Anyone can learn to skate… Anyone can have speed, strength, endurance, dance around, be A GIANT. But, when the pressure is on, and The World is watching, those who skate together, focus, and work as a unit will reap the rewards of all their efforts. And the giants.. well, the giants they will fall.

This year ARRG took on The West Coast of America. Teams full of top class skaters – individuals and giants who work hard to climb those WFTDA rankings. Teams like: Rose City’s Axels of Annihilation, Arizona, Sac City, Tuscon and Emerald City. We surpassed all the predictions and our coaches learnt A LOT!!

We learnt about footwork, we learnt how to adapt our styles quickly, we learnt about blocking with whatever you’ve got, we learnt about communication, we learnt how to work as a team, play as a team, help each other, support each other and take on the goliaths without fear.

Now in School of ARRG Knocks 3 we are going to show YOU how!

Oh, and it wouldn’t be School of ARRG Knocks without a theme.. SOAK 3’s theme is FAME because.. you know.. we wanna skate forever! 🙂

Get your ticket now!

And a big ARRGy thanks to David (HaJuken) Lewis, for his work in making this video.

Saturday 21st June saw us hold our first ever Annual Awards Ball. It was an exciting night, with 20 individual awards to be given out, and the home season winners trophy and medals awarded.

We started off the evening with some Prosecco for everyone as they made their way down the red carpet, and had their photograph taken. A bit of food to line everyones stomachs, and we got underway with the awards. The full list of winners is below. Congratulations everyone!

Ref Of The Year – Caboose
NSO Of The Year – Andy Clockwise
Bench/LUM Of The Year – Pukeahontas
Rookie Of The Year – Furia
Blocker Of The Year – Yin & Bang
Pivot Of The Year – Pope John Brawl
Jammer Of The Year – Bint Imperial
League MVP Of The Year – Velosidy
Coach Of The Year – Bulletproof Glass
Good Spirit – Et Tu Brutal
Good Sportswomanship – Mallory Powers
Megaphone– Minnie Riot
Bakers Delight – Ll Cool Gay
Picasso Award – Kickolai Gogol
Well ARRG Award – Admiral Attackbar
Party ARRG – Diamond Slayher
Leadership Award – Skinner Alive
Big Idea Award – Princess Die
Special Recognition Award – Terryfying Tink
ARRG Award For Outstanding Contribution – Crazylegs

We held an auction for some of the amazing prizes we had donated. Amongst these was a weeks stay in Portugal courtesy of Haven OPS, A Neil Wykes photoshoot, A custom scrim top from Eleven Eleven Apparel, An M. Riot Power Animal, massage and manicures from PURE spa, a beautiful handmade ARRG cushion, A gift set from Lush, Cameo tickets, a treatment from Alex Black osteopath… so many excellent prizes, and we are delighted to say these raised an amazing £838.31. Absolutely phenominal!

It was an excellent night, and in total we managed to raise £1577.64 for the league. Huge thanks to the staff at 28 York Place, Pegasus SL, Dave Nicklen for Djing, Stephen Tawking for hosting the awards, every person who nominated, and most of all, to everyone who came!

Until next year!

ARRG – 30/08/14 from Auld Reekie Roller Girls on Vimeo.

Following on from the Twisted Thistles’ success at the ECDX tournament in Philadelphia last year, the entire league pulled together again this year to organise and fundraise for a return visit to the USA: this time, to the cheekily-named Big O tournament in Eugene, Oregon (1st – 3rd May 2014). A valuable chance to watch the highest-ranked teams play and to check out new tactics and strategies, it also gave the Twisted Thistles the opportunity to go head to head against some tough opponents and see how we compared against teams ranked higher than ourselves.

Having all successfully made our way to Portland, Oregon with skates and kit intact, we kicked off our trip with an unofficial game before the tournament against the Rose City B team Axles of Annihilation. This gave us the opportunity to get our heads back into the game, and also to practice skating on a sports-cork floor, slightly more slippery and unpredictable than the wooden floor we usually practice on.

As the only European team in attendance, we were asked to sing O Flower of Scotland at the opening ceremony: having done some frantic last-minute practicing in a hotel room the night before, we decided to go a cappella and belt it out in finest Scottish tradition without musical accompaniment. It was quite a contrast to the respectful and beautifully-sung Canadian and USA anthems which preceded it!

Once the tournament kicked off, we realised we were up against some tough competition: nearly all the team we were scheduled to play against were ranked significantly above us in the WFTDA worldwide rankings. Our first game was against Arizona (ranked number 54), whose line-up included Team USA skater Atomatrix. ARRG put up a respectable fight, but the final result was a win for Arizona of 333-174. Saturday saw two games in one day, and two surprise wins for ARRG against number 42-ranked Tuscon (177-141) and number 39-ranked Sac City (169-151). Tournaments usually bring out the best in ARRG, and it was clear that all the hard work in the previous months – working on our strength, endurance and the ARRG ‘hive mind’ – were paying off. Our final game was against Emerald City, the hosts of the Big O tournament. Near us in the rankings, it was clear from the start that it would be a closely-matched game. Despite skating our hearts out, we lost to a solid and tightly-knit Emerald 193 – 142. Happy but knackered, we then headed to the bleachers to watch our own Admiral Attackbar skate as one of ‘Team MVP’ vs Team America. When Admiral pushed through the pack as the first jammer to put points on the board for Team MVP, her ARRG supporters went wild!

We had a couple of days in Portland after the tournament to decompress: a process that involved multiple visits to Whole Foods, hours soaking in the small pool in the basement of our hotel and a not inconsiderable number of cocktails. Returning to Edinburgh tired but happy, we’ve got plenty to work on to make our league stronger and better than ever.

 

 

Results:
ARRG vs Arizona: 174-333
ARRG vs Tuscon: 177 – 141
ARRG vs Sac City: 169 – 151
ARRG vs Emerald City: 142 – 193

Our featured skater for July is Double D’struction!

A long standing ARRG member, DD skates for both the Cannon Belles and the Twisted Thistles. She is also on multiple committees, AND coaches! She is a busy lady. DD can often be found coaching fresh meat – if you are interested in joining ARRG, email newskaters@auldreekierollerderby.com for details of the next session – and who knows, DD could be coaching YOU!

Home Team Affiliation: Skatefast Club <3

Joined ARRG in: 2011. I went off to Canada for 6 months in 2012 / 13 to snowboard but missed ARRG too much so I came back!!

Favourite position to play: Depends on the day..

Best ARRG memory: There are so many!! But, the whole Big O experience was definitely something I will never forget and will treasure for the rest of my life. It was was sooo amazing to play with my teamies in America. Everyone played so hard and it was a phenomenal thing to be a part of. We learnt so much, had the chance to take on teams ranked much higher than us, and win, and we got watch some of the best teams in the world play derby! I loved watching Attack take on team America whilst we waived signs and chanted random chants and loved it when we ran outside to sell the last of our t-shirts by shouting and standing on tables outside the venue! Brilliant! The whole thing was great fun from start to finish – soo many awesome memories!

The Big O was not just about all that though for me. It’s my best ARRG memory because ARRG and The Big O got me through the toughest year of my life and without it I really don’t know what I would have done.

My partner Jonathan died suddenly in June last year. I was utterly devastated. Playing at The Big O was the goal that kept me moving when all I wanted was to lie down. It made me get up at 5.30 to lift weights with Cider instead of sleeping on cold dark winter mornings. It made me go to pilates on a Monday night to sort out my flexibility and derby lopsidedness. It made me walk through driving rain to do Olympic lifts on a Thursday night with Cider and Queenie. It made me go to every practice and try my best to focus on drills or scrim – even when I was knackered at 9.30 on a Friday night after all the gym, practice and a long week of work! It helped make sure that I ate well to try and put on the weight I’d lost so quickly and stopped me drinking all the pints / wine / vodka I would have if I hadn’t needed to train. It even made me go to committee and team meetings, do my committee work and helped give me something to get up and be strong for. It even made me (and loads of other ARRGies) get up on a Saturday morning to pack bags in Tesco to fundraise! The love and support from everyone at ARRG has been massive and unrelenting. Having a goal and not wanting to let everyone in ARRG down pushed me on. I’ll never forget that!! I can’t thank ARRG enough – you are all awesome!

Worst Derby injury: I’ve been really lucky and managed to only lose both toenails twice.

Best Derby advice: Always come to practice and work hard when you are there. No matter what is happening in your life, or how bad a day you’ve had.. practice always makes it better. And.. no matter what.. you can always depend on your derby pals to get you through those tough times!

Any funny/embarrassing derby stories? I constantly cry when someone has a proud moment. There have been too many incidents of me crying when someone tries hard then does something amazing for my liking. It’s not a great trait to have when you are trying to coach people!

Derby Hero: Anyone who tries really hard!

What do you do outside of derby: Derby, committees, coaching, off-skates and watching derby takes up a lot of time! Apart from that – I live with Caketin – we hang out and do stuff most people would find weird. I go to the gym with Cider to lift heavy things 3 mornings and an evening a week – at first people looked at us funny but now we get lots of “good morning”s and nods of approval for being in the weights area. I try and hang out with none derby pals as much as I can and try my best not to bore them with derby chat. I walk in the hills and swim in the sea lots. I like to go to interesting places far away and travel about. I love snowboarding and skiing. erm.. I’m pretty active really and try to say yes to most things people ask me to do.. I don’t watch TV. I don’t sleep much!!

Fun facts about you: Er… I have a woollen goods fetish.. I hate wet lolly-pop sticks or wooden chippy forks (can not touch them!). I listen to (bad) music constantly, whenever I am not listening to it something is playing in my head it’s really annoying! Are they “fun facts”? I’m not sure.