Roller Derby World Cup: A French-American Derby Adventure

Router Girl for Team France

By Router Girl

It’s still hard for me to believe that in about a week I leave for Toronto to join Team France and play in the first ever Roller Derby World Cup!

In fact, Team France will be playing the opening game of the world cup against Team Canada on Thursday, December 1st. We then play against Brazil and Sweden on Friday. After that we’ll see what the rankings bring…

Check out the bout schedule, player profiles and other Team France links in this handy PDF.

Thirteen countries are represented at the world cup: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, Sweden and the U.S.A.

There are many people to credit for how I found my way to Team France.

I grew up in France and spent hours with my friend Catherine, skating up and down the paved seaside walk of Saint Jean de Luz and the pedestrian streets of Bordeaux. When I moved to the US, skating became more of a solitary pleasure on the wooded bike trails of Western Massachusetts.

It’s thanks to a memorable conversation with another dear friend—yes, Gayatri, I’m talking about you—that aerobics got nixed and I discovered Pioneer Valley Roller Derby. At that point, the PVRD website said the league was looking for practice space; it wasn’t clear if they were skating or not. I e-mailed and soon heard back from Dr. Spankenstein. The league was alive and well!

He invited me to a Wednesday open practice at the Hampshire Mall’s skating rink. That’s where I first met Pink Panzer and Bazooka Joe—without whom PVRD wouldn’t exist and my roller derby adventure would not have taken place.

I had never skated indoors before, let alone with a group of people college age and older. It was thrilling!

It’s only later that I discovered the added pleasure of taking sharp turns, bumping into each other and generally behaving like human—excused my French—”auto tamponneuse” (bumper cars). Much later still, I discovered the intricacies of derby strategy.

At my first practice, as we sat around stretching and people introduced themselves, there was a round of applause for two players who had just passed their level three test and chosen derby names: Jurasskick Park and Chickadee Struction.

That’s when I also fell in love with the derby sense of humor and wordplay.

Many derby bouts later, I came to practice and Ketchum asked if I’d met the new French PVRD recruit who showed up at Fresh Meat Night. Wow! I could now play derby and speak french at the same time. Jessica—who later took on one of my favorite derby names, Dual Hitizen—had arrived at PVRD!

With characteristic enthusiasm, when Bitches Bruze mentioned Blood and Thunder was organizing a roller derby world cup, Dual Hitizen contacted the organizers to find out if there was a French team. There wasn’t.

Team France 2011

Since there were two of us at PVRD who were French-American, we decided we should investigate how to remedy the situation. Two expats to represent a whole country?

Why not?

Fortunately, we had both been in touch with clubs in France. We soon found out that Amelia Scarehart of the Paris Roller Girls was considering putting in an application to create a French world cup team, made up of players from the many leagues in France. Roller Derby was spreading fast. In July 2010, there were only three leagues in France—a year later the number had grown to 36, with a league in my high school town of Bordeaux.

After an application process and try outs, Team France was officially created in July 2011. The team has a roster of 20 players, five alternates and four coaches, with Amelia Scarehard as head coach. The team members come from several leagues including DC Rollergirls (where Dual Hitizen now plays), Les Petites Morts de Bordeaux, Montreal Roller Derby, Paris Rollergirls, Pioneer Valley Roller Derby, Roller Derby Metz Club, Roller Derby Toulouse.

I was an alternate until about a month ago when one player couldn’t make the trip and I was added to the roster. I’ll be in Toronto for a week playing as much derby as I can as hard as I can, wearing the red, white and blue stripes of the French flag. It’s been a great a great derby adventure so far and I look forward to the next installment.

A BIG thanks to all my fellow skaters and coaches at PVRD for helping me train, pushing me around and keeping me on my toes.

Tags: Bazooka Joe, Bitches Bruze, Chickadee Struction, Dual Hitizen, Jurasskick Park, Ketchum, Pink Panzer, Roller Derby World Cup, Router Girl, Team France