Writing a 2020 derby recap is painful for a lot of reasons, but a big one is that we are very much still stuck in a “long” 2020. A miraculous change didn’t happen with the New Year and without an actual season, there’s very little that neatly fits within the package of a yearly review. Struggling with how to deal with that, there were still bright and important moments last year that should be marked regardless of the fit.
It was without a doubt the most challenging year for the sport of roller derby since its resurgence in the early 2000s. Many leagues have lost members, lost venues, and many more finished the year in a serious financial crunch. It couldn’t all be bad though, there were small victories to celebrate and an intense period of internal struggle and growth that could potentially alter the sport in ways which bring it closer to its stated ethos.
No one would blame you for burning this after reading, never looking back on 2020 again, but it definitely happened and it changed our sport.
At Least We Got BOTAS
The one big North American roller derby tournament that actually happened this year, Battle of the All Stars (BOTAS) snuck in pre pandemic in February and everyone who took a year off, or pushed an appearance down the road to next year, probably regrets it. It feels like it happened years ago, but I promise you it was in 2020!
Team Pennsylvania recaptured Gold, after a threepeat from Team New York, beating Team Florida 141–134 in the final. The impressive showing from Team Florida, which included a dominant 154–91 win over reigning Champions Team New York in the semi-final, came in their tournament debut.
Team New York held onto their medal streak, beating Team Massachusettes 191–143 in the 3rd Place game.
Team Mass didn’t medal, but they did flip a 6th seed into a 4th place finish. Team Mass blocker Wednesday Atoms also secured Tournament MVP with her performance.
The tournament also saw Team Montana, 7th to 6th, and Team Kansas, 15th to 9th, make big improvements on their seeding. Team Montana’s run included an impressive 160–115 win over 2 seed Colorado and the closed out the tournament with a tight 30 point loss to Texas.
An improved format saw closer games and lots of great in tournament drama — like who remembers the Louisiana crawl?
The games are all up on @NERDerby’s Youtube Channel and it’s always a great tournament to rewatch. You can find the old spreadsheet schedule and scores here if you want to go hunting for the close games first.
Team Black Diaspora Roller Derby
2020 saw the launch of a new team with the February reveal of Team Black Diaspora Roller Derby. Coinciding with Black History Month, the team builds on, “the spirit of Black Roller Derby Network” and aims to bring that representation “outside the convention walls of Las Vegas.” Their mission being, “to provide a positive and safe space in roller derby for Black people” with a focus on gender inclusive derby and inclusion within the Roller Derby World Cup.
Their debut game, versus Team Indigenous and scheduled for Udder Chaos, was a game I had circled in my calendar and was excited to see in person. Unfortunately the pandemic cancelled those plans, but although Team Black Diaspora didn’t get to play in 2020, they did build on a platform for black skaters to increase their visibility, share their joy for the sport and hold the community accountable for anti-black racism.
Birds of Prey
Roller Derby got a major motion picture in 2020, with Birds of Prey featuring roller skating stunts by one of our own — Angel City’s Pearl Jam. The film sparked a lot of interest in roller skating and roller derby, and although leagues couldn’t capitalize on it, that kind of background interest to uninitiated people is huge. There’s also a lot of people who wanted to see MORE derby in the film. It’s not very realistic, but it’s definitely cool as hell.
Also S/O to Rachel Rotten, our 2018 Team Player of the year, for being one of the most helpful people in derby again in 2020 — seen above helping teach Margot Robbie skate, she also spent time in 2020 keeping me stocked with important WFTDA COVID updates.
Boston Roller Derby and the WFTDA COVID Return to Play Saved Lives
Boston Roller Derby’s decision on March 11th to cancel 2020 Lobstah Roll was the kick off point for North American Roller Derby taking COVID-19 seriously. It was one of the first cancellations, and the first major one, from which almost every other league took stock and started to wind down their own training.
The move and its ripple throughout the derby world, almost certainly saved lives. It also set the stage for a larger and coordinated response from WFTDA, who quickly went from tracking cancellations to organizing a working group to build their response to the pandemic.
What came of that, the WFTDA COVID Return to Play released in May and various committees, have been widely praised outside of the derby community for its commitment to community health.
It is a new high water mark for the capabilities of the derby community to recruit and build on strengths and provided a template to recreate while tackling other issues within the community, something which also influenced the development of the Anti-Racism ART Project which came later in the year.
Although I can’t give out a full section of awards this year, the 2020 Derby Ambassador Award definitely gets shared between Boston Roller Derby and the WFTDA COVID Task Force and Medical Team.
I also have to S/O our site sponsor Frogmouth we were very early adopters of face masks. So early I remember people actually giving them shit, lol. They managed to not only be an early promoter of masks within the derby community but they also made and donated tons of masks to schools and hospitals that needed them.
The Roller Skate Emoji
It feels like people have been begging for a rollerskate emoji for a long time, but the actual process from submission, to acceptance, to appearance on people’s phones was pretty quick.
Raphaël Vandon reached out on New Years Day 2019 wondering if I had interest in helping with a proposal for a roller skate emoji. We recruited Twixxi Indigo and after a 19 hour train ride Raphaël had a draft proposal that we worked into a submission that was sent off on January 4th, 2019. After some back and forth and resubmission, the application was accepted in April 2019 and was later successfully added to the Unicode 13.0 2020 update.
Derby didn’t get the full promotional use of the emoji in 2020, but knowing that it is there is helpful for when we get back. Oh and everyone owes a huge thank you to Raphaël who is actually an inline speed skater! When the chips were down and the committee would only accept one emoji, he backed the submission for quad skates. Truly legendary inline and quad unity moment!
The Roller Skating Trend
Roller skating made the front page of TikTok and the algorithm, matched with a lot of other factors, led to a mass amount of quad skate purchases and renewed interest in roller skating in 2020. Long time skate company Riedell actually had to open up a second facility to face demand and anyone trying to buy new skates right now can speak to delays.
Coverage was widespread and continued throughout the year, first marking the trend and then marking issues with the trend — namely, algorithms prioritizing whiteness and the erasure of black skate culture.
Although the trend was driven largely by fairly basic short jam and trail skating clips and it is unclear how much of this will translate to derby, it has pointed to the inability of the existing derby community to bridge this gap between the sport and the black jam skating community.
If the trend does lead to large intakes, it adds more priority to ensuring that intake programs are inclusive along strong understandings of the current Code of Conduct.
Atlanta Roller Derby
Atlanta Roller Derby have long been vocal about black visibility and anti-black racism in the derby community and the continued their vocal leadership in 2020 urging WFTDA and member league to look inward in their responses to the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the killing of black people in America.
Atlanta’s open letter provided a template for leagues to take back with them, alongside specific asks from our sports governing body,
“For leagues asking where to start — the good news is there are lots of places to start. Recruitment is not the only answer, nor should it be your first step. Take the time to review your policies and culture before bringing new recruits into a potentially harmful environment. The silver lining of forced quarantine is having more time to get your house in order before you go out to recruit new league members.”
It is important that leagues revisit and recommit themselves to this process as they return to play.
REAL Roller Derby (Jumping the Apex / Queens of Pain / Hell on Wheels Season 2)
Birds of Prey was great and so was that banked track episode on Netflix’s series “Home Games” but after both, and in the absence of actual derby, I was craving some real authentic depictions of flat track roller derby. My cup ran over as the year went on, with the “Jumping the Apex” docuseries, the “Queens of Pain” documentary and Season 2 of “Hell on Wheels.”
“Jumping the Apex” followed Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada) Anchor City Harbour Grudges for their 2019 season, the debut season as a full fledged WFTDA member. It is a pure and honest look at a small and isolated league taking a big leap and embracing a host of new challenges. It is not universally available, but fingers crossed it will be soon.
The “Queens of Pain” documentary tells the story of the 2018 Gotham home season through the eyes of WFTDA legend Suzy Hotrod (Queens of Pain), veteran skater Evilicious (Brooklyn Bombshells) and rookie skater Captain Smack Sparrow (Diamond District). Selected for the Austin Film Festival, the film was made by two sisters who wanted a high production and authentic look at, “communities of women who empower each other.” It’s an amazing record of what it takes to play derby in New York City and a great derby documentary. Look for it as it continues the festival circuit and fingers crossed is picked up for streaming.
“Hell on Wheels” returned for another season to cover the 2019 season of the Tiger Bay Brawlers as they battled injuries and roster instability trying to get back to the podium in the European Continental Cup. This one is a bit close to home, I uh love Tiger Bay, and made all the more emotional after the passing of beloved Tiger Bay blocker NitroJen. It’s a tough and emotional watch, but it is very worth it and all the tears you will cry. It’s not widely available outside the BBC iPlayer yet, but you can do a lot of things with a VPN.
Thank You New Zealand
NZ, and RollerDerbyStreamingNZ in particular, came up big in 2020 providing the lion’s share of live derby streaming content from March to the present.
Those games provided a much needed sense of hope, but also introduced many people to beautiful world of New Zealand Roller Derby. I got a new favourite NZ announcer — HI SNEAKS! — some new favourite NZ skaters to watch, Cuzzy and Furious George, and a new favourite NZ Coach in Big Dippah.
A lot of those games have made it over to the RollerDerbyStreamingNZ Youtube Channel and I would highly recommend Regional Rumble which gave us our only streamed, competitive knockout bracket tournament this year after BOTAS.
2020 also saw Team Aotearoa Roller Derby return to Team New Zealand Roller Derby, a move to acknowledge and make space for a new Mana Tangata o Aotearoa Roller Derby team made up of Indigenous players and representatives. Mana Tangata o Aotearoa, who competed at Regional Rumble, has a mission statement to, “unite the Indigenous Roller Derby Community in Aotearoa. We are here to shine a spotlight on decolonisation and simultaneously encourage Pacific Nations and other Indigenous communities to celebrate their cultural identity.”
The End of Mandatory MSR’s (and Hopefully 27/5)
The end of the year brought the end of WFTDA’s Mandatory Skill Requirements (MSR’s). After listening to concerns about the MSR’s effectiveness and its central role in allowing for gatekeeping within the sport, WFTDA developed an MSR task force and began the work of completely breaking away from Mandatory Skill Requirements and moving towards as curriculum model that allows for greater league autonomy.
MSR’s, mandatory only for sanctioned play, were being applied league wide in many places and specific requirements, like 27 laps in 5 minutes, were a major barrier for many skaters otherwise deemed safe and capable to play.
The new WFTDA beginner curriculum looks to increase resources for coaches and trainers and includes a transition plan as leagues return under a new system.
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Eds Note: The derby community lost a lot of people this year. I’ve tried to mark each loss, but I don’t want to attempt a memorial post here for fear of leaving people out. It was an extremely hard year and with one of our biggest support groups upended, it is easy to feel like we are going through this alone. I hope you all still find ways to stay connected to your league, this sport, or places like #DerbyTwitter and that you reach out to others when you are struggling. I know how hard it can be to ask for help, but it is important.
