Derby Diary

croatoandesign:

I recently designed a logo for the Jamazons, a team in the Peterborough Roller Derby League, Ontario. This past weekend they played the season opener in their new kit!

I love derby, so when Hilary - who used to skate with the Brawlers back home in Cardiff - asked if I’d be interested in designing a logo for her team I jumped at the chance.

It’s pretty amazing to see a whole team wearing the finished product!

Photos by the excellent Simon Spivey - you can see the full album on facebook here

Look at the worldwide Brawler family go! One of our photographers and poster designers making a logo for the new team of one of our former freshies in Canada, while we prepare to travel to our first tournament in Belgium and our matriarch BB Bombshell prepares to go to her first tournament in the USA with her team the VRDL All-stars from Melbourne, Australia. Phew!

You’ve obviously heard of this by now, but it’s a look into the what, where and why of women’s roller derby during it’s recent explosive global growth. It’s made by Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Robin Bond and Dave Wruck and narrated by Juliette Lewis (star of Whip-It and all-round general badass).

If you enjoy sport, independent and/or documentary films, or rollergirls then this is for you. And that’s most of the people I know, so I expect to see you there for our very own screening at The Gate in Roath on Thurs 20 September.

More info & tickets

1. A story from Canada with a bit from a lovely man and a mention of lil ol’ me!
https://beststory.ca/?page=fromeditor

2. An awesome project about rollermums
http://mama.imow.org/yourvoices/yes-these-bones-shall-live

I find it hard to get wound up about this debate (maybe I’m a bit too Zen?) but there are some really interesting points here, well thought-through and articulated by some knowledgeable derby personas. Having taken the time to read it and understand the whys and wherefores, my reflection came out like this:

• The Olympics doesn’t seem to be as popular in the US, which is probably due to the coverage they get. This really sucks for them, they are missing out big time as I’m sure most of the UK will agree. Praise be to the BBC.

• After a quick Google I can’t find much on the net about how sports are selected for the Olympics (if you can point me in the right direction please do) but I am under the impression that sports volunteering themselves for inclusion must go through a layered, detailed and robust consideration and vetting process before they even make it to a vote. The IOC recently made the rules on inclusion and exclusion of sports more flexible, but I don’t see sports coming and going every 4 years without a fight for the consistency and quality of the games that they have gained a reputation for. Roller derby is a very new sport and is still in metamorphosis. This makes it unlikely for consideration, as the derby community itself can’t agree on which rules to play by, so I see it as unlikely that an international multi-sport committee would take it upon itself to select a ruleset.

• WFTDA would be the obvious choice to allow more countries to enter, but as the article states, the UK and US would be substantially better prepared than the rest, making it difficult to establish an entry qualification standard that would negate the need for 66 hours of Olympic competition (totally unrealistic,  but a moot point). If a pre-qualifying round wasn’t included and we did see the 400+ point blowouts mentioned, it would certainly be uninteresting to watch and uncompetitive from an Olympic view (and that’s before we’ve addressed the women-only aspect). Narrowing to 8 teams in regional knock-outs (as is done in soccer and pointed out in the thread by ViCorp) may be the best solution but it would ultimately be a formality until the finals.

• I don’t understand the points around losing control of the sport if it were to feature in the Olympics. People will play what they want to- if that turns out to be a different roller derby to you, then they haven’t “gained control” of roller derby, you just prefer a different game. People vote with their feet/skates. A good response to this point is made by WindyMan in the comments thread.

• Overall I found the tone of this article possessive and short-sighted. Roller derby, and in fact all sports, are there for everyone to enjoy in any manner they wish. If some people want to go to the Olympics, it’s not gonna stop anyone else from playing however they want to. It may not be likely or realistic for roller derby at the moment, but who are we to stop people trying?

Article: http://bankedtracknews.com/index.php/features/119-rant-should-roller-derby-really-be-in-the-2020-olympics

lolacoaster:

Hi! My name is Lola and I’m a cynic. I am cynical about everything. If you can’t really prove to me with substantial evidence that something works, or if it sounds the tiniest bit hard to believe, then I won’t believe it and that’s that. Plain and simple. (I may also be slightly stubborn. Slightly).

So you can imagine my reaction when Kid Block suggested that watching more roller derby footage would increase my abilities as a skater. YEAH RIGHT. In the same way that watching films will make me a better actress and watching stand-up will make me hilarious? Sure. If it’s all the same to you I’ll just train with the team as usual, do some of my off-skate exercises and get better the way I have been.

Read More

Lola wasn’t convinced but I didn’t find I needed such a leap of faith- the more you watch and listen, the more it just gets inside your mind. Sometimes in the morning if I watch a bit while I wake up, when I finally manage to get out of bed I stick my iPhone in the dock and carry on listening to the commentary. I find I don’t really listen to it when I’m watching the track, but when it’s isolated like that I find they say some pretty useful things!

daphnedoesderby:

When I first started roller derby, I thought my experience would go something like this.

Zoomed out, that would look something like this:

That’s not what it feels like, most of the time.

I think the reason for this, is that it’s just really hard to gauge your level in derby. You can…

croatoandesign:

On Saturday I took photos at the Fresh and the Furious: GTA Drift, in Toronto. It’s a roller derby tournament set up to allow fresh meat (newer skaters) and rookie teams a chance to skate against players of a similar level.

There were 14 teams competing through a ranking round then knock-out stages, across two tracks in next-door venues. Bouts were 20 minutes right up til the finals.

A lot of derby in one day if you’re used to single bouts and the occasional double-header. It flew by though, and before I knew it Montreal’s Smash Squad (who had a superhero mascot) had come out on top. Worthy winners: one of their jammers, Saucisse, was absolutely belting through the pack.

Photo-wise, the lighting was about ten times better than most sports halls in the UK (no yellow lights!) so I was happy to get a lot more shots of pack action and impacts.

It was an ace day, and a great introduction to roller derby in Toronto. More to come, hopefully!  

See the full set on Flick here.

Look what our very own photographer is up to across the pond!

Amirite?