LRG Update...

So the second London Rollergirls bout was absolutely amazing. It was so close after xmas that we were all a bit worried about turnout, and at one point were even thinking we would have about 50 people in the audience. HA….hardly. We were totally sold out about 2 days before the bout, and we even had ticket scalpers outside the venue on the day! You know you have arrived when someone is trying to tout your tickets.

I had a fantastic time announcing, and definitely would want to continue doing that if I ever had to retire (along with coaching). More importantly though, the gameplay was just super amazing. The difference in skating skill level between the first game and this one was truly great to see. We probably had about 10 bout rookies in the lineups and they held their own and showed potential that makes me happy for the future of LRG. And for the girls that were skating their second bout, well I may be biased, but many of them showed skills and gameply knowledge at the same level of gals that have skated more than one full season. The audience could really tell too. Our first bout had an audience that didn’t quite know what to do…but this time around people were jumping up and down and screaming their lungs out by the end of the bout. This was probably helped by the fact that the game pretty much went down to the last two jams, with Team Pink finally taking the win.

On an unfortunate note, we had a broken leg in the 1^st period from veteran skater, Ana Ki. She is sporting a titanium pole in her left lower leg as a souvenir of derby now.

And on to boot camp…

This past Saturday, LRG hosted the first ever European Roller Derby Boot Camp. We had skaters and refs from the across the UK leagues, and even a few from Stockholm, Sweden. It was pretty sweet. We had five hours of skating and training – covering the basic basics for newbies, and also hitting all the major elements of play for the more advanced girls. The session ended with a two hour pick-up scrimmage with everyone getting involved to their levels. Everyone had a fantastic time at the boot camp and the afterparty, and I really felt like for the first time here everyone understood what it was like to be a part of a roller derby community. We have the benefit at LRG of having lots of visiting gals from the states and other leagues, but many of the smaller start up leagues in the UK and Europe just don’t get that. So for them, I think it was very important to get a feel for it.