Maybe you’ve heard the whispers, the talk and the rumours. Maybe you have a friend, family member or loved one who has been mysteriously missing from your life in recent months. Maybe you are a husband or partner left alone nights and weekends to fend for yourself. Maybe you’ve even seen them around recently, clad in their fish nets and knee pads. Why, you ask? Why?
Tucked away in the QJS upper gym since last September, the Gold Pain City Derby Girls have been recruiting and training players for this year’s season of hard hitting flat track roller derby! Every Tuesday and Friday 7 – 9 p.m. the skaters and refs have been practicing with the intention of filling a roster and we are nearly there!
Lacking in a full roster hasn’t stopped us though and on Feb. 25 we kicked off the season by teaming up with the Rated PG Roller Girls B Team to play the Okanagan Candy Strykers in PG. And then on April 21, with players from Ft. St. John’s Energetic City Roller Derby filling out our team, we played the Rated PG Roller Girls in PG. Both bouts were losses on the score board but were never the less wins for the team because we learned so much and came home to train even harder!
Next up on the schedule is the May Massacre, May 26 against Energetic City from Ft. St. John at the Twin Arenas; Gold Pain’s first home bout of the season! The team is super pumped to be hosting a bout so friends and family can get out and see what has us so occupied and enjoy the sport along with us.
We are incredibly excited to present the May Massacre because the team will be comprised of nearly all Gold Pain girls. With a couple girls out with injuries and a short roster of 12 instead of 14 for the bout, there will be two players filling in from the Rated PG Roller Girls, but the rest will all be Gold Pain City Derby Girls! The team went from four girls who passed the minimum skills test this last summer, a skills test required to pass to play, to thirteen as of this last testing on May 10!
How can you support your local roller derby team? For starters, we’re recruiting skaters to join! Have you a tingling in your heart, a daydream in your mind of playing roller derby? Well, put on some skates and be your own hero!
Though roller derby is a tough, full contact sport that requires a high level of fitness and a lot of dedicated training, you don’t have to know a thing about it to join; you just have to be female, over 18, standing upright and willing to dedicate yourself to the training! We’ll teach you to skate, to workout and to play!
If you’d love to skate (yes, quad skates, just like the good ol’days) but don’t want to play or are male, then maybe refereeing is more your style. The team is always recruiting skaters, refs and association members willing to be volunteers.
Right now the team is skater coached and those with injuries pitch in while they are healing up. What the team would love is a non-skating coach with some coaching experience and time to dedicate to learning the game and training us. Contact us if you are interested in this volunteer position.
If you want to support the team and playing, refereeing, or volunteering doesn’t appeal to you, we take cash! Being a new league and team, we are always in need of help for rental space.We appreciate being in the QJS gym, but it doesn’t allow for a regulation sized track.
Renting the arena for practices is ideal, but not possible financially. The team would love to have sponsors interested in being a part of the fastest growing women’s sport in the world, come forward and contact us so we can practice more regularly on a proper sized track.
And for everyone else; buy your tickets and come see us play on May 26 at the Twin Arenas for the May Massacre. Tickets are on sale now at Reason 2 Run on Reid St., West Quesnel Barber in West Village and The Shark Club by the Sandman. The doors open at 6 p.m. and the whistle blows at 7 p.m., There will be beer garden for those over 19 and an after party at the Shark Club.
Keep your eyes peeled for more derby to come during Billy Barkers Days with the second Annual Gold Rush Rumble, scheduled to take place Friday, July 20, at the Twin Arenas – it’s going to be a double header: double the thrills and spills.
Find us on Facebook, Gold Pain City Derby Girls, or on our website, www.goldpaingirls.org for information.
– submitted by Reani Rink Rash, aka Dorine Lamarche, president and coach of GPCDG