About the Oil City Derby Girls
The Oil City Derby Girls are Edmonton's original not for profit, all female, flat track roller derby league comprised of rough and tumble women from Alberta's capital city, they became the first Canadian flat track roller derby league of the modern era in 2006.
Roller derby's current revival has been quietly percolating for some time. There are now 79 leagues in the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) and leagues are beginning to emerge all over Canada. Joining Edmonton are Toronto, Hamilton, London, Vancouver, Victoria, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, Red Deer, Winnipeg, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Lacombe, Halifax, with new leagues rolling out all the time!
Every Oil City Derby Girls is an amalgam
of athete, pin-up girl, rocker, and brute all rolled into
one badass derby girl. These ladies are taking all the action
and excitement of the roller derby you remember and doing
it with a modern twist.
We are looking forward to our 2010 season,
recruiting new girls, and having more "Bouts". Interleague
relations enable skaters to travel and attend practices with
top U.S. teams. We will be attending this years "Spudtown Knockdown " Competition in Boise, Idaho and Rollercon 2010,
a roller derby convention held in Las Vegas each year.
Our 2010 Executive Board members are as follows:
- President -Mr. X
- Vice president -Pamtera
- Secretary- Dizz Aster
- Treasurer - Kill'r Bunny
- Executive Director of Sponsorship - Scarlet O'Harm
- Executive Director of Finance - Mr. X
- Executive Director of Fundraising / Events - Scarlet O'Harm
- Executive Director of Training, Skills, Rules and Regulations - Tye Die
- Executive Director of Volunteers / Support Staff - Pyr-Opehlia
- Executive Director of WFTDA / Inter-league Relations- Pamtera
- Executive Director of Bout Production and Entertainment - Bamm Bamm
- Executive Director of Media and Public Relations - Dixon Syder
- Executive Director of Merchandise - Tara new1
- Executive Director of Website /Creative/ Promotion -Pamtera
- Executive Director of Recruitment/Membership/Insurance - Vixen Von Bruzen
- Executive Director of Officiating - Jefftimus
Click here to download our sponsorship package
Roller Derby, Defined
In 1935, at the height of the Great Depression, America’s first “spectacle sport” was born. Invented by Leo Seltzer, roller derby originally simulated cross-country skating, with participants furiously circling a track approximating the distance between New York and LA.
As skaters became faster and more adept at lapping the track, occasional crashes would occur as they tried to pass those ahead of them. Like any great promoter, Seltzer soon realized these collisions were the most thrilling part of the game, which he tweaked to maximize the carnage. Two teams of five skaters now circled the pack, with each team sending out a “jammer” to skate around and lap members of the opposing team. Derby became a full-contact physical sport, with elbows, body-checks and fights galore. And the fans loved it.
By the early ‘50s, roller derby reached its peak, with games regularly drawing 30-40,000 fans and skaters gracing the covers of national magazines. The sport sustained its popularity through the ‘70s, but then slipped into pop culture oblivion - until now.
Today, in post-millennium North America, “everything old is new again” –including the roller derby. A neo-derby renaissance is fully at hand, with aggressive all-girl skaters jamming the pack to restore the sport to its hard-hitting former glory.
In locations as diverse as New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, Raleigh, Austin, Las Vegas and the Cayman Islands, a new generation of fierce female athletes is paying homage to the energetic, explosive traditions of derby past, while updating them slightly for a more sophisticated, modern audience.
With a post-feminist, punk-inspired DIY (do-it-yourself) ethos and a hearty helping of raunchy rock’n’roll, this ain’t your grandma’s roller derby. Gone are the co-ed teams (in favor of “red hot, girl-on-girl action”). Traditional “time-out” penalties have been replaced with a spin of the much-dreaded “Penalty Wheel,” which dispenses wild consequences, from spankings to “the rat race”, for fouls committed during play.
