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Derby girls 'don't know if the sucker will float'
Photograph by: Walter Tychnowicz, Edmonton Journal
The Oil City Derby Girls are trading in their roller skates for water wings.
Edmonton's oldest roller derby club is a last-minute entry in this weekend's 50th anniversary Sourdough River Festival.
This year's regatta features the usual 8 a.m. Sunday morning pancake breakfast and noon raft race from Terwillegar Park to just past Louise McKinney Park.
Corrine Thain, vice-president of the Oil City Derby Girls, insists her crew won't be wearing their roller gear for the event. "Our bearings might seize."
Thain isn't kidding. The ladies have yet to test their raft, an eight-metre-long, two-metre-tall paddlewheel constructed from old bed frames and tandem bicycles. It could be sink or swim.
The club acquired the raft via trade last year with campus radio station CJSR. In exchange for a pair of roller derby tickets, the non-profit organization landed the rights to the coveted seacraft formerly known as the Rising Star.
The only problem was the Rising Star has been in dry dock for three years on a farm two hours southeast of the city. The boat rolled into town late Thursday afternoon.
"We're not really sure it's seaworthy," says Thain, a training co-ordinator by day who becomes the roller derby queen Wytchy by night.
"I don't know if the sucker will float all the way."
The Oil City girls will have to hustle to get the ship into shape this weekend. In addition to weekly practices, there are two weekend roller derby games Saturday night at Sherwood Park Hockey Arena. And while there may not be time to transform the Rising Star into a roller skate as planned, Thain and crew will at least try to make sure it floats.
"It's really going to be a tight squeeze to get it built and seaworthy."
By this weekend, Sourdough Raft Race Association president Walt Badowsky will have seen it all.
Badowsky watched the inaugural festival in 1960. In 1963, organizers were offered $1,000 to turn the event into an attraction for the newly minted Klondike Days attraction. The Sourdough Raft Race transformed into its own festival in 2005 when Klondike Days became Capital Ex.
The tradition began with an informal race between Edmonton Power employees from Devon to Edmonton.
"It was a weekend party," said Badowsky, then a young electrician with the city.
"They chopped trees down along the river and built themselves rafts."
The small party quickly evolved into an event for city workers. With Klondike Days aboard, it became open to the public. Badowsky oversaw the formal event until the early 1970s and has remained closely involved for the past four decades. He became president once again two years ago.
Over the years, the initial idea of racing gave way to novelty crafts, water fights and old-fashioned mischief.
Badowsky fondly remembers the early 1970s, when then mayor Ivor Dent would challenge northern Alberta's mayors to a dinghy race.
"It's changed complexion considerably," Badowsky said. "It's just an opportunity for people to get out on the river and enjoy the river valley and the scenery."
New this year is the Sourdough Kids Zone Mini Carnival at noon on Saturday, featuring a children's mini raft construction event, face painting, and a barbecue.
Hip checks, booty blocks for charity
Published: October 06, 2008 6:33 AM
Updated: October 06, 2008 8:19 AM
Like a 1970s version of gladiatorial games, the roller derby girls cruised into Red Deer Saturday.
Decked out in old-style roller skates, fishnet stockings and mini-skirts the women looked more like vixens than vicious competitors — at least until things got underway.
As the announcer called out their skate names — Anna Salt, Viv the Shiv, Honey Crueler, Ana Filactic and more — the crowd of around 200 people hooted, yelled and whistled.
The audience at the Collicutt Centre encircled the track — some on the stands, other on chairs, their own lawn chairs or sitting on the floor. Early on the announcer warned people at the front, they might wind have a couple girls crash into them.
The way the sport works, five girls from each team go head to head at a time, skating around the track.
One of the girls acts as the jammer (or point scorer) and four of them act as blockers. The goal is to block the other team’s jammer and help your jammer get past everyone to score points.
Tripping isn’t allowed. Neither is hitting from behind or using “the big elbow.”
But hip checks that level a girl flat on her face or her backside are perfectly acceptable, as are “booty blocks,” with someone pushing their butt out to block the other team.
And while the girls look feminine, their injuries are more like one might see on a rugby or hockey player.
Tracy Cuillerier — AKA Trailer Park Tracy — with the Calgary Roller Derby Association said she has had a bruise on her thigh that hasn’t disappeared since July 2007. “It won’t go away,” she said.
But the chance of getting injured doesn’t stop her from playing.
“I think I just have a lot of aggression,” she said, laughing. “Work is stressful and relationships are stressful and this gets everything out.”
Cuillerier is a blocker who plays with the Thrashin’ Lassies in Calgary. “I love that I have 52 sisters and if something goes wrong in my life I always have someone to back me up,” she said.
The youth worker, who helps homeless youth in Calgary, said some of her biggest fans are the kids she helps. They even came up with her roller derby name.
Pasted onto the back of her helmet was a phrase close to: “Mess with me and you mess with the whole trailer park.”
As the game proceeded at times the jammers manage to get through the crowd of blockers with a little fancy footwork. At other times girls went down like dominoes — one after another falling to the floor in a cluttered heap of arms and legs.
Sabrina Beresford — Sabanatrix — is with the Oil City Derby Girls.
She said winning is all about working together.
“The only thing I can say is you work hard and you work with your team. So you go out there and there are five of you against five other players. You can’t play this game alone. It really takes a lot of teamwork,” Beresford said.
The mother of five — four boys and one girl, between age three to nine — said the sport is a great chance for her to get out of the house and spend time with other women. She has been playing for a year.
Her husband and her children are her biggest cheerleaders.
The bout Saturday night wasn’t about competition as much as it was for a good cause. The Walk and Roll to End Domestic Violence event raised around $1,000 for the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters.
It drew Jeremy Spenst, of Red Deer, and his friend Sarah Turl, visiting from Toronto.
Spenst was there to support the women’s shelters and said there are definitely worse ways to spend a Saturday night. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said.
Turl was also impressed. She said the game even inspired her to want to join a roller derby. “I’m loving it,” she said. The best part for her were “the sandwiches”, with girls wedged between each other fighting to get to the front. “There is nothing like watching two girls beat on each other,” she said.
The final score was pink 127 to blue 111.
Contact Stacy O’Brien at sobrien@reddeeradvocate.com
Derby Girls definitely not divas
Roller trio taking game international
Shane Jones,
The Score
Tuesday May 20, 2008
I looked at the program.
Competitors were listed under names like Trailer Trish, Maiden Alberta, Mercedes Bender, Loriville Slugger, Hydro Jenna Bomb and Hoochie Mama.
I looked at the competitors themselves.
An odd blend of goth girls and sexed-up ladies sporting some fairly outlandish costumes and makeup.
I definitely wasn’t sure what to expect when the Edmonton Oil City Derby Girls held their recent roller derby event at Millennium Place.
But the one thing I wasn’t expecting was to enjoy it.
As someone who can’t stand seeing “professional” wrestling ever mentioned in a sports section, going to watch the former ’70s sport with a similar reputation wasn’t high on my weekend to-do list.
But although the attitudes and the costumes haven’t changed much, the days of being a fake sport seem to be far behind them, even if it is still a touch kitsch.
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I wasn’t alone in my early bemusement and eventual acceptance of Saturday’s event, something of an inter-squad game for the Oil City Derby Girls with a sextet of visiting B.C. Reaper Valley Rollers coming in to mix things up.
About 250 folks took in the inaugural roller derby in the Park to witness Team White come from behind to win 103-82, and the majority enjoyed what they saw, even if they didn’t always know what they were watching.
“I think people really enjoyed themselves,” said Sherwood Park product and team president Lesley “Hoochie Mama” McDonald. “It took them a while to kind of figure out how the game worked. I think they were watching it and trying to figure out the scoring and the penalties even though we tried to do a demonstration before the game. You have to watch it for a bit to really understand how it works and see the strategy and what the girls are trying to do out there. But there was a lot of positive feedback and it sounds like they would all come back to watch another one from what we were hearing. I think things went very well.”
McDonald said the players themselves also had an enjoyable evening skating, slamming and jamming at Millennium.
“The girls had a blast,” she said. “We need to start playing every month. We have only been playing away games so far and we need these games here as well to keep everybody’s interest and competitive spirit up. If we only play twice a year it is pretty hard to keep your fan base up.”
The Derby Girls incorporated some local flavour, donating some of the proceeds to A Safe Place women’s shelter in the Park and featuring the Salisbury Sabres cheerleading squad as halftime entertainment.
As for playing in the Park, Millennium Place suited their needs to a tee.
“It was beautiful, a perfect set up for us,” McDonald said. “They do things so well there. The problem we have is the same as all of the other roller derby teams throughout the country, there are so few places where you can practice or hold an event. And there is a short window for a season during the summer when surfaces like the one at Millennium are available. Right now until the end of August it is perfect for us so hopefully we can get a couple more games in there.”
Leagues have been formed of late in Toronto, Hamilton, London, Saskatoon, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Victoria, where the Oil City girls recently competed in front of a capacity crowd of over 2,000.
McDonald is hoping to someday attract that kind of attention here and knows the next step is bringing in an opponent fans can find it within themselves to cheer against, the Calgary Thrashing Lassies.
The Edmonton girls are hoping to set up another home game against Calgary in July.
“There’s nothing better than watching an Edmonton team play a Calgary team,” McDonald said. “I think it would get all the players and the folks in the stands fired up, something to really cheer about. A lot of people in Sherwood Park still didn’t know that we were doing this and we really need to get out and establish a presence before the next one and having a provincial grudge match would help.”
Prior to that match, McDonald will be joined by teammates Sour Cherry and Trailer Trish in making an international tour to Great Britain as part of Team Canada, stopping in Glasgow, London and Birmingham.
shanej@sherwoodparknews.com
Roller derby making a comeback
Shane Jones -Sherwood Park News May 30, 2007
They come with names like Trailer Trish, Maiden Alberta, Queen Chaos, Sour Cherry, Roller Rotten and Hoochie Mama.
They have the equipment, the training and the attitude.
Now all this group of roller derby girls needs is a regular place to play.
The Edmonton Oil City Derby Girls became the first flat track roller derby team of the modern era in Canada a year and a half ago, playing one game against a team from Denver in December of 2006. Now they are ready to get going in earnest, recently holding a training camp at the Sherwood Park Shell with about 35 girls taking part. With about 10 teams now sprouting up across the nation, and a huge groundswell of teams in the States the Oil City rollers are ready to really take off.
One step towards that will take place on Saturday evening at 8 p.m. at the Sherwood Park Arena as they demonstrate their sport in between periods at the Junior B Titans lacrosse game.
Lesley “Hoochie Mama” McDonald is the president of the Oil City Derby Girls, and the only member of the team from Sherwood Park.
That is something she would like to change.
“I can’t believe I am the only one in Sherwood Park who wants to do this,” she said. “I’d like to find more women from Sherwood Park to try this. I don’t see any reason the Park couldn’t have its very own team down the road.”
McDonald’s own interest in the sport was a result of memories of watching the popular 70s sporting fad as a kid and was rekindled in recent years by the resurgence of the sport in the States.
“When A&E started airing the show Rollergirls I think it struck a cord with a lot of girls like myself that wanted to see something like that in this area again,” she said. “It used to be around and people still remember it. It’s weird how everything seems to come around again. As a little kid I remember watching this stuff late at night on TV and always wanted to do it and now some of us are in our 30s and we want to play. We want to play and do something that is for us.”
McDonald says the sport can appeal to girls of all walks of life.
“Like many of the girls I have a background in figure skating,” she said. “We have rugby girls on the team. We have a lot of girls that are athletes and a lot that aren’t either. You don’t have to have had an athletic background with this. We teach you how to skate and all the things you need. And there is no set size either. Small girls, big girls, they can all play this. And age isn’t really a matter either.”
Attitude, however, is.
“You know right away if this is for you or not,” she said. “We’ve had girls that came out and were so into it right from the word go. And others that knew right away that they couldn’t handle it. Because in this game it’s not if you are going to get hurt but when. We’ve had broken ribs, sprains, bruises. We like to take pictures and we have our own little collage of them.”
They have also had to fight the stigma that roller derby is somehow akin to professional wrestling, but McDonald says that the game these days is nowhere near a staged sport.
“That was the case back then but not now,” she said. “There are real rules now. It’s not fake, it is very real. Sure the girls will put on a show. It’s like having an alter ego when you are out there. It’s like having another side of yourself. There is me that goes and works at the waste water commission. Quiet and everything else. But when I am skating I am somebody else.”
And she is not alone.
“We’ve had a lot of new girls join the league,” she said. “We have our travel team picked but we are also going to play our own games against each other. We’re really ready to get going now. Now that we have this many people we just want to keep recruiting and building and adding teams and really get going now.”
The Oil City Derby girls will next see real action in July when a team from Vancouver visits Edmonton. And they hope to be going on a regular basis after that.
To that end they had a coach from Arizona up at their recent Sherwood sessions and he feels they are coming along nicely. “I’ve been coaching for a about five years and I found out they needed some help getting things going here so I came up to help out,” said visiting coach Paulie Perez. “I’ve been here a couple times now. They are coming along well. It will take some time just like it did for us but I think it will catch on. We started off really small but once things caught on it really took off. They are doing much better than they were at this time last year.”
There are now 170 teams playing roller derby throughout the U.S.
Women interested in finding out more about joining the Oil
City Derby Girls can get more information on their Web site
at oilcityderbygirls.ca.
Roller Derby girls bring on the pain
The NAIT Nugget - Thursday March 15, 2007
Brent Constantin - Entertainment Editor
Booze plus roller skates: it's something most of us only dream about (or not), but last Friday it became a reality at the On the Rocks fundraiser for the Oil City Derby Girls. While they were skating around selling 50/50 tickets , I chatted with a few of the girls about roller derby, recruitment and wearing spandex schoolgirl uniforms.
Sour Cherry Founder - Founded by Sour Cherry (all the girls have roller identities) in 2005, the Oil City Roller Girls are Edmonton's only roller derby team! It means that they usually don't have anybody to play, but it might not be that way for long. Roller derby's revival has been quietly spreading across North America.
There are already 30 leagues in the Women's Flat Track Derby Associaton (WFTDA) and northern leagues are beginning to emerge across Canada, including Toronto, Hamilton, London, Vancouver, Victoria, Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary.
Roller Derby is a sport that goes way back to the dirty thirties, when it was more of a straight-up race around the track on a pair of roller sktaes. Today, it's been transformed into something almost completely different. The track is still there, but the focus is less on making laps, and more about full contact knockdowns by ladies in skin-tight outfits.
I guess it's the way most sports are going these days. Group president, Hoochie Mama, told me that they recently had their first "bout" against the Denver Rocky Mountain Roller girls in December- a game they unfortunately lost. It was just good experience for us, "Hoochie Mama says, "the more games we can play against inter-league teams the better we'll get." Until then, the Derby Girls will have to make do with practising against each other, but these girls don't tkae it easy, even on members of their own team. You get knocked down a lot" says Short Stack'd, whose four foot-nine frame was raised a bit higher off the ground than usual by her skates. "My ass is black and blue from falling onto the track. When girls come in, the first thing they get taught is the right way to fall. Considering how often you go down you can really mess yourself up if you land on your spine."
Despite the aggresive play style (or maybe because of it) the team boasts almost 40 members, and is looking for more.
'A good Time' "We're looking for any girls that want to have a good time," says Cheeky Chiquita. "We have women anywhere from 18 to 45 and they love it! It doesn't matter what you do. It's a great team environment and anyne that comes down to practice with us loves it." "The best part is creating your character and getting to dress up," says Dee Vicious, "You get to go out onto the track and it's like you're a different person. I can't dress like this at work! "It;s just an awesome way to let out some violence!".
If you're a lady with a bit of free time and the urge to bring on the pain you can join the Derby Girls by checking out their web site at www.oilcityderbygirl.ca and sending off an email. Even though I can't play, I did get some valuable information. I now know a whole team of women that can individually beat the crap out of me.
OIL CITY DERBY GIRLS HOPE TO ROLL OVER PESKY YANKS
November 30th Issue
JOEL KELLY / joel@vueweekly.com
Cunningham joined the Oil City Derby Girls, Edmonton’s only roller derby team, and was “instantly hooked.” “Once you’re hooked, it’s all you can think about it,” she insisted. “It boosts your confidence and makes you feel better about yourself.” Cunningham also found the athleticism of the sport to be of a much higher calibre than she expected. “You have to practice a lot,” she said. “There are practices skating two or three times a week, and then there’s dryland training.”
The game of roller derby has been around since the 1930s but, for some, it brings to mind images of bell-bottoms and bad disco music. However it has experienced a bit of a revival in recent years, according to Cunningham.
“It’s really taken off in the states and it’s just started coming to Canada,” she said, mentioning new leagues forming in Hamilton, Calgary and Vancouver. It even has its own Las Vegas based convention, Rollercon, which is where the Derby Girls met what will be their first opponent ever. The Derby Girls will take on the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Rollergirls this weekend in the first cross-border game in the history of roller derby, she stated.
Cunningham, a volunteer announcer for the event, said that while the sport has been limited by allegations of being more entertainment than sport in the past, the game will be exciting for those looking for more traditional competition.
“Basically, it’s big competition,” she enthused. “Fights might break out, but it is not rehearsed at all. We might get the same crowd as say wrestling or hockey.”
However, roller derby still remains the only sport where the athletes are expected to have their own alter-ego. While Cunningham is quite proud of her heavy-metal moniker, she said that the nicknaming aspects of the sport are not what makes it interesting.
“My nickname is so me,” she said. “Women might be drawn to [the idea of creating an alter-ego] but in the end, there’s lot more work involved than just picking a name.”
The cross-border grudge match will take place on Sat, Dec 2 at the Xtreme Zone Roller Hockey Centre (14420 - 112 Street). More information can be found at www.oilcityderbygirls.com
Hell on wheels
Scott McKeen  |
Friday, July 28, 2006
Roller derby girls are dirty girls.
Imagine taking one home to mother, with their sweaty cleavage and booty shorts, their cuss words and fits of misbehaviour. Mind you, they clean up well. Dress them in street clothes and they look just like regular women. Because, well, they are regular women. Regular until you put them back in helmets and elbow pads. Then they're screaming, swearing and beating the bejeebers out of each other. Burping out loud, too.
"I needed a forum to express my aggressiveness, where I wouldn't be called a bitch or a cat for it," says Bobbi Barbarich, explaining her roller derby habit. "I liked that we could become the person we needed to be or wanted to be."
And what kind of people do these women want or need to be? Well, that's a tricky question. Roller derby girls are complex contradictions. "My skate name is Sour Cherry and when I'm here I'll hit hard and be aggressive," says Sherrylynn Bontkes. "But when I leave here, I'm Sherrylynn -- mother, wife and hairdresser." Sour Cherry is one of the founders of this new league, called the Oil City Derby Girls. Bouts will start this fall and two teams are already practising twice a week at Sportsworld, a north-end roller rink. Bontkes loves that roller derby is truly a women's sport. Unlike hockey or rugby, there's no male comparison or standard.
Roller derby is for women -- women who like to hit and be hit."We're worse than guys because of the bitch factor," says Sour Cherry with a laugh. "Throw in a little PMS and you're good to go." Or as Rachel Groner, 29, puts it, smiling sweetly: "There's no more violence here than women already have in them. "So yes, physical aggression is part of the appeal of roller derby. Getting a good workout is another attraction. But so is dressing up as a character. Players typically add individual flourishes to their uniforms, like mini-skirts and fishnet stockings.
"Every girl here realizes there's a degree of sex appeal to it," says Sour Cherry. "This is a distorted man's fantasy."
Rachel Groner -- Rockhell on roller skates -- says men are of two minds when she tells them about roller derby. "It shocks them, but they're also really attracted to it," says Rockhell, who oves the rough stuff and broke her nose in a recent practice. "I know I'm going to be mean out there. I need to get my aggression out. I always had a hard time getting it out of me." Every derby girl I talked to wanted me to understand one thing. While theatrics and dress-up are part of the game, nothing is faked. Those hits are real.
Bobbi Barbarich, a.k.a. Lynch Bob, was drawn away from more mainstream athletics to join roller derby. Barbarich, 27, once competed in cycling at nationals and qualified for the Boston Marathon. "This is hard," she says. "This is one of the hardest things I've ever done. But it's also one of the most fun things I've ever done. I love hitting and I love getting hit. I'm aggressive and I smack people, but I can still wear pretty clothes and be a woman. Sex appeal is part of being a woman. This sport combines both parts."Kara de Jong has always played sports, including hockey. What she loves about roller derby is the combination of competition and theatre. "It's physically demanding and it takes a great deal of endurance," she says. "You have to be strong. But with the costumes and the skate names, there's a bit of glamour to it. You get to take on a persona, to escape into a character."
One woman's escape is another woman's chance to express what's really inside. That's the story for Gaia Willis-Owen, who works by day at the University of Alberta. On the rink, she's Lulu Cthulhu. And she's found her game. Lulu is a self-proclaimed "big, strong girl" who always found it difficult to express her love of physical play. Boys were allowed. But not little girls. "I've always been physically strong," she says. "And I felt like a freak. If you can beat up the boys, you don't get invited to the dance. "I spent a lot of time feeling crappy about being big and strong. But a port like this makes me feel good about myself. "This is women celebrating each other's strength and fierceness." Lulu now believes that wild and strong women are sexy, too. "Men think that we're not only big and strong, but also that we're flippin' hot," she says. Call me distorted, but I believe Lulu is right. Now, how to explain this to mom?
smckeen@thejournal.canwest.com
© 2006 Oil City Derby Girls
