There is a new game in town and it is rolling in on four wheels.
The Fergus Roller Derby league was started by three experienced “derby girls” in April 2012. Cynthia Waldow, Sonia Maiorano and Stephanie Goodchild were members of Guelph’s premier Royal City Roller Girls (RCRG) team.
“I started the Royal City league in 2010 and always felt Fergus needed to have something of their own,” Waldow said.
Confirmation came after the RCRG and Roller Derby Association of Canada hosted a round-robin tournament, called Purple Reign, which featured four teams in seven matches, including Guelph’s Violet Uprising, the Killer Queens, Our Ladies of Pain, and Waterloo’s Tri-City Roller Girls.
During her time with the RCRG, Waldow saw her vision of a not-for-profit league grow to over 100 members strong. With that success it was time to roll on.
“We were looking to go in a different direction,” said Waldow of her partnership with Maiorano and Goodchild.
“After the Purple Reign match and the great turnout, we knew more about the town of Fergus,” Waldow said.
“I believe that Fergus truly represents the history, the friendliness and the family [atmosphere]. We want to be part of that,” Maiorano said. “We aim towards friends and family, and we want to make history here, for women’s roller derby.”
The new league began to organize in May and has already attracted over 20 women and one male player too.
“We’ve got a logo for our league and we’re recruiting women and men all the time. We’d really like to have a men’s team as well, it’s an equal opportunity sport,” Waldow said.
“It’s a women’s sport just as much as a man’s sport,” Maiorano said. “If you are trained properly you can hit as hard as a guy,” she adds, smiling.
One of the greatest challenges for the new league is finding adequate space to practice.
“We’re at one, two-hour practice and one, hour-long scrimmage per week and we move between Fergus, Elora and Arthur arenas right now,” Waldow explained, adding established roller derby teams practice two or three times weekly.
“We don’t have the funds for that yet,” she said, noting the Fergus players pay the costs of practice and game space.
The team practices on the concrete floors of the hall facilities.
“The Centre Wellington Sportsplex hall fits us perfectly,” Waldow said.
Getting the word out to build a team is an ongoing initiative.
“We knew we would have interest here, but it would take longer to build a team than it did in Guelph,” Waldow said, alluding to the obvious population difference.
Social media in particular has been helpful. “We used Facebook, put up some posters, put it out to other leagues in the area …, ” Waldow said.
“We’ve had a new player show up to every practice,” she said, adding it is important the league enrollment maintains a “manageable number.”
“Most people don’t know how to skate when they show up,” Waldow said of many of the league’s new recruits, but that doesn’t phase her teammates at all. The group is eager to help train skaters safely.
A skills test is required before new players are able to take to the derby floor, but the team coaches new players to learn the basics, like stopping and starting on roller skates, how to “fast skate,” the proper way to fall, (which is always forwards), and two essential factors: how to make a safe contact check; and how to take one.
The right gear and having individual league insurance are required for personal safety.
“It’s all about maneuverability and making sure you can move easily,” Waldow said.
Veronica Reed, 45, of Guelph showed up to her first practice in Elora on Sept. 17 with no experience.
“I’ve been toying it around for years,” Reed said. “I used to roller skate … It looks like a great way to stay in shape.”
Reed explained a teammate from her baseball league invited her to give roller derby a try and she decided, “Ball season is over. What else are you going to do? This seems like fun. I would drive to Fergus to play. I love it here.”
Reed is typical of the players roller derby attracts.
“We have players of all ages. Most are in their thirties and forties, some in their twenties,” Waldow said, adding players must be 18 years old to participate.
“Lots of people come to get fit and stay fit, or be active,” Waldow said, adding that their season, which runs all year with the month of December as a hiatus, makes for a great alternative sport.
“We worked on our skills all year,” Maiorano said.
The three co-founders are actively looking for sponsors to support the team.
“If we didn’t have our sponsors, we couldn’t get the derby message out there to let people know we exist,” Maiorano said.
As much as the league needs local support to invest in them, the team is determined to give back to the Fergus community too.
“Roller derby has a history of being really community-oriented and we want to make sure our league does this,” Waldow confirmed. “We want to hear from groups who need our support and have ideas on how we could support them.”
The team will participate in the Wellington Warrior Cancer fundraiser on Oct. 20 and recently hosted a charity scrimmage that raised $250 for in-line skating champion Paisley Perrie’s Booster Fund to help send the Minto skater to the world championships this fall.
That community spirit is reflected in the Fergus league’s mission to be a family-friendly spectator sport with affordable admission and a fun atmosphere.
“It’s a sport that is family-friendly and people can come and have a family night-out,” Waldow said.
First they have to alter some aspects of the reputation of roller derby as being overtly violent or even too adult for young spectators.
“There are no elbows and fights. There is no bank track for us. There are no pillow fights,” Waldow said, laughing. “There is still a sector of crazy outfits and crazy names, but more and more that is becoming secondary to the sport.”
“The idea of a derby girl stereotype has changed,” Waldow said. “These women are mothers, nurses, teachers, etcetera,” she said of her team. Waldow herself is a stay-at-home mom, and former nurse. Maiorano is a mother and veterinary technician specializing in ophthalmology. Goodchild is an assistant manager of an entrepreneurial business in Guelph.
A criteria for the Fergus players is, “the announcer must be able to call out their derby name on the loud speaker.”
Current Fergus player names include Ruby Bruise Day, Shifty Skates of Grey, and Priss Killer Presley (a woman who adores Elvis). Maiorano is known as Pit Bull Bomber.
Waldow doesn’t knock the derby stereotype, she just hopes to build a team that is serious about the sport itself. Her teammates are athletes who want to compete, such as former figure skaters, soccer, baseball and hockey players.
“It’s still all about the sport,” she said.
“There is a group of people who want to wear the fish nets and the booty shorts, and there are those who do not,” Waldow said smiling.
The Fergus team will have a uniform that includes the Fergus kilt tartan and a Sports jersey with the team logo.
“We need to be tight looking as a team unit and intimidating on the track,” Waldow said. “Someone once described roller derby by saying, ‘people come for the spectacle, but they stay for the sport.’”
Community spirit is important, but don’t misinterpret the tender-side of the Fergus league: roller derby is a serious full-contact sport.
“It’s very family-oriented. We’re all a family pack out there, but the hitting can be fun,” Maiorano said, grinning as she adds it helps work off frustration at the end of a long day. “You forget the day and everything goes away. Every time you get on the track, you’re nervous, but once you get out there, you forget it,” Maiorano said.
For her, it is about the camaraderie of the team sport.
“This is supposed to be a sport for everybody and everybody is important. You can’t do it by yourself … it’s about the team on the track and the family support off the track,” she said.
Roller derby requires two teams, with five players at a time on the track whose mission it is to either get their “jammer” (indicated with stars on their helmets) ahead through the pack of skaters, or act as defence to prevent the opposing jammer from moving up.
“The jammer is effectively the ball,” Waldow explains. “The other four players are the blockers. Jammers must get through the blockers once and come back around the track to them again. The second time they pass a blocker they score points for each blocker they pass.”
The blockers do whatever they can to get their jammer through and impede the other team jammer. Seven referees monitor the match.
“You have to remember to stay low, relying on the players on the line,” Maiorano said. “It’s hard work.”
The Fergus Roller Derby League host their first official game on Nov. 11 at 3pm against a mixed team of Brantford’s Belle City and the Woodstock Warriors, at the Centre Wellington Sportsplex.
For more information or to join the Fergus Roller Derby League, visit www.fergusrollerderby.com or email info@fergusrollerderby.com.
