During off-season, local league holds a learn to skate program, or as they call it fresh meat recruitment.
Mahalia Ardis
Kicker News
Since 2010, the league 709 Roller Derby has been rolling their way into their members hearts.
Currently in the off-season, new league members are called “fresh meat recruits.” They are currently learning how to play the sport before the season resumes in January.
Fresh Meat is an annual 12-week learn-to-skate program where new people interested in playing roller derby learn the key elements of the game, as well as how to fall, hit, stop and start on wheels safely.
Roller Derby is a two-team contact sport played on roller skates where the goal is for the jammer to get through the other teams’ blockers and collect points.
As in wrestling, each team member has a nickname that reflects their persona.
Care Pike – whose name, Fae Wyld, is inspired by the faerie realm in Dungeons and Dragons – says everyone has their own reason for choosing a specific name.
“For a lot of people, it’s about embracing something in themselves that … hasn’t been embraced …,” said Pike.
Erin Butt chose Mack Truck because her middle name is Mackenzie, and Cristallynn Oliver chose Scary Only as a reference to Misfits’ bass player, Jerry Only.
But punny names are not the most important thing about roller derby, for many members it becomes a big support system in their life.
“For a bunch of people that knock each other over,” Butt said with a chuckle, “it’s actually shocking how much they all love each other.”
Oliver, who has been skating since the league started 15 years ago, says it’s like a second family.
“When I joined the league, I was fresh out of high school,” Oliver said. “I was kind of this weirdo loner kid, figuring life out and it was like I found a place where I fit in. I found a community. It’s a part of me wholeheartedly.”
During COVID-19, Oliver thought maybe she would retire, but ultimately decided she wasn’t ready to hang up the skates just yet.
Created in 2009 by two friends originally from Corner Brook, 709 Roller Derby League has gone through many changes throughout the years. Originally it was called 709 Derby Girls, but was changed to its current name in 2016 to open the doors to more people.
Before the COVID-19 lockdown began in 2020, there were two teams that had been around since the start called The Neversweets and The Vixens. For a brief time there was a third team called The Rolling Blackouts, plus a travel team called the Jam-Jam’s. After the lockdowns were lifted – because there was such a turnover of players – Pike says the league decided to retire The Vixens and the Neversweets. They created two brand new teams so they could have a fresh start – The Wicked White Caps, and Pain, Drizzle and Fog.
“COVID kinda decimated the league,” said Oliver. “It kind of hung in limbo, waiting for someone to jump start it again.”
Now with a few post-COVID seasons under their belt, Oliver says it’s great because they’re seeing original players come back who didn’t return immediately after the lockdowns.
Apart from the major turnover, though, Oliver says she thinks the league is growing stronger with each passing year.
“I feel like we’ve gone from a bunch of cats trying to be herded, trying to figure out what we’re doing to a real league, you know?”
Butt – who played hockey for 17 years – says the difference between women’s hockey and roller derby comes down to the physical nature of the sport.
“Roller derby is basically everything that’s banned in (women’s) hockey,” Butt said.
Although Pike has played a lot of sports, roller derby is the first sport she’s truly comfortable with.
“And I’m not sure that I am excelling at it, but I feel like I am,” Pike added with a laugh.
For Oliver, she finally has a sport to call home.
“I really just think it’s having somewhere for the misfit toys of sports to go.”
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