Featured League: Halifax Roller Derby Association

Copyright HRDA / Artwork by Jason Dirks

Today's featured league is the Halifax Roller Derby Association, hailing from one of Canada's most beautiful cities, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Formed in 2010, this league is relatively new but already making a splash. They played their first bout in June 2011 to a crowd of approximately 700 spectators. Proceeds from the bout went to Feed Nova Scotia, providing a great example of derby's ability to do good. That's pretty amazing progress and sure proof that derby is doing wonderfully in Canada's Atlantic provinces.

An old HRDA logo by Jessika Hepburn,
proving they've been sexy since the start

Today, the HRDA remains Halifax's only women's flat-track derby league. Featuring skaters like founding member Sarah Chaotica, The HellaGonian and former LOCO lovely Chlorine, HRDA has an All-Star / Travel Team, the Halifax Heartless and you can keep up with them through their blog, Twitter or Facebook page.

Particular notable is HRDA's blog, which features writing from their skaters. Other leagues can certainly learn from HRDA's commitment to keeping their skaters so central in the league's public presence.

Ultimately, HRDA is a league that Maritime skaters can feel proud to count among their ranks. A registered not-for-profit organization, HRDA proves that derby can be both bad-ass and benevolent. As the child of Maritimers and a long-time fan of both the province of Nova Scotia and the city of Halifax, I'm proud to see derby in such capable hands there. Long may they roll.

HRDA / Photo Credit Needed

Slight delay

Today's blog post on derby wifedom will be showing up later tonight, my time. In the mean time, here's a picture of the Kitchener LOCO logo. Their Roll-a-Thon will be taking place on September 25th. Further details from their poster below!



Join your Kitchener LOCO Roller Derby skaters for a roll down
the Iron Horse Trail, from Victoria Park to Union Blvd and back!


Roll with us on your roller/inline skates, skateboard, or bicycle.

Any donation amount is welcome & appreciated! (Cash only please)

25% of all profits will be donated to the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign.

Meet @ 2:00 pm, Victoria Park Pavillion (Parking available)
Roll out @ 2:15 pm.  Rain or shine.

That's How We Became The Derby Bunch

Yesterday, LOCO held its second annual Skate-A-Thon. I've blogged previously about the event, which features both derby girls and picnics. Together, LOCO's skaters raised $950 dollars, 25% of which goes to YMCA Strong Kids with the remainder going to the league. Skaters from LOCO raised pledges with the promise that they would skate around London's park walkways for an hour, before settling down to eat burgers and remarkably good desserts.

Photo credit: Natalie 'Vegas' Buragina

I myself skated for about fifteen minutes before face-planting halfway down a hill. Most of the folks who saw my left knee afterward asked, “Why weren't you wearing your knee pads?” I was. Friction is a powerful force. Luckily, so are mini cheesecakes. After lunch, I regretted nothing.

Because a lot of our skaters are moms, we had a great deal of derby kids with us yesterday, some well-approaching teenhood and some still learning to toddle. Seeing fellow players with their families is a bit like seeing them off-skate, only more so. One player's son likes to play with derby wheels. Another player can make balloon hats, much to the delight of all of the children and many of the adults. A league is a kind of sweaty, cobbled-together family and events like this remind us that derby leagues are really composed of several families, loaning us their sisters, moms and sons for a few practices a week.

Of course, having children isn't the only defining feature of a family. The league itself is proof of that. I suppose that's why I think social and community-oriented events are so necessary for the health of a league. The kind of bonding derby offers is sudden and intense. It's remarkable how crashing into someone can make you feel like you know them. And you do, in a way. But getting the chance to talk to your fellow players, to meet their friends and partners, to see them out of their knee socks makes the difference between, say, knowing Cthulhu Lemon on the track and knowing Meghan for the rest of the week off-skate.

There are a lot of powerful, hurtful stereotypes about friendships between women. We're often told by entertainment and media advertising told that female friendship is rooted solely in buying shoes together, or in mutual body insecurity or that female friendships whither in the face of the urge to pursue heterosexual bliss. Making friends with other women can be tough. A lot of players I've known have said some variation on, “I've never had many female friends.” When so many of these kinds of women get together, we get surprised by how much we often end up liking each other, even though we're not in a yogurt commercial.

Some players only come to roller derby for the exercise and the physical thrill of playing a fast-paced game. But the majority, I think, end up staying for the family. And the barbecue.

Sweet Roller Derby Charity

We play sports because we want to sweat and (just maybe) excel, but we play team sports especially because we want to be part of something bigger than we are. Derby provides this on and off the track, but one of the greatest things about a league community is the charity efforts it supports. It's hard to find a league or team that doesn't support local causes in one way or another. It's no surprise one of derby's common mottoes is "Give Blood. Support Roller Derby". We're charity-minded girls, after all.

One of the ways derby distinguishes itself is the commitment to community projects. We do our best to get local brewers to sponsor us and sell their product at bouts. We run bottle drives. As we discussed last week, we donate spare gear to the league. Derby players give and not just bruises, either.

Supporting good causes does more than get our league's name and reputation out there (though it definitely does that well). It helps us cohere as a derby family. It elevates the sport we love to being something truly worthy as well as something worth-while. It shows the communities we skate in that the local derby league is a place to both hit hard and make change. It shows that derby can make the world a better place. With fishnets.

This August 28th, my league is continuing its tradition of the annual Skate-A-Thon. Every year we collect pledges with money going to both the league and a selected charity. Then we skate our bums off in Springbank Park near the Thames River and ideally, no-one gives their skates a dunk in the water. This year, we're supporting YMCA Strong Kids, a foundation that helps support children and families that can't ordinarily afford the costs of YMCA programs. In short, we're team-members helping kids get the chance to play, to make teams of their own. In the past LOCO has supported other organizations like the Canadian Mental Health Association and the Sexual Assault Centre of London. That's a league tradition to which we're still committed and I hope that commitment to community-building and good causes that derby never loses.

Did I mention you can sponsor me to skate? Ping me on Twitter if you'd like to donate!

On a side-note: new blog design (photo editing credit Matt Schneider) AND Roller Derby World Cup tickets! In celebration, I leave you with last year's Skate-A-Thon poster with an adorable skating hot dog.