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