WOW!!!!! First bout madness

It took me a while to get my thoughts together and start writing this blog. Because to be honest the feeling I had last Saturday was incredibly overwhelming, to say the least....

Saturday 13th of August 2011 
The day the first team of the Amsterdam Derby Dames played their very first bout!
10 am the ADD gathered around at a train station in Amsterdam to travel together by a large coach bus to Essen, Germany. Where we would play our first bout against the Devil Dolls Essen (Ruhrpott Roller Girls).
The bus ride over was fun, some of us were nervous, but mostly everybody was just very excited!!

It's hard to explain, but most of us have been working over a year to get to this point. And the feeling of finally making it there.... is just indescribable.

After the three hour drive (with a little detour here and there...) we made is to the Eisssporthalle in Essen.
When we got there Ruhrpott Roller Girls where working hard on getting the place in order for the bout, setting up the dressing rooms, laying the track, etc. They did a great job in getting the place ready for a great night.

The Supporters bus!! - Picture by Grumpy Crump

Around 5 the bus arrived with our very own supporters showed up! Girls from our own league, friends from our girls and people from several other leagues took the bus we arranged and came to support us.
Other people came by car, and all with all, there were people from 8 other Dutch Roller Derby leagues, and a whole bunch of friends and family to cheer us on! My brother and mother also made the drive out, and it was great to see them there.




We warmed up together and got to get used to the floor, which of course we never skated on before.

Warm up with Kim Wilde - Picture by Blauwe Bil 

The floor was great, my new skates felt good, my ankles weren't hurting, and my broken little toe wasn't bothering me while skating. So I felt as ready as I ever would for our very first bout.
Although everybody seemed excited and the team spirit was definitely there, I think we all were starting to feel the pre-bout jitters right before we had to skate out.
For the team skate out we picked a really cool song. Unfortunately we couldn't really hear it at all... We also couldn't really hear Puppi (announcer for the Rotterdam Death Row Honeys) call out our names, luckily she was awesome enough to run with us and call out our names, so we knew it was out time to show our selves :)

Puppi running with us - picture by Kristian Sunder

Acting all cool! :p - Picture by Blauwe Bil

I was crazy, our skate out wasn't necessarily very spectacular or anything, with the music not being heard and all. But having the crowd going wild when we did something as little as skate out, was amazing! It filled me up with the warm fuzzy exciting feeling that I guess is so very normal for your first bout! :)
It was just great. When we were taking a knee for the Devil Dolls Skate out, I saw my wifey's friends in the stands holding up 'Lola' signs and then I saw it, my mom and my brother holding up a banner, just for me! It was so great to see all this support, by our friends and family and our derby friends from all these other Dutch leagues.

We started the bout with our 'power line', which consisted of me, Abs of Steel, San Solo, Monstah Megs, Vegan Vengeance (jammer).
I was in the penalty box before I could say "Roller Derby", which to be honest bummed me out more then you can imagine. But when I got back into the game I played the best I could, we ALL did!

I did a several things I am proud of, like hits or certain strategies that worked out, and the feeling of pulling of a great legal hit or having your line pull off a strategy is just the greatest feeling in the world. I would come back to the bench after the jam just completely SICKED!!! :)

The emotions also ran high on the bench, sometimes by frustration (luckily not because of people getting badly hurt), but also because of crazy exciting jams, like Armorkillo's 38 point jam!!!


The bout was amazing... I have no idea how to describe it... there was action, strategic, great hits and blocks  and fast jammers...

It was simply amazing! So I will just post some pictures here, so you can see for your self how great it was.

DD vs ADD - Slideshow Creator

Pictures in the slide show are made by Kristian Sunder (black and white pictures), Blauwe Bil (color pictures) and Grumpy Crump (color pictures). Thanks to all three!



After the final whistle blew, ADD blew up too! We were all so happy, proud and ecstatic!!! We did it!! And we didn't suck (yeah, that's for you Eliza ;)
We worked our asses off for the passed two years and it showed off!
The feeling I had at that very moment, I will never forget....
And therefore I would like to take this opportunity to thank some people, who, without them, we wouldn't have made it this far.

First of all I would like to thank the founder of ADD and of Dutch Roller Derby; Limpin' Lily. Without you, there would be no ADD. And therefore we are all in debt to you for eternity. But next to that, I also would like to thank you for all the blood, sweat and tears you have put into making this happen, taking your dream and making it into reality. I personally would like to thank you for letting my cry out on your shoulder every time I was hurting or frustrated, and for being in the board together and making stuff happen. And finally for being the great person you are, you ROCK!!!

Second, I would like to thank our coach Hurricane Hayles. Since you have joined ADD we have improved so much! You have a way of motivating us to push ourselves to the very best we can! And I would like to thank you for that. Also I cannot wait for you to give birth to that baby so we can finally skate together!!!

San Solo, 'captain oh captain', you've done a great job in leading this team to our own personal victory, to do the best we can!! And we did, we worked hard and kicked ass, thanks to you!!!

There are a lot more people I would like to thank, but if I write it all down, you will all stop reading, cause it's just to many people, so I am just going to list them, and make it easy for all of you! :)
Lola Rock 'n' Rolla (love you wifey!), Vegan Vengeance, Eliza Do-damage, Armorkillo, Sweet 'n' Sinister, Dirty Job, Mayatollah, Abs of Steel, Monstah Megs, Nasty Moves, Kim Wilde, Minnie Mischief, Nina, Crumpy Grump, Fembot 3000, Jamakaze, Irizzz, Cherry Poppins and all the other great ADD members, ChefX, DI Die, and the rest of the Devil Dolls Essen, Major Madness, Riff Reff, Crank Skice, Pixie Spankalot and the rest of the great ref crew and all the NSO's!

Okay, I'll stop now  :)  I just cannot show enough of my gratitude. It takes so much more then 14 players on two teams to play a bout.... Roller Derby is so much more then just girls in cute outfits skating around. It's a group effort of amazing dedicated, slightly crazy, wonderful people! And I am so happy to be a part of this.


- Furrrocious

The joys of being on my way to play Roller Derby

Roller Derby has a tendency of taking over your life. All of us, who are either on our way to play or all ready playing, know this, but for all of you who haven't experienced this, it might be hard to understand. It is just like I have said before, Roller Derby is a sport that we need to organize ourselves, and that takes hard work!

But to all the hard work (and frustrations) it takes to get to play Roller Derby and to start and run a Roller Derby league, there are luckily enough also a lot of joys!

Me and Hunter S. Toss 'em

First of all, we have had so many great visiting skaters and refs, that have all in one way or another thought us valuable lessons, they taught us new skills and drills, but also that Roller Derby leagues all over the world deal with issues just like ours. Which is great to hear, because Roller Derby being a new sport in Holland and all, it sometimes feels like we are figuring out everything by ourselves. You know not having to inventing the wheel again and such. But luckily the struggles we have are not just unique to our league, all leagues have struggles and issues, and that is great to hear and learn from.



Roller Derby as a sport is growing like crazy in Europe. Which means that lucky for us, there are more and more events and such that we can go to. Like actual live bouts, parties, scrimmages, friends and family days and more.
We have been to a few exciting things over the past months. And the joy of derby I experience at those events makes all the hard work worth it.
A little over a month ago we had our very first international scrimmage against the One Love Roller Dolls. It was super exciting and playing with a couple of our girls that just passed their WFTDA test. But we didn't care about winning or losing. We wanted to learn as much as we possibly could and we did!!

Group pic by Robin Minter

 Oh my, we learned so much. OLRD showed us some great team work and strategy which we took home with us.
I personally took a lot from that scrimmage for my own progression and that of our league. I found that I really liking the role of Pivot, but I didn't really know what to do all the time.
As for our league, we had our brand new member Hurricane Hayles bench coaching us, which was amazing. It just really felt like we all grew closer together that day!




Not just playing gives us joy, but also making money for our league gives us lot's of JOY! And when you life in Holland, there is no better time to raise money then Queens day!
And so we did, a bunch of our girls got together and started baking and cleaning out there attics and garages to find stuff to sell on queens day, all in order to make us some money.

 

Pic by Mad Gent

One of the other joys I had this past month, was being able to share my joy for Roller Derby with my friends and family. We had our own ADD Friends and Family day.
With miniature scrimmages, of course more cup cakes and some beers :)
It was a great day. My biggest fan even came out to see me, and had a surprise for me.... With t-shirts saying "go Furrrocious go" and an awesome banner, it was the best to see my little sis standing on the side line, supporting me!

8 wheels, 2 skates, 1 bad attitude! Love that banner!!

It was a weird day, great, but weird. Cause we were so busy with the organizational part of things (pr and stuff like that), I didn't actually have to much time to talk to the friends and family that came to support me. But that was the one real downside of the day.

The Furrrocious fan club! :p

Because except for that, we had a great time! I even had to to a dance of shame, cause I ended up in the penalty box :p
Just for those who haven't seen a Roller Derby bout or scrimmage before, normally there is no "dance of shame". But we did it for the fun of it! ;)

We also got some great publicity from this F&F day. We had a big article in a Dutch (well read) new paper, and a film crew from a national Dutch television came by.
You can see the video here. It is in Dutch, but you'll get the idea. :)
It was so much fun to finally be able to share this (now very) important part of my life with all the friends and family that came out. I hope we as a league will do this more often.

Officials team Block 'n' Roll - pic by Val Killer

As happy as we are with all our visiting skaters and refs, we also love to go places for Roller Derby! Especially me and my wifey Lola Rock 'n' Rolla. We sure love us some road trippin'!!
This past saturday we went to Essen, where the Devil Dolls where having their first home bout against Barock city. Block 'n' Roll!!
It was great seeing all our German friends again, Major Madness, ChefX, Gina Gasolina, DI Die, Psycho Annie, Big Red, and so many more that I can possibly name all at the same time. :)

My wifey Lola was announcing the bout together with Johnny Bash and I bet they did a great job... I say I bet, because I don't understand a word of German! LOL
She made sure of one thing though, that you did not need to know any language for: she looked smashing!!

I was an NSO. Penalty box Jammer timer. It was lot's of fun, screaming at girls when to stand and when they were done. There where enough penalties to keep us busy too....
You learn so much as a player when you NSO. As it was my first time working the penalty box I learned a lot about that part of the game. First of all, stay out of the penalty box, it's a waste of time to be in there! And more importantly, get there as fast as possible and sit down right away! The clock doesn't start ticking until your butt is on that chair!

Two of my favorite Germans on this planet!! 

Our Essen friends made sure all 7 (6 working and one awesome visiting ref that we took with us - Rave N Busther from San Diego) of us had a place to crash, for the next day we were off to Antwerp for the OLRD friends and family day scrimmage.
Because we were able to sleep over, we were also able to hang out with our friends at the after party! And we ADD girls sure like our after party! :)
Wise as I was I of course didn't drink at the after party and went home early..........oh no, that wasn't me! I stayed way to late and drank a little to much and had an AMAZING time!!! And I would do it over again and again (even though skating with only 4 hours of sleep isn't exactly ideal either.... :p)

It's a strange sensation, the 'family' feeling Derby brings with it. You make great friends all over the world because of Derby. Without even having to know people very long. We have one and the same passion that we share and it's a brother/sisterhood you are immediately a part of. And you know what? I love it! Every minute of it. 


Before I could get even more fuzzy and huggy with all our German friends we packed up and went to Antwerp the next day. Making sure we took one of our favorites, Major Madness, with us, so he could ref the scrimmages the next day!
The One Love Roller Dolls organized their Friends and Family day in a very special way. They invited all the Dutch leagues to come and scrimmage. And so they did! Not just ADD was present, but 6 out of the 7 Dutch Leagues were there. Eastside Rock n Rollers (Enschede), Rock city Rollers (Eindhoven), Dom City Dolls (Utrecht), Deathrow Honeys (Rotterdam) and the Fallen Angles (Arnhem).

Belgium and Holland group picture - pic by Ian Rwb

And the coolest thing was, we were all playing together!! For the first time.
There was a beginner/intermediate scrimmage between two Dutch teams, made up out of all 6 leagues, they played each other. And as my wifey and other league mates were in both teams, I literally screamed my longs out... the roller derby hooligan showed her self... :)
It was amazing seeing so many of Holland and Belgium's players on one single track in one day!!



I was in the 'advanced' scrimmage later that afternoon. 5 of the dutch leagues came to together to form one team and played against the OLRD team. It was a great scrimmage.

'Bloody oranges' waiting on the Bench -pic by Ian Rwb

I don't even know where to start.... I wasn't really nervous before we began, that might have been because of serious lack of sleep... But when we had our teams intro song, and my name was called, and I heard applause and people screaming my name, my adrenaline started running, and basically didn't stop until a couple of hours AFTER the scrimmage! :)
The reason I had the best time ever, was mainly because I have made a huge leap in my own development. I understood what was going on (most of the time), I tried new strategies and was able to test them and repeat them, and I had NO PAIN in my ankles! Which was awesome!!
It felt so good to be on the track an actually playing! I know it's a scrimmage and not an official bout, but this is the closest I got to playing 'for real'. And it was the absolute best feeling in the world. I fell in love with Roller Derby AGAIN during the scrimmage. I was all ready absolutely in love with this sport, and I didn't think my love for it could grow any bigger, but this last Sunday it did!! :)

After the scrimmage I looked around at our girls and could do nothing but smile! I am so incredibly proud of where we are right now in our league. We are getting there, slowly but surely, and it makes all our sweat, blood and tears worth it!!


- Furrrocious

It's great being the "AMSTERDAM" Derby Dames

There are lots of 'up sides' to being the Amsterdam Derby Dames. We get a lot of visiting skaters and refs that are traveling through Europe. Just to get into some tacky name dropping: Hunter S. Toss 'em (Rat City), Tara Armov (LA Derby Dolls)..... We are, of course, eternally grateful that these amazing skaters and refs visit us, and teach us bunches! It's simply amazing.
Tomorrow we have a scrimmage training/bootcamp with some of Steel City's finest: 'snot rocket science and Damage Dahl.

This is them. 'snot as Pivot on the left. And Damage with the pink helmet on the right. 

When you are a Rookie League, like we are, it's pretty intimidating to see a track record like theirs...
Co-captain, a crazy amount of skating experience, lots of bouts played, and even awards for their Roller Derby play.....
I guess it would feel pretty much the same as when a major football, basket ball or soccer star comes to train witha little league team.
So yeah, it makes you a bit nervous and insecure. But especially it makes us honored and enthusiastic! How awesome that Amsterdam is a great city that everyone likes to visit?! :p


A lot of stuff has happened to our league since the last time I wrote anything (yeah I know, I havent been writing to much, crazy busy...).
We were lucky enough to have had a bootcamp as well as a training session with ChefX and Major Madness from the Devil Dolls Essen.They have thought us and our refs so much, we absolutely love ourselves some Devil Dolls!

We also had our second run of WFTDA Minimum Skills testing last saturday, with some of the 'old' girls that didn't pass last time in october (like me...) and almost all of our FM that started end of last year.
And to all our surprise, EVERYBODY that did the test passed! It was an amazing feeling. Just an overwhelming feeling of oooowwwwhhhhhaaaaahhhhhh!! I literally got goosebumps when I heard. I know it's crazy. But when you see everybody work so hard, it's just the best feeling ever to see everybody pass.
And so all those girls get to join in on the training with 'snot rocket and Damage tomorrow. Which is just great!

Group picture taken after the great result of the test! 

And next week we will be playing our first official international Scrimmage against the One Love Roller Dolls from Antwerp.
Super excited about that!! And nervous of course.... All our girls have come a long way from being the wobbling bambies on ice... but are we ready to do this?! I guess we will just have to wait and see. At least we will learn a shit ton and have a bunch of fun doing it!! Cause yeah, we also love ourselves some OLRD :p


We also have a brand new member of the Amsterdam Derby Dames: Hurricane Hayles!!
Hayles who is originally from the UK, played with the Montreal Roller Derby League for the past two years. Now she is here with us in little 'ol Amsterdam! She and here derby widower are expecting a baby, so she is going to show us the robes from the middle of the track, off skates unfortunately, luckily that doenst mean she cannot crack the whip on us! And she will be Bench coaching us at scrimmages and hopefully at our first bout in August. It's great to have you here Hurricane!

A BIG ADD WELCOME TO YOU!!!

Hurricane Hayles        

It is bizarre how much can happen in such a short period of time. Only months have gone by, and ADD has grown, I have grown (in muscles as well as in 'hart' for our girls) and Roller Derby Holland keeps growing, its just all amazing.

I am happy to say, I am so very proud of our League. And if you are interested in supporting us, or wondering where I am (cause you never see me anymore). We will be having a Friends and Family day on may 7th! And you are all welcome to come!!

Derby love,
-Furrrocious