Wipeouts Go North: Sac City B-Legit Tournament

By AmericanHurl Doll

The Wipeouts at the B-Legit Tournament in Sacramento, CA

This month, San Fernando Valley Roller Derby’s B Travel Team, the Wipeouts, got their first ever taste of tournament action as they headed to Sacramento to play in the B-Legit Tournament, hosted by SAC City Roller Derby. The team was excited to hit the road as this was also the farthest they have traveled together to play. They were really looking forward to some high caliber competition and the B-Legit Tournament did not disappoint. 

The Wipeouts played with a limited roster due to some travel constraints for their usual players, and for some of the girls, it was their first ever bout against outside league teams! Every player, including their bench coaches, Dovahkill and Terror, gave their best, brought the heart, and left it all on the track. The Wipeouts played a total of three regulation bouts, with two games on Saturday and one game on Sunday, against more experienced and well established teams including Loco City, Sac City, and Monterey Bay. The exhausted Wipeouts fought hard and kept the games fairly close, even leading at halftime in one of the bouts, but ultimately they were unable to grab any wins. They definitely succeeded in earning the respect of their opponents and, of course, had a blast doing it!    
     
The B-Legit Tournament was a wonderful team bonding and learning experience for the Wipeouts in dealing with all the variables that arise when you are far from home. Whether it’s dealing with having less players than usual, coping with exhaustion as you play in one jam after another due to an injured or ejected player, or even finding an open place to eat at 11:00pm at night when you are starving and in an unfamiliar town -- that's all part of the magic of travel team derby! The Wipeouts have definitely been bitten by the travel bug.

Keep an eye out for them, you just may see them repping the Green and Blue in your town very soon!

Roll Models: Mother & Daughter Skaters Share Their Love for Derby

SFVRD has a number of skaters who are mothers with daughters who also skate with our Juniors team, The Gnarlies. How has this common ground positively effected their mother/daughter relationships and encouraged each other to succeed in derby?

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Agony Christie with her daughter, DangerBird

Agony Christie, The Wipeouts Co-Captain & DangerBird's Mom:
How many of us can say that we have a shared experience with our daughters that is outside of the typical mother/daughter roles? 

As skaters with SFVRD, Danger Bird and I travel to tournaments, bouts, and workshops together. We share hotel rooms and cheer each other on. We can relate to each other's hard wins and tough losses. 

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Reapa Slayworth with her daughter, Miss Chifmaker

Just as sure as I model strength and persistence to her, she teaches me what it is to be brave and resilient. We know we are part of a much larger family of moms, daughters, and sisters.
 
HaHaHarley, Fresh Meat Skater & Rainbow Smash's Mom:
My daughter and I both playing roller derby has strengthened our relationship. It helped expand our common ground and created a new way of relating to each other. Since she started playing first, she actually helped teach me how to do certain things on the track. It was quite a role reversal for me and a great confidence booster for her. Roller derby has provided us both a community which is full of people who are strong, hard working, and diverse. We have a place for quality time and something the whole family can be involved in. This is a place where friendships are built and a sense of accomplishment is achieved. We are each other’s biggest fan. What more could I ask for?
 
Reapa Slayworth, The Fer Sures Skater & Miss Chifmaker's Mom:
The sense of empowerment being a part of these strong, confident female athletes was an experience I knew I wanted to give my daughter. It's a sisterhood at every level, the acceptance and encouragement in derby is universal. Watching my daughter have that same reaction after her first practice was amazing. 

Her sense of determination and grit was inspiring. As she grows up I am so happy for her to be a part of this family that will value and validate her strength and athleticism. 

Not only do we have each other to share in this experience, but we have the gift of this community. One that bolsters you, empowers you, and through our mutual love of derby, brings us closer together.

Banked-Track Babes: The Same But Sideways?

By Beat-her Pan

(Left to right) Derp, Beat-her Pan, Stockholm Syndi, Agony Christie, Pink A Sassin

A few weeks ago, five brave souls from the SFVRD Wipe Outs volunteered to fill-in for some missing players in a banked-track bout in San Diego. We would be playing with the North County Derby Alliance (NCDA) against the Sparks, part of the San Diego Derby Dolls. Just a reminder, both SFVRD and NCDA are flat-track based leagues. Most of the ladies of SFV—Stockholm Syndi, Derp, Agony Christie, Pink A Sassin, and myself (Beat-her Pan) —had never even set foot on a banked-track, let alone skated in a scrimmage or a bout (except Pink A Sassin, who had first trained with LA Derby Dolls before entering SFVRD). We figured, “It will be just like flat-track except…kind of sideways….right?” But we soon discovered the challenges ahead of us.
 
The LA Derby Dolls were kind enough to let us practice at Derby Por Vida, a beginner level practice. First challenge: how do we get on the track? After finally scrambling our way up, we started getting used to the curves and slopes of the track. After a myriad of falls and “bug-like” slides down to the middle of the track, it was time to face a whole other beast: stopping. But after a few more falls and some death defying plow stops from the top to the bottom of the track, we felt more comfortable. And after a short brief of the rules from Stefcon of the LA Derby Dolls, it was time for our bout!

Saturday came and it was our turn to get on the track. Stockholm was awesome enough to make us shirts with our name and numbers with "and Friends" printed on the front (since our team for the day was NCDA and friends). We reminded ourselves of the biggest difference in rules for banked-track—don’t stop moving forward or you get a penalty, don’t go clockwise around the track or you get a penalty, penalties are served during the next jam, jams are only one minute, the lead jammer can switch in the jam, and pivots line up in a separate lane in front of the rest of the pack—and then the bout began!
 

Everyone needs a little help from their friends sometimes, so when the North County Derby Alliance called, The SFV Wipe Outs answered and sent five of their fiercest ladies down south to join NCDA against the San Diego Derby Dolls' Sparks. For most of the Wipe Outs, this was their first time playing on a banked track, let alone taking on a team from one of top ranked banked track leagues in the country. They jammed, they blocked, they gave it their all, and they helped NCDA put up 73 to 238.

The first few jams for each of us were a bit…chaotic…but after awhile, we kind of got the hang of it. Constantly moving forward and not skating clockwise on the track was one of the tougher challenges for us (besides staying on our feet), but we all felt improved in these areas by the end of the bout. Yes, the other team beat us—by a lot—but we felt we had skated our best and accomplished a lot by simply setting foot on the banked-track and improving throughout the practices and the game. Though we were all TERRIFIED about the craziness that we had gotten ourselves into, I don’t think any of us regret our decision to give it a try and the experiences and FUN we had on the banked-track.