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2007/08/31
greetings from st paul, minnesota, US of A
How much of a loser am I? Well, yesterday I drove to Minnesota from Thunder Bay, Ontario, by myself to hang out with the Minnesota Rollergirls at their practice. It was great to skate with such an experienced league! They're about to start their fourth season, and it's really cool to see how much potential derby leagues can aim for. The MN gals have such a sweet venue as well! It's the Roy Wilkens Auditorium with a capacity of 5000 people, and TONS of floor space. If we had access to a place like that in Montreal, I could die and go to derby heaven. I do not wish a crappy venue on anyone. For example, MTLRD's first expo bout was in a small gym that just so happened to be a rock climbing room as well. What does that mean? Well, roller girls crashing into jagged fake rocks on the corners of the track. Sketchy? Yes. Dangerous? Yes. Hilarious? Kinda. Anyway, a big thanks to the MNRG for letting me tag along at your practice and also to Scootaloo who let me sleep on her couch. Also use her computer at 7am, but she doesn't know about that yet. xo, Georgia W Tush p.s. Have any of you ever had to explain roller derby to the border officials? Fuck the border! Labels: editorial, training, Travel
2007/08/29
Philly - East Coast Extravaganza 2008
I saw over on Hurt Reynolds' blog that Nina Knockout of the Philly Rollergirls has announced that the 2008 East Coast Invitational Extravaganza is on for June 08! I hope they don't forget the Canadian teams that can't join WFTDA yet, but would if they could... I can recommend a few from Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa... hey maybe we can make an Eastern Canada All Stars team to go play in some mixed scrimmages? Hey, I just wanna go watch the games.. or play in one! hahaha Labels: bouts
2007/08/28
Hammer City - Steel Town Smackdown Season Finale
This past weekend I was supposed to be with some of my MTLRD girls on a road trip to Hamilton ON to see the Hammer City Season ender, with the Hamilton Harlots and the Steel Town Tank Girls faced off. I didn't make it to the game, but wow, with a Hamilton Harlots squeak-by win of 67-66 of the Tank Girls. Read some details in the press here. Happy Birthday to me! Nia Capps is a year old, and I am celebrating another year too. Thanks to Georgia W Tush and Sara from MTLRD for starting roller derby here in Montreal and for welcoming me in. Thanks to all the roller derby leagues out there, and for all the support. I appreciate it. Roller Derby is my favorite thing in the world... well beaten by only one or two things ;) Labels: bouts
2007/08/27
All Derby, All the time...
In the last couple of weeks, a lot has happened. After RollerCon - check out the podcasts here, Heartland Havoc took place. Justice Feelgood Marshall - America's Referee - Head Ref, Charm City Roller Girls, Co-captain, Harm City Homicide and WFTDA Rules Committee sent me a nice wrap-up of Heartland Havoc, and it was so much info that I didn't want to cut it, so I've invited him to be a blogger for us. I don't know yet, I'll try to sweet talk him into it. If you know him, ask him to join Derby Luv! He is already blogging over at Lead Jammer, though! The final news was: Windy City Blows Past Atlanta, 106 - 77 Detroit Edges Boston in Overtime Thriller, 104 - 99 Powerhouse Gotham Boots Grand Raggidy, 206 - 47 Providence Expels Host Ohio, 126 - 99 MTLRD had their first annual banquet. Notable winners were Georgia W Tush from Les Contrabanditas for Crowd Favorite and other awards. She shares Best Jammer for the Ditas with Cat Attack. Iron Wench of La Racaille racked up awards from Best Jammer for La Racaille, to Best Fresh Meat, with repeated acceptances. And for the Les Filles du Roi champion team, L'il Momma and Beater Pan-tease racked up their own awards. MTLRD is Recruiting! I am proud to be the English representative for MTLRD Recruitment this year, my partner being Trash N Smash. Oil City Derby Girls in Edmonton is searching for teams to play in 2008! Western Canada, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Northern California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakotas. These States are attainable for reasonable travel to Edmonton, Alberta. Oil City is awesome, you can go up against our friend Sour Cherry if you dare! And as always, if you want to be a rollergirl, a blogger, do an interview or have a roller derby product, I'm your girl. Let me know! Labels: wrapup
2007/08/16
Rollercon 2007 - Roller Derby on the Streets of Vegas
Since I was personally unable to attend Rollercon this year, I was curious to find out if the roller derby community was uploading videos of their Las Vegas roller derby experiences -- and I was not disappointed! 
More roller derby on the street:
  Labels: roller derby, Rollercon 2007, Travel, video
2007/08/15
Roller Skating Til The Music Starts
Tim Morris of Owen Sound, Ontario, is converting an old church into a roller rink to give troubled teens a place to keep out of trouble. The conversion to a roller rink is only temporarily until he can turn it into the intended dance club: He said he had already built a dance floor and had to rip it up after learning of the permissible uses under the zoning regulations.
Morris now plans to open as a roller rink Sept. 1 so he can pay his bills and apply for a zoning amendment to turn it into a dance club. Owen Sound council gave conditional approval Monday to a business licence application for Morris to operate "The Sound Club" as a "recreational facility for teens with roller skating and music."
Approval is subject to compliance with all bylaws and other codes.
Labels: roller rinks, roller skating
2007/08/13
back from rollercon and made it out alive...BARELY!!!!
wow, rollercon was such a blast! i'm pretty sure that was one of the most wackiest five days of my life. so why not tell you all about it in point form! wednesday: -food poisoning, puked all the way there, and then some! -skates getting stuck behind at the Denver airport, oh yeah the rest of my stuff too but that's not as important -getting to vegas! -going to the first meet and greet but feeling to sick to appreciate the delicious food -checked out the wackyness of vegas and was cranky. oh yeah and plenty of 1 cent slots. hah. -went to bed and got some sleep. btw, we stayed at a time share near flamingo banks because when we had originally called the imperial and they told us there weren't any rooms left. boourns thursday: -woke up and felt like a million bucks! -got to RC and took part in some great training sessions with coach pauly and cherry chainsaw. they were both SO informative and made me realize there is a whole lot i need to learn about the derby. -met up with team world and had a practice. those bitches are awesome and i love them to death. if only we all lived in the same place. stupid world. -somehow rebel rock-it from Toronto RD convinced me to dress up with her, nurse (TORD), and ref tootie (Detroit, Denver) for the gear fashion show. it involved us wearing bearings on our nipples and that's it. hah -double down saloon! crowded as hell, sweet burlesque dancers, and hilarious gear fashion. p.s. down touch the roof while you're on the shuttle bus! friday -showed up late to workshops, and drooled at gear i wanted to buy and could not afford... -went to freemont for the challenges. team world played team USA! i think the score was 26-46 for team world. props to some of the girls who played their first bout from both teams and poor Indy from usa who broke her ankle! i puked in a corner somewhere right after the game. soooo hot. -the REF game was so fun to watch! -i only saw a bit of the San Diego vs gals from all over the US game, but it was pretty intense. -then off to the ball... -from what i can remember...dancin', drinkin', almost caving in the imperial palace, kareoke, yelling, telling people i was jealous of their sweet blue dresses Saturday! -yeah..didn't make it to any workshops that morning -attempted some on skate training and made it through one drill -forgot a lot of the faces from the night before, so i smiled at everyone that looked familiar. it'll all come back to me soon enough. -scrimmaged at flamingo banks, and i love that track and want one in montreal. stupid snow, ruining my life. -the wedding. hah -got drunk for one more night at the imperial. instead of sleeping we decided it would be a good idea to just stay up all night before our plane the next morning. and so we did. -then brought out the fake vagina picture. and for those of you who did not see it...  some how my leg fat turned into a vagina. we took pics of some of the people's reactions to it after i showed them the photo. Sunday! time to leave, sad to go! caught our plane, it felt sketchy. took off, within about 10 mins out the captain came on and said we had to go back to vegas because of problems with the cargo. we had to circle begas for about 30 mins in turbulence without the captains or flight attendants explaining much. it was so scary! i cried on the plane because im a wuss and don't like planes, but everybody else around me was also freaked out. our altitude seemed like it was going up and down a lot. by the time we finally landed there was an ambulance, fire truck, and police there. isn't that fucked?!? basically if the cargo opened all of our luggage fell out. ahhhh so i got a photo of me crying once we landed, and also of the fire truck. all for your viewing pleasure! trash and i both puked after, as did many others. eventually i made it home but that's not as exciting to read.   i was smiling because i was on the ground! p.s. i hadnt slept in over 24 hrs. anyway, i hope to see all of you at roller con next year! hopefully it went a bit smoother for everybody else. cheers for never ending beers, georgia w tush Labels: Rollercon 2007
DerbyLuv was at RollerCon 2007!
 I hear there were people that knew of DerbyLuv at RollerCon. Well, Derby Luv was there, in the form of our co-blogger, Georgia W Tush, as well as worn by my teammate, Trash N Smash, as shown here. Thanks to Trash for wearing the DL swag, and look, the shirts are pretty freakin awesome. Maybe if we can sell enough shirts Derby Luv will be at RollerCon 2008 in full force. * hint hint*
Labels: Derby Luv, merchandise, Rollercon 2007
Roller Rinks Growing in Popularity
It seems, at least according to this article in the Boston Globe, that people are once again flocking to their local roller rinks due in part to the roller derby revival sweeping the globe: The immense popularity of roller derby, the crash-and-bash women's sport, and jam skating, a form of freestyle that incorporates breakdancing, hip hop, and gymnastics, have reinvigorated interest in old-fashioned quad skating. Youth birthday parties are also a big hit, in some cases comprising 50 percent of a rink's business.
Undoubtedly, though, rink operators say the current boom will never rival the period from 1975 to 1981. During what's known as the "golden era" of skating, the number of rinks nearly doubled, jumping from 1,200 to 2,200 nationwide...
Maybe the current revival won't match the golden era of roller skating, but rink operators can't be complaining too much about the extra coinage in their pockets! Labels: roller derby, roller rinks, roller skating
2007/08/12
Team World beats Team USA at RollerCon
I just heard through the Canadian Roller Derby yahoo group grapevine that our Team World, that included our co-blogger, Georgia W Tush, as well as Miss Carriage of MTLRD's sister league Hammer City Rollergirls, and a list of international rollergirls, triumphed over Team USA last night at RollerCon 2007 in Las Vegas. That is TOTALLY Wicked! Have a great derby day everyone!
2007/08/11
Lego Roller Derby?
The Pioneer Valley Roller Derby league has a how to play roller derby that's very cute. It's made all out of Legos. Check it out !I don't have time to build anything out of legos, but if I did, this is one of the first things to come to my mind. Puts new meaning to the word "block"er, eh? I know that was all kinds of lame. But haha, I'm off to the Warped Tour in Montreal tomorrow. Come say hi at the Vexy tent or booth or whatever! You may find me jamming out to Coheed and Cambria or jumping around to Flogging Molly. See you there!
Roller Derby Sculpture
Somewhere in Connecticut there is a sculpture by artist Carole Eisner, purchased by The Greater Hartford Arts Council for the Riverfront Recapture Project, entitled simply, " Roller Derby". And it looks a little something like this:  To see more photos of this roller derby sculpture, there are different angles posted on Ms. Eisner's website. Labels: roller derby art
2007/08/10
From the RollerCon Front
A few of my league-mates are down in wonderful Las Vegas for RollerCon 2007. Here's a quick update for those rollergirls out there that are missing out: Jess Bandit, Trash N Smash, and Georgia W Tush (co-blogger), all of MLTRD are enjoying RollerCon in three ways: 1) Education!Jess told me that they had some great intro and high-end seminars on gear. Skate and Gear advice and Maintenance. I can't wait to get this education in my head! 2) Weddings!Trash N Smash and Jess Bandit will tie the knot at midnight tomorrow night, Las Vegas time, to become derby-wives. Along with scores of other Rollergirls that have decided to "tie the knot" with the Rollergirl friend that's always there for them, no matter what. Congratulations Trash and Jess! 3) Competition!So far, the girls have seen some pick-up scrimmages, and I hear Georgia's been skating and training for the Team World team game she told us about for tonight. Good luck to all the Team World Rollergirls, and Kick ass, Georgia! For some detailed recap of day 1 of RollerCon, and for some exciting news about WFTDA 2007 Tournaments being TELEVISED, that's right, on MAV TV, check out Have Derby Will Travel. I know Hurt Reynolds is hosting some seminar/courses at RollerCon, and I asked Trash to say hi for me, I hope she gets a chance, and Hurt knows I'm with him in spirit. All it did was make me wish I was there, in my favorite vacation destination, soaking up my favorite obsessions.... ok derbyluvvers, watch out for some cool stuff next year, I'll need to get this site bigger so I can fund my travel to RollerCon 2008. No worries, the laptop and digitial camera will be in hand, and if you send me there, I'll post every day! On your way home from RollerCon, swing through and check out Heartland Havoc The 2007 WFTDA East Regional Tournament August 17-19, 2007 at the Battelle Hall in the Greater Columbus Convention Center, Columbus, OH. It's hosted by the Ohio Roller Girls, LLC. Labels: Rollercon 2007, rollergirls
2007/08/08
Kickin' it Old Skool: An Interview with OSDA Founder Kenneth Sikes
Something New on the Roller Derby Reading List
There's a new book on the shelves that might just be the perfect read for the rollergirl in your life, Roller Derby: The History and All-Girl Revival of the Greatest Sport on Wheels by Catherine Mabe. From the description of the book on Amazon.com: In Roller Derby, readers will encounter roller derby in its various incarnations, from the original Depression-era games through the days of Roller Jam to its current revival. What started as a dance-a-thon-style test of endurance has evolved into a unique sport that exemplifies point-scoring, body-checking, speed, blood, punches, and miles and miles of personality and style. Punctuated throughout the book are derby vignettes: stories from old-school and new-school girls, the process of selecting a derby name and style, the artistic element to logos and uniforms, so-gruesome-you-just-have-to-look injuries, what's legal during a bout and-more importantly-what's not, and much more. Encircling the story of roller derby are vintage promo paraphernalia and historical photographs, as well as stunning, full-color and black-and-white, modern-day shots of the women, the bouts, and the sport.
Labels: roller derby books
2007/08/04
Roller Skating Round-Up: Fuel Power, Girl Power, The 80's
OSDA Co-Ed Leagues are Recruiting
Hell City Hooligans helped me out with the list of recruiting Co-ED OSDA leagues: Men and Women Skaters Needed! Also refs!
North East Pennsylvania Diamond City Death Kings NEPA's 1st and only Mens Roller Derby Team is now recruiting skaters. All you need is skates, pads and guts. Come and attend an open practice see what you are missing out on. Practices are Monday 8-10pm Wednesday 9-11pm For any questions, visit www.myspace.com/dcsqmensderbyAlso recruiting for the women's team at www.myspace.com/dicityscreamqueensPhiladelphia / Bucks County / Southwest Jersey She Devils Roller Derby wants you!Everyone 18 and over is encourage to play! We have spots on our women's teams and men's team. Come out to a practice. Practices are Monday 9-11pm and Wednesday 9-11pm at Jamz in Philadelphia. hellcityhooligans.comshedevilsrollerderby.comRichmond Area Virginia Men's Roller DerbyAre you ready, Richmond? The Richmond Derby Demons are recruiting for an all-male roller derby team. Must be 18 or old and use quad skates. No derby experience necessary. Will train. (We are also recruiting for our women's team!) If you are interested, send a Myspace message or e-mail to info@richmondderbydemons.comOthers recruiting:
Hanging City Derby Corpus Christi If you are interested in one of these teams or other teams, you can also stop by at the OSDA Meet and Greet. It's August 12th in Southern New Jersey. Women's Leagues Recruiting
T-Town Derby Grrls South Jersey Derby Girls Red Dirt Rebellion Rollergirls Kalamazoo Kamikazes Contact info:OSDA (Co-Ed, Women's and Men's Derby Association) www.oldschoolderby.comThanks, Hooligans! Labels: osda, recruitment, roller derby
Derby Luv updated Links Page and Status
It came to my attention recently that during an update sometime in the past, my contact form got busted and wasn't working. Thanks to Iva Issues from the Blitz Dames for letting us know! It's been fixed, so if you were trying to contact us, please resend your information. We're still looking for more bloggers to represent their teams and leagues with news, events, updates. I'm also open to interview and story ideas, and for bloggers for RollerCon 2007. In other news, I took some time last night to finally start building our links page. I've added links to all the teams/leagues I've recently posted news for, as well as a few resource sites for skate maintenance, skate purchases, and derby information. Enjoy! If you are roller derby related, or interested in sponsoring a roller derby league in your area, let me know and we can trade links. In personal news, I am excited to be working with MTLRD's newest Recruitment Manager, Trash N Smash for the soon re-opening of MTLRD league recruitment. Roller Derby is kicking back off for me and I am so happy about it. We get ready for that, go see the last bout of Hammer City on August 25th, celebrate my birthday while I am there, and then in September, it's back to training. Good thing I've been skating a lot this summer. I'm ready! (But I never did learn to jump that high, and haven't gotten my webstoppers to improve my toe run starts.) Hey, my birthday is coming up, maybe I can get an early present and nail that down pre-training season. There's still hope! Later, derby luvvers.. I'm off to see the first NASCAR Busch Series race in Montreal - at least for a beer and some pictures of guys with mullets for my friend Liz On Ya - and to see a race where I usually skate. Labels: Derby Luv, MTLRD, training
2007/08/03
The Art(work) of Roller Derby
 Artist Derek A. Hauffe has created, among some other truly brilliant illustrated work, some roller girl character concepts for a roller derby video game to show off his tremendous skills using the Unreal3 game engine:
"These are some concepts for the different teams, each of which will have a slender girl and a bigger girl. The first image is a pencil sketch idea for the "baseline" team, fairly realistic (but a little cartoony). The next image is a pencil sketch idea for the big girl on another, more sci-fi team. It shows the original sketch, and then the painted version which I did in Photoshop."
Labels: roller derby art
2007/08/01
Roller Derby: the Musical
Roller Derby...the musical? Yep, it's true. A musical on the stage, all about Roller Derby On the road in 1972, the action packed, rough and tumble world of Roller Derby grabs the spotlight, when a brash young rookie from New York City's mean streets takes on the sport's beloved but aging star in a battle royal for the right to be crowned the reigning Roller Derby Queen. Promoted by the game's wheeler dealer manager, the pair tears up the track, rockin' and rollin' with the ten decidedly colorful gals and guys on their team, famous to TV fans across America as the world champion Bombers.
The full story can be found here.
Labels: roller derby
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