birthday event will start at 9am on 22nd September.

It will be hosted at: Club In. Luis A. Huergo, Av. del Libertador 450, Comodoro Rivadavia, Chubut, Argentina

This is the Sunday addendum of exciting highlights this weekend. We have a double dose of action in Argentina, with Indias Roller Derby of Quilmes, and recently Continental Cup winners, Sailor City Rollers both hosting multi-bout events! There's also excitement in Scotland, as the selection bout for Men's World Cup team, Power of Scotland is on in Dundee... and we have a Tuesday event in Slovenia as Roller Derby Ljuljana screen Whip it! for Pride!

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).

Read more…

This weekend is another busy one, so we're splitting into this (up to Saturday) and the later (Sunday and Monday) update to fit all the good things in. As well as a second WFTDA Playoffs showcasting Sweden, and giving the UK it's second chance at a Champs place, there's equally exciting action in the USA for Brussels Derby Pixies in California; the finals of Victoria's Statewide Stampede tournament in Australia; the start of Finland's Suomi Cup for 2019/2020... and much more!

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).

Read more…

It's a sad truism about Roller Derby that even the largest and most successful leagues in a country have the constant threat of venue issues. For much of the past year, Edinburgh's Auld Reekie Roller Derby have sad members of that club, despite what should have been one of their strongest and most successful years so far. ARRD have been training hard for the European Continental Cup in Helsinki (and maintaining their ranking to get there in the first place), and ARRD B have been hard at work in British Championships as well.

Auld Reekie Roller Derby [Photo credit: Krzysztof Jaros Photography]

Readers will remember that ARRD lost Meadowbank Sports Centre - their hosting venue for all of their bouts since 2009, as well as one of their core training venues - back in December 2017, due to its closure for redevelopment. This obviously caused significant stress in their scheduling for 2019, including the need to find a new hosting venue capable of supporting their expected attendance. This year's games have been hosted in what's become a common venue for Edinburgh and Midlothian roller derby, Dalkeith Community Campus, which, whilst lovely, is much smaller than the Meadowbank, and considerably less central.

However, this July, this was compounded by the decision, with little notice, by Edinburgh Leisure (the City Council's provider of sport and leisure services) that access to Broughton and Holyrood High, another of their regular training venues, would be terminated. This came as a particular shock to the league, as they had been using the venue for many years with no issues. (Edinburgh Leisure were, and are, also responsible for Meadowbank, and had previously promised to support the league in finding alternative venues, with little actual results on their part.)

Losing such a large fraction of their training space, and schedule, was as traumatic to the league's functioning as you would expect, and it became a matter of existential urgency to find alternative spaces.

Luckily, other providers are more enlightened, and ARRD have been delighted to announce that Leith Community Centre will be their new regular training venue from this month; joining their remaining loyal and regular venue of many years, the Jack Kane Sports Centre, in supporting Roller Derby in Edinburgh.

In a statement released as part of ARRD's press release on this news, Auld Reekie All-Stars Captain Crazylegs said “We are absolutely delighted to be entering into a new relationship with Leith Community Centre, and it couldn’t have come at a better time, when cuts to sports funding and shortage of sports hall provision has caused some real problems for us. Despite these issues, our All Stars have kept their focus and continued to work hard and we’re so proud to have qualified for the Continental Cup - it’s a real testament to the team’s depth and drive. It would be lovely to feel like our own city supported us in our achievements.”

Our Sunday addendum for this weekend's highlights seems to be where a lot of the action outside WFTDA is: Germany has two fixtures on Sunday, of which we picked the one in Hannover, and there's games in Okinawa, Bath and Buenos Aires...

...but, perhaps most importantly, there's the first ever bout in Tallinn, Estonia, which is also the start of Estonia's first National Tournament series!

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).

Read more…

This is a pretty busy weekend, so we're just doing whole-weekend and Saturday fixtures in this update, with Sunday's selection in a follow-up article. The coming few days, as well as seeing the first of the WFTDA Playoffs (with attendees from) also see the first in a regular series of Short Track events in the UK, a a gaggle of bootcamps and clinics from the UK to Argentina, and even more tournaments. In National tournaments, Chile hosts the 2nd and 3rd fixtures in its Torneo X, in Vi

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).

Read more…