WOMEN’S FLAT TRACK ROLLER DERBY MAGAZINE ISSUE 44, SUMMER 2019
proud partner of the WFTDA
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contents 4
L ETTER FROM THE EDITOR
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C ONTRIBUTORS
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A SK A BLOCKER, ASK A JAMMER
ask swede hurt and midge mayhem! B USINESS
The importance of smart fundraising
12 H EALTH AND FITNESS
Yoga for crossovers
16 H EALTH AND FITNESS
Blister care
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FEATURE
MY JOURNEY BACK FROM THE
“NINE MONTH INJURY”
18 D ERBY RECIPES
Lemon poppy protein bites
20 G AMES AND COACHING
Toxic positivity in roller derby
22 G AME DAY
32 R OOKIE OF THE YEAR
24 W FTDA
34 D ERBY WORLD
2 8 J U N I O R D E R B Y
36 F IVEONFIVE FAVORITES
Producer paperwork with quick board Introducing the new stats Championship preview
Juking the hurdles Derby Hong Kong
Our favorite things
42 M Y DERBY STORY
Skating through trauma
44 C ULTURE
#thefannypackishere
46 S POT THE DIFFERENCE
Find 6 differences
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PHOTO COURTESY WFTDA
WFTDA
Introducing the new stats MICHAEL WATSON, RAINY CITY ROLLER DERBY OVER THE PAST YEAR, I’ve been working with WFTDA on something incredibly close to my heart, and I’d like to share about how we got to where we are today. I’m head coach of Rainy City Roller Derby, a creative director, designer and a web developer, and since I first became involved in the sport I have been obsessed with game statistics, records, rankings and the history of the sport of roller derby. I know how powerful great sports stats can be at creating a bigger narrative to the game, and ultimately how stats can empower
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and envigour fans to watch more games, to be more involved in the storylines of their favourite teams, and to help explain the sport to new attendees. Roller Derby is a sport grown in the internet era, exploding around the world thanks to the sharing of content and ideas, and yet has fallen behind in terms of its technology being able provide instant information and detailed analysis to its dedicated audience. I had a vision to create a new, powerful stats resource that is primarily for fan engagement, a place where
With great thanks to Michael Watson of Rainy City Roller Derby, the WFTDA has been working to build a new and dynamic system to host rankings and game data. Here is his report of the endeavours he’s undertaken with WFTDA. We are excited to use this new site for the 2019 Postseason and look forward to having you join us for some of our Live Rankings Weekends.
sports stats • Build in a way that’s expandable and adaptable for the future • Build a universal API alongside the system to allow for community developers to create using our data So with a long term strategy and a clear initial goal in place, the long road through to getting the new website from a dream to a reality began. I’ll be diving into some of the challenges I’ve faced along the way, some of the features that we have, how WFTDA sanctioning and rankings works behind the scenes, and what we’ve had to change to make this a reality. THE REWORKING OF PROCESSES Designing a cool, accessible website that allows people
to view leagues, results and rankings data is one thing, but as so often is the case with large digital transformation projects like this, the biggest obstacle revolves around incompatible internal processes and messy data. The first few months of the project involved a deep analysis of how WFTDA carry out their sanctioning processes, results processes and rankings processes. I’m constantly in awe of all the amazing volunteers involved in our sport, and the sheer amount of conversations and late night Skype calls with different volunteers, hearing how they approve sanctioning, how they submit games, verify results and confirm monthly rankings is staggering. It became apparent that in
order to achieve our goal of creating a system that allows instant results and rankings to be displayed, we would have to rework several internal processes. A new goal emerged from the project, not only to make a great final product for the public, but to create a system that drastically reduces volunteer time too, and make the management of leagues, games, results and rankings a smoother process all round. Reduced admin time is a great benefit in its own right, but also paves the way to be able to manage more instant results and changes in rankings in the future. THE WFTDA ADMIN PORTAL The decision was made to create a new central admin portal for WFTDA to allow the
PHOTO COURTESY WFTDA
visitors can: • View Live Rankings • See the impact of game results on rankings, instantly • See historical records of all sanctioned games since the first sanctioned game, back in 2005 • See upcoming games and tournaments with ease • View cool, sharable team stats On top of this, I also knew there was another whole dimension to sports stats — player data. WFTDA is not short of player data information. The amazing Stats Books team has been archiving this information for years, and the data is intact but inaccessible. At present, simple information that would be wonderful to better fan engagement is simply missing from our world. Information such as: • Best jammer of the year • Clean overview information from each game, highlighting best performers • Most prolific player of the season • Penalty stats per season per league I knew that player data would become a bigger undertaking than games and results, so we set out on a plan together to bring games and rankings data to the community first, in a new, universal stats system that is ready to be expanded upon in the future. A system that will one day house all key statistics for our amazing sport, all in one place. Before work began, we made sure we had some key philosophical goals in place for the project: • Aim towards one central place for all WFTDA
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Los Anarchists Junior Derby: Foreground: Lil RegulateHer #79 Trix-Z #23, Lil Devil Rosie #1024, Cherry Kiss #4 Background: Trainer Just Matt, Coach Master Smasher
Championship preview
PHOTO BY GOT SERIF?/RUBEN ACOSTA
JUNIOR DERBY
“STANDBY” TOMMY RIGGINS, JRDA
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nothing is “final” until the Sunday matchups play out. With this in mind, if you’re looking for predictions, forget it! Junior derby develops, evolves, and yes, turns over, rapidly and out
of necessity: by rule, any skater turning 18 years of age must depart at the end of the competitive season. Also, junior derby often has games contested weeks apart with different outcomes.
This happened in parallel in the Female Division, where victories were traded over the last year between the Duval All-Stars (#2 seed from Jacksonville) and Los Anarchists (#3 seed from Los
Santa Cruz Derby Groms, Gromshells
PHOTO BY ERIC LYONS PHOTOGRAPHY
TWENTY OF THE MOST “bold, confident, united” roller derby teams around will soon travel to Loveland, Colorado, to compete for the 2019 Junior Roller Derby Association Championships, July 26 through July 28. Athletes at the 2019 JRDA Championships will once again participate in a full 10-team, 17-game bracket in their respective division. It is a single-elimination structure for those continuing to rally for first place, but also allows competitive play to continue for all teams, until all ten possible places are decided. With both Open and Female division titles to be contested, this totals 34 games on two tracks, over a three-day weekend, to enjoy. And for fans and their favorite teams,
JRDA is the future of roller derby. It is the present. The First National Bank Exhibition Building in Loveland, also host to the 2017 tournament, is part of the Larimer County-owned Ranch Events Complex, about 20 minutes south of Fort Collins, and an hour north of Denver. Both the FoCo Spartans (#7 Female seed from Fort Collins) and Rocky Mountain Rollerpunks’ Might Club (#10 Female seed from Denver) will compete this year. For the third year, WFTDA. tv will produce the JRDA Championships live streams. Viewers can #Talk2JRDA on social media all Championships weekend, and follow the JRDA for score and bracket updates throughout. Following is the 2019 JRDA Championships seeding as of press time. FEMALE DIVISION #1. Santa Cruz Derby Groms (Santa Cruz, California) The Gromshells are the defending 2018 Female Division Champions, competing in their fifth Championships.
#2. Jacksonville Junior Roller Derby (Jacksonville, Florida) The Duval All-Stars will compete in their fourth Championships. This is their second consecutive appearance in the Female Division, with a previous team best of third place in 2014 in the Open Division. #3. Los Anarchists Junior Derby (Los Angeles, California) This is Los Anarchists’ second Championships. They finished third place last year. #4. Seattle Derby Brats (Seattle, Washington) The Galaxy Girls are threetime JRDA Female Division Champions (2015-2017). They finished second place last year. This is their fifth Championships. #5. Rose City Rollers Juniors (Portland, Oregon) This will be the Rosebuds’ second Championships, after finishing sixth place last year. #6. Pile O’Bones Junior Derby (Regina, Saskatchewan) The Miss Demeanors, in their first Championships appear-
ance, will be the second team from Canada to compete at JRDA Championships, all-time. #7. FoCo Junior Roller Derby (Fort Collins, Colorado) This is the Spartans’ fourth Championships, and their second appearance in the Female Division. Their team best was second place in 2017 in the Open Division. #8. Kalamazoo Killer Beez Junior Roller Derby (Kalamazoo, Michigan): The Beez will skate at their first Championships in 2019. #9. Queen City Junior Roller Girls (Buffalo, New York) Queen City also makes its Championships debut this year. #10. Rocky Mountain Rollerpunks (Denver, Colorado) The Might Club competes in its third Championships, after most recently finishing ninth place in 2017. OPEN DIVISION #1. Diamond City Minors (Bakersfield, California) DCM will defend its second consecutive Open Division
PHOTO BY RAY RODIL
Angeles), as well as in the Open Division between Philly (#2 seed) and Tampa (#3 seed), at March Badness and Spring Break Swarm. This on-track volatility naturally extends to tournament seeding, as the 2019 event will involve five teams making their JRDA Championships debut; and only 60% of the teams returning from 2018. However, both 2018 Champions (Gromshells of Santa Cruz and Diamond City Minors of Bakersfield) are returning as their respective #1 seed this year. Now is the time to watch, if you have never witnessed championship-level junior derby, or haven’t followed the JRDA in a few years. This is especially true for any adult skaters in proximity to a junior league, or in a college town. Many former JRDA athletes, especially at this skill level and with multiple years of experience playing the same game as the adults, immediately make their mark with nearby adult programs. No longer do those “in the know” say that
Duval All Stars
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