Continuing with my plan to keep doing new things and seeing new things, I wanted to go see a Roller Derby. I saw an ad for the Rideau Valley Roller Girls last year and did not make enough time to go. This year I made sure that I set aside an evening.
I was interested because I knew nothing about roller derbys and because it might be interesting for a photo shoot. I thought it would be fun.
The season finale (the “August Assault”) was this evening so Rosa and I went. It was a double header: Slaughter Daughters vs Pioneer Valley and Riot Squad vs Derby Debutantes. It was held in Jack Charron Arena in Kanata. It is normally a skating rink but for this event the track was laid out with duct tape on the concrete floor.
We watched for ten or fifteen minutes to understand the rules. There are two 30-minute periods per match, consisting of any number of jams. The goal is for one of the girls on each team, the jammer, to start from the back, make their way through the pack (including opposing blockers) and then start lapping the pack as many times as possible. They get one point for each time they complete a pass of all of the opposing teams’ blockers.
I got up to walked around with my camera. I tried to capture the action during the ‘jam’, particularly the intensity on the face of the jammer and blockers. It was a lot of fun actually. I am happy with the results but need more practice. But I love the shot above!
For the first match, the Slaughter Daughters obliterated the WMD from Pioneer Valley 218 to 46! However Rosa was bored watching from the stands so we left at intermission.