skater grrrls

tonight, my friend nancy and i attended our very first Toronto Roller Derby bout. now, as many of you know, i fell hard for the sport of roller derby back in october 2005 when i first beheld the splendor and athletic magnificence of the Rat City Rollergirls, the flat-track league in seattle. i still treasure the memories of that wonderful night in my heart...right next to the photo of me with my arm around burnett down. *sigh*

after nearly two derby-free years, i decided it was time to see what toronto’s league had to offer. so, tickets in hand, nancy and i headed to george bell arena – which is located smack dab in the middle of an industrial wasteland in toronto’s west end – to watch the chicks ahoy! take on the bay street bruisers. i’d blathered on about roller derby for so long and to so many people that i don’t think anything the TORD could have rolled out would have met my admittedly lofty expectations, but tonight’s event was still a disappointment.

for starters, it was held at an ice rink (sans the ice, of course), so we had to sit behind the boards and behind glass for the bout. this meant there was a HUGE amount of unused space surrounding the track, and the crowd was wellllll back from the action. bummer. i’d kind of hoped to be closer to the skating, the hits, the women flying out of bounds, the fights. but no.

not that there were any fights or spectacular hits or even really great skating. TORD is in its inaugural year and it shows on the track. while the women can skate, they’re not quite at the level of more seasoned athletes in the sport. the skating was, at times, painfully s-l-o-w (the girls often coasted around the corners instead of skating through them) and any skater-to-skater contact was little more than slightly peeved nudging. save, of course, for the friendly banter and occasional inter-team dancing. WTF? you're not supposed to fraternize during a bout! how can you slam someone into the floor if you've just been bumping and grinding together during a time-out?!

where were the full-strength blows? the skaters being knocked on their asses? where, i asked, was the bloodletting?? (yes, we’re canadians, but come on. derby skaters should be out to play hard!)

the 900-seat arena was maybe half full, which lets some wind out of the sails from the get-go. the crowd, though relatively small, was enthusiastic and a nice demographic mix of young and old, men and women, gay and straight. but i couldn’t help but feel that, with some encouragement from the absentee team mascots/spirit squads, the audience could have ROCKED. sometimes all it takes is a guy in a silly costume racing back and forth each time a jam comes to a halt...perhaps inter-mascot competitions? cheer challenges? funny dancing?

i also arrived at the venue hungry for merch. i wanted some stickers or perhaps a poster...but, unlike the RCRG, nothing was free. whaaa...? in seattle, any visit to the merch table resulted in you being handed stickers for free. i came home with a TON of them, from all the teams and the league itself. but in the T-Dot? not so much. aw, really? man. i know the teams need to make money somehow, but even a gratis temp tattoo would have been a nice touch. alas. on a related note: snacks at the concession stand were blissfully cheap, though, so kudos there!

anyway, we sat and watched and felt decidedly meh about the event. we tried to get into it -- picking out favourite skaters (no one came remotely close to burnett down and her skills), shouting encouragement, lamenting bad jams -- but it felt a bit forced after a while. by the time the bout ended (chicks ahoy! SMOKED the bay street bruisers), we were spent. i suppose, for me, the constant comparison to the RCRG probably worked to the detriment of my own enjoyment. it’s sort of like going to see a major league baseball game, and then attending a little league game and expecting it to be the same. i know TORD is still young and they have some learning (and practicing and training) to do, so i’m happy to give them some time and i’ll go back. tonight’s bout only represented two of the league’s six teams so, perhaps, i’ll check out their next battle on the flat track at the end of the month.