I love coaching roller derby almost as much as I love playing it.
Like all other roller girls out there roller derby has become my identity since I was bitten by the bug many years ago. It all started with an episode of Insomniac with Dave Attell where the titular host of the show visits Austin, TX and goes to a roller derby bout. I instantly knew that the sport was for me and started looking for some place to play it. Unfortunately, the sport was very limited in its spread at that point and there was no derby to be found in Harrisonburg, VA (several years later the Rocktown Rollers started brewing and are now going strong). I had no clue that I could start a league myself so I put my dreams of being a roller derby queen on the shelf until I moved to Boston after college graduation. As fate would have it, I missed the Boston Derby Dames’ foundation by just a few months – they started just after I had given up my hopes for the second time and I didn’t find out about their existence until early 2007 when a friend-of-a-friend completely randomly told me about an upcoming game. I screamed my heart out at that very first roller derby bout that I'd ever seen (in case you’re dying to know, the Wicked Pissahs won that one), and immediately signed up for tryouts. Well, although I practiced my crossovers and transitions at the local roller rinks whenever I could I didn’t make it onto the Boston Derby Dames in 2007, but I was lucky enough to connect with New Hampshire Roller Derby right around the time of their inception that fall and stayed with the ever-awesome NHRD until I left the U.S. in the summer of 2009.
Before the big move I obviously did my research to find out if there was going to be any roller derby in my new home: Helsinki. I wasn’t particularly surprised to find out that roller derby hadn’t made it quite that far out yet, BUT, there were clear signs on the world wide web that a select few women had heard about it (thank you, Rollergirls) and that they were interested in playing it themselves. Knowing that I couldn’t possibly live without roller derby I announced on a Finnish forum months before leaving Boston that I was interested in starting a league in Helsinki and in teaching interested women how to skate. Low-and-behold, people started contacting me. By the time I got to Helsinki in June, there were already a handful of dedicated ladies waiting for their skates to arrive in the mail and excited to start practicing with me. I was Helsinki Roller Derby’s head coach until July 2010 when I went on a much needed 6-month break during which I spent my time learning new drills and strategies, and traveling to coach new (and new-ish) leagues in Europe. After returning to active skating in January 2011 I was accepted as the head coach for Team Finland and I had the privilege of leading the national Finnish team on the journey of a lifetime to the world's first World Cup of Roller Derby in Toronto in December 2011. Team Finland achieved its goal of surprising the international derby community when we placed 5th in the world, 2nd in Europe, and 1st out of all the non-English speaking countries.
Since the cup I have moved back to the U.S. and in January 2012 I finally joined the first league I ever pined to be a member of: the Boston Derby Dames. I am honored to play for not only the Wicked Pissahs (the first roller derby team that I was ever truly a fan of), but also for the Boston B Party. I still really enjoy traveling to coach so anyone who would like to have me over should feel free to get in touch at any time!
Since the cup I have moved back to the U.S. and in January 2012 I finally joined the first league I ever pined to be a member of: the Boston Derby Dames. I am honored to play for not only the Wicked Pissahs (the first roller derby team that I was ever truly a fan of), but also for the Boston B Party. I still really enjoy traveling to coach so anyone who would like to have me over should feel free to get in touch at any time!
This little blog project was inspired by two of my favorite websites: allrecipes.com (yes, the blog’s name is a nod to them) and lekarkivet.se (only worth checking out if you speak Swedish and work with children).
If you have any comments, thoughts, questions, suggestions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at nhrd dot estrogeenadavis at gmail dot com!
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| Me (R) and Team Finland skater Kati Kyyrö. Photo by Marko Niemelä. |
