Roller derby skater wins her 100th award certificate in rookie bout

This last weekend Hashbrown NoFilter of the Funbridge Rollers was awarded her 100th skater award certificate in a rookie bout.

Hashbrown, who started skating four years ago, has taken part in over two hundred beginner bouts, rookie bouts and cherry poppers. In addition, she has also participated in over fifty mixed scrimmages, mini tournaments, sur5als and other non-bout format roller derby events.

Across these bouts, she has been awarded a total of one hundred best blocker, best jammer or most valuable player (MVP) certificates.

Hashbrown commented: “I’m so chuffed at winning all these awards. I didn’t win any initially. But after my 20th bout or so they started coming in. And now I get an award pretty much every time!”

When asked how she was able to take part in so many rookie bouts, Hashbrown commented: “They usually say that the Cherry Poppers are for players who have played up to three bouts. But, like, that only counts bouts with your travel team.” Within her home league Hashbrown has not yet reached travel team level.

“I’ll be on the team soon. I mean, those awards speak for themselves!”

Roller derby player told by friends: “You don’t talk enough about roller derby!”

Epic Fay, of the Giggleswick Rollers, has been told off by her non-derby friends for not talking enough about roller derby.

Linda Heap, a friend of Epic Fay, commented: “It is very disappointing. I was looking forward to hearing all about this magical world of unicorns, empowerment, and finding yourself, at every minute of every day. But Fay doesn’t really talk about roller derby that much.”

Mike Stork, a work colleague of Fay found himself equally disappointed. “I was hoping that Fay would constantly switch the conversation topic to roller derby. But it hasn’t really happened.” Frustrated at the lack of lecturing, Mike has even resorted to asking. inane questions about derby, including “Where is the ball?” or “So, you elbow each other off the track?”.

Fay explained: “Yeah, roller derby is great and all. But when it comes down to it, it’s just something I do a few evenings a week. My real passion is slack lining. Oh, you haven’t heard of it? It’s so great! Let me tell you all about it”

WFTDA: “Investing in roller derby development outside North America so not worth it.”

The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) have stated that they will discontinue efforts to develop roller derby outside of North America.

WFTDA spokeswoman commented: “For several years now, we have been working heavily towards developing roller derby in Europe, Australasia and South America. But we have found that these investments are just so not worth it.”

“Just look at the facts. How many overseas teams are in the WFTDA Division 1? I mean, sure, there’s London and VRDL in the top 10. And more recently Helsinki, Crime City and Stockholm have made into D1. Sun State and Glasgow are also in there.”

“Berlin, Paradise City, Tiger Bay, Kallio, Auld Reekie and Pirate City are not far behind. And teams like Sydney or Leeds may soon be at this level. But you know that’s all, really.”

“There is just no evidence that overseas teams are going to be able to develop and keep up with the high standard set by the American teams.”

“The day a non-American team wins the Hydra is the day I will eat a jammer hat.”

Certified roller derby referee admits: “I’m just making it up as I go.”

A level three certified roller derby referee from Failingsworth, Derpshire, admitted that their knowledge of the rules roller derby is minimal.

The referee, who will remain anonymous, stated: “I don’t know how this happened, but it seems too late to turn back now.”

“It all started off small. I was about to start my ref training, when a neighbouring league desperately needed refs for a mixed scrimmage. I agreed to do it and that was my way in. Having reffed at that scrimmage I got asked to ref at more mixed scrimmages and once I had those on my ref CV I was offered spots for bouts and eventually tournaments.”

“At no point did anyone ask if I actually knew what I was doing. Just turn up in a stripy top and you are set to go.”

“I throw in some penalty calls here and there, like ‘illegal block’ or ‘failure to play’, so that I look like I’m actually doing something. Are those actual penalties? Who knows! You’d think someone would notice, but they don’t!”

“When I jammer ref, I just hold up an arbitrary number of points somewhere between zero and seven.”

“I thought I was done for when I reffed a sanctioned bout under a highly-certified head ref. But after the game she simply complimented me on my great positioning and that was it.”

“I certainly feel that we should have some sort of system in place to stop people like me from reffing all these bouts.”

USARS to abolish blockers

USA Roller Sports (USARS) have announced that they will abolish the position of blocker in the USARS 2015 roller derby rule set.

This change came after an intensive beta-testing and feedback process involving all of the three leagues who currently play roller derby under USARS rules.

USARS spokeswoman Annett Wit explained: “We found that blockers were only serving to slow down the game and complicate the rule set. What people want is a fast-paced, exciting game that is easy to follow.”

“With blockers in the game, you end up with so much stopping and slowing. Removing the blockers is a small change that just makes everything so much neater, don’t you think?”

In the 2015 rule set the position previously known as blocker has now been renamed as pivot, resulting in a total of one jammer and four pivots per team in each line up. Any number of pivots can break out of the pack at any moment and score points by lapping opponents on the track. Blocking by jammers or pivots is not permitted.

Annett Wit added: “We are committed to bringing our members and fans the game and insurance they love.”

“For the upcoming 2016 rules update, we are currently at the beta-testing stage. But I can tell you that deceleration of any kind will likely become a penalty.”

Team accidentally scheduled to play themselves following multiple league splits

This last weekend, the Fiddlesticks Rollers of Fiddlesticklington, Derpshire found themselves opponent-less as they were accidentally scheduled to play themselves.

The league, originally founded as Fiddlesticks Rollergirls, had undergone multiple league splits, leaving Fiddlesticklington with a confusing landscape of leagues.

Fiddlesticks Rollers captain Catherine Wheel explained: “The first split happened six months after the league was founded. Some of us wanted to be more competitive about Derby, while others just wanted to have fun. We left and founded a new league named Fiddlesticklington Roller Derps. Later that year, another group left the Fiddlesticks Rollergirls after an argument and they became the Derpshire Rollerfiddles. Not long after that two of the fractions split again because some of us wanted to go co-ed. So that created Fiddlesticks Roller Derby and us. And then there are also the Fiddlesticklington Wheels of Derp. I have literally no idea where they suddenly came from. It’s all very confusing.”

Fiddlesticks Rollers league liaison Dr Yes added: “I thought I was communicating with the captain of the Fiddlesticks Rollergirls. But it turns out I was emailing my very own captain. It’s getting silly. Maybe I’ll go and create my own league where we won’t have any of this drama!”

Bench coach’s half time speech solely responsible for turning game around

Fartfordshire Rollergirls are victorious entirely due to half time team speech given by bench coach.

Last weekend saw Fartfordshire Rollergirls face off against the Netherregion Rollers. Going into half time, Netherregion were leading by over 200 points. But in a completely unprecedented game twist, Fartfordshire ended up taking the game with a final score of 400:205.

In a post-game interview, Fartfordshire captain Holy Molly stated that the outcome out of the was entirely thanks to an inspiring half time talk by the team’s bench coach Mr Tea.

“We didn’t know what we were doing. We were just running around like headless chickens.” Holy Molly said. “Tea asked us ‘DO YOU WANT TO WIN THIS GAME???’ – Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it until then. But once he said that it became our main goal. Tea also said that to win the game we ‘needed to try and stop the opposition from scoring points and also try to score more points ourselves’ – such an eye opener! This is simply not at all what we had been practicing in the lead up to this game!”

Mr Tea commented: “My girls did great. I’m so proud that I won this game.”