Flat Track Comes of Age: A Reflection on the State of the Game at the End of 2014

 

The Agony and the Ecstasy: The moments following the final whistle of the 2014 WFTDA Championship game, with Gotham defeating Rose City 147-144. (Photo by Joe Mac)

It had been somewhat of a tumultuous few years for the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. Beginning in 2010 when the flat track game began to evolve in ways distinct from any other version of the game that preceded it, there were pushbacks toward the Association from virtually every corner; whether from the roller derby’s remaining patriarch Jerry Seltzer, or its bloggers like Windy Man, or even parts of the WFTDA’s membership itself, from 2010-2013 the sport of flat track roller derby came under attack in ways that would have seemed ludicrous during the all-inclusive love-in that defined the community from 2003-2009.

Personally, I truly fell in love with the game in the fall of 2009 when all the elements that people seemed to hate about the sport first surfaced. For me, the game of flat track roller derby existed only in name until that point, as the sport was basically just a mutated version of the banked track game played on a flat surface. It seems, in retrospect, that people were content with this pseudo-version of Seltzer-style roller derby, but logically, thinking that the strategies that defined the banked track would survive forever on the flat one is equivalent to thinking that ice hockey strategies could be transported to field hockey: different surfaces, different games.

In 2014, flat track roller derby truly came of age. The sometimes awkward adolescence that hobbled the game through its strategic and subsequent rules evolution of the past few years finally seemed to balance out; the game hasn’t changed much over the past two seasons (though of course its gotten better through refinement), nor have the rules (again aside from clarification and “tightening”) and in 2014 we finally got to see what flat track roller derby is going to look like.

If you want to see flat track roller derby at its finest, you can do no better than the first half of the Rose City vs. Atlanta game at the WFTDA Division 1 Playoffs (watch on WFTDA.TV).

Some people still hate what the game has become, and that’s fine, but after an incredible 2014 playoff season and a heart warming World Cup (played under the WFTDA rule set), the attacks on the WFTDA seem shallow now; they seem to be coming from people who simply don’t like the sport, yet still, inexplicably, want to be a part of it (perhaps due to reasons of self-centred sentimentality and nostalgia: “But that’s not what the game looked like when I discovered it!”).

Another criticism still levelled at the WFTDA is about the lack of fans, and even more ludicrously, the notion that flat track roller derby from 2003-2009 had this massive fan base that the game has now alienated by becoming too strategic, too slow (the implication being that we should make it more “showy”; that we should alter the rules in ways to attract fans, as opposed to altering rules to match the natural evolution of the game on a flat surface). The idea that flat track roller derby ever had a sustained, loyal fan base outside of its own membership is, to be blunt, simply not true. It’s a fallacy built around the illusion that because places like Seattle attracted a few thousand fans for a few if its house league seasons and Toronto sold out its venue for a year following the release of Whip It, we had some massive, loyal fan base that has since been eroded.

There is absolutely no consistent sample size to base this argument on (though that hasn’t stopped people), and the logical conclusion to the idea of forcing the game to change in a way to better entertain fans is RollerGames (which I am confident in saying that no one wants). The flat track game has only just “settled” in the past season or so; I believe we are probably still 5-10 years away from seeing the beginning of a devoted fan base, if at all. And really, that should never be the goal of a sport that is at an age when it’s still figuring itself out.

And while on the surface, growth does seem to be somewhat slowed at the highest level (this year’s WFTDA playoffs probably drew about the same amount of fans as last year’s, etc.), at the base, the game is flourishing. Men’s roller derby and junior roller derby both grew leaps in bounds in 2014, and the game spread to corners of the globe that would have seemed impossible a few years ago for various reasons (Hello CaiRollers!). The junior exhibition game at the World Cup, though initially seeming like an afterthought, was a sight to behold. The fact of the matter is that at the highest levels of the game, we are now tinkering. We are refining the game and making it better, more athletic. Smarter. And all the while, the base upon which this is supported is growing and strengthening.

One of my picks for game of the year was the Montreal vs. Toronto showdown at this year’s Quad City Chaos. Watch the complete game here. (Produced by Layer9.ca)

And Canada remains right in the centre of it all (or perhaps more accurately just north of centre). For a long time it seemed as if Canada was constantly playing catch-up, with the game in general but with its own internally dominant league as well, Montreal Roller Derby. And this year, the rest of the country caught up in a big way. Both Toronto and Terminal City pushed the Skids to new heights of competitiveness, and in 2015 the game at the national level is expected to be played on an ever-increasing playing field. The Rideau Valley Vixens defeated Berlin’s Bear City in an incredible final game of one of the most incredible tournaments that flat track roller derby has ever seen (hosted, no less, by Canada’s Tri-City Roller Derby), and those thrilling D2s were followed by an equally thrilling D1 playoffs that was capped off by one of the greatest games ever (and certainly, given the stakes, since the 2010 WFTDA Championship game), when Gotham held off Rose City (147-144) to retain the Hydra.

Sure, Canada didn’t surprise as it did in 2013 when Toronto and Terminal City both went on spirited and unexpected runs in their respective Division payoffs, and Montreal once again lived up to its moniker as being the Most Heartbreaking Team in playoff history with another last-gasp loss, this time to long-time rivals Charm City, but nonetheless it was a banner year for the sport in the country and saw the rise of a new, true, power from the west in the Calgary Roller Derby Association, whose record-setting march up the WFTDA standings has made them a team to watch in the coming season. Overall, with the very recent additions of St. Albert, Winnipeg and Guelph’s Royal City, there are now fifteen WFTDA leagues in Canada spread across all three divisions, and three hundred member leagues overall.

Globally, the game is growing competitively, not only at the National level, as we saw with teams like Argentina and New Zealand, but at the league level as well. Berlin (D2) along with London and Melbourne’s Victorian Roller Derby (D1) all announced themselves as players on the WFTDA circuit. And there are more in the wings. When you think about the struggles and in-fighting that have gone on in trying to put professional sports leagues like the NHL and the NFL into global markets, the fact that a still-amateur sport like flat track roller derby has been able to sustain a “league” with international membership is nothing short of astonishing.

In 2014, the sport of flat track roller derby came of age. The game is better than it has ever been, played by stronger and fitter athletes in more places on the planet than anyone could ever have conceived of. It’s a fine time to be a fan of the sport, and I’ve got a feeling that it’s only going to get better.

****Take a look at the gallery below to see some of my favourite photographs that appeared on this site this year. A very, very BIG thanks to photographers Neil Gunner, Greg Russell, and Joe Mac for allowing me to illustrate my ramblings with their fine work.

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World Domination: Flat Track Roller Derby Takes Over Dallas for the 2014 World Cup

Team USA successfully defended the World Cup it had first won in 2011. (Photography by Joe Mac)

In the early morning of Thursday, December 4^th, 2014, at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, a half-awake group of announcers, volunteers, and staff was groggily standing in line to check in for credentials at the 2014 Blood and Thunder Roller Derby World Cup. Nearby, and snaking all along the interior wall of the cathedral-like mezzanine of the auditorium, were hundreds of fans who’d arrived early to gain entry or pick up last-minute tickets to the event. There was a murmur in the Center, the buzz of half-formed expectations and fully realized anticipation, but it was muted by the early morning hour, by the remnants of jet lag yet to be shaken.

A set of doors at the near-end of the hall sprung open and out walked Team Argentina, unmistakable in their baby-blue and white striped kit, skates in hand, but mostly geared up for warm ups for their early-morning game on Day 1 of the second Roller Derby World Cup.

It took a moment for the groggy mass in the hall to take note of the arrival of the team, but when they did, one part of the sleepy line of fans suddenly erupted: dancing, chanting, singing, flags of Argentina materialized and waved proudly. The singing accompanied the blushing and appreciative team as it entered the World Cup stadium and disappeared from our view.

Yet the singing continued. The dancing continued, and it would do so nearly unabated for the next four days.

It was my first “World Cup Moment” and proved to be just one of a countless number of World Cup Moments that would touch and inspire everyone who gathered in Dallas, Texas, for what would turn out to be—so far anyway—flat track roller derby’s greatest moment, an incredible crowning achievement for a sport only a decade into its very existence.

It’s actually been quite a year for flat track roller derby, a bounce back year in many ways for its leading governing body, the WFTDA, through whom the vast majority of the participants at the event were introduced to the game. The WFTDA Playoffs were an incredible success on the track, including a Division 2 tournament that provided the most parity of any flat track tournament in history, and globally the game had grown far beyond even the thirty teams in attendance in Dallas, evidenced by the donations of gear being collected on site for the emerging league in Beirut and the buzz around the newly formed league in Cairo. And for a potentially defining year in flat track roller derby, the 2014 World Cup proved to be a fitting end.

Team Canada marches during the Parade of Nations at the 2014 Roller Derby World Cup.

No, it was not a highly competitive tournament, though arguably more competitive than some thought it would be, and no the dominance of the United States was not negated, though the Americans were tested more than any thought possible. What it was, was a celebration of the sport, a global coming-out party on a scale that far eclipsed that of the inaugural World Cup in Toronto in 2011. Of course, through the sheer force of evolution, this event was way bigger and way better than that previous one, but that is as it should be, and undoubtedly the next event will be way better than this one (though it is hard to see how it could be any bigger, at least in terms of participation). And along with being a wildly celebratory party, it was also (perhaps most importantly) the largest “swap meet” the sport has ever seen: a sharing of the game, of strategies, of training.

There were some muted grumblings about the one-sided nature of some of the scores, particularly in the round-robin portion of the event where established nations like Australia (515-5 over Italy), Canada (301-23 over Denmark), England (329-50 over Ireland), Finland (312-38 over Mexico), and Sweden (459-0 over Japan) smothered their competition, but it would be hard to argue that anything else was expected in those rounds: Italy did not come into the World Cup thinking it would triumph over Australia, Denmark was probably quite content to score 23 points against Canada, and when Puerto Rican jammer Goomba Toomba managed three points in a 637-3 loss to USA, the room erupted as if they’d just won the very World Cup trophy itself.

It actually isn’t that unprecedented in the history of sport to have initially one-sided international events. For example, in ice hockey’s first forays into international competition at the 1920 and ’24 Olympics, the scores were often absurd (A Canadian amateur team won its three 1924 round robin games by a combined score of 85-0), yet hockey historians universally look back upon those two tournaments as being instrumental in the global growth of the sport; similarly, it’s undeniable that historians will one day look back upon these initial Roller Derby World Cups with the same sort of favour.

And honestly, except for the top four teams (and really just the second- through to fourth-place teams) winning and losing was not necessarily the number one goal. This tournament was about so much more than that.

Even Jerry Seltzer, who has been known to be publicly critical of the flat track game, seemed overwhelmed by the event, and wrote a long glowing piece about it on his blog. It was fitting to see “The Commish” at the tournament, shuffling wide-eyed around the tracks and posing for photos at every turn, always willing to share a thought or a story. Beginning with Transcontinental Roller Derby in the ‘30s and ending with the World Skating League’s RollerJam in the ‘90s, the Seltzer name was roller derby. From patriarch Leo and his brother Oscar through to Leo’s son Jerry and daughter Gloria, the Seltzer named had been the beating heart of the sport for seven decades before the flat track revolution brought the game to a level that transcended any individual name.

And it’s not hard to see why Jerry was so taken by the event. In a 2010 interview at the WFTDA Championships in Chicago (part of which you can see here), Jerry pointed out that “all (Leo) wanted was a legitimate game that could be played at the Olympics.” It never came to pass in Leo’s lifetime, nor even with Jerry at the reigns, yet here it is, not the Olympics exactly, but truly global, and even if growth has slowed somewhat in North American, it is a sport still very much growing on the rest of the planet.

Despite the disparity in some games, competitive growth in the sport was indeed evident. Brazil and Argentina were virtual doormats in 2011 but entered the 2014 event with a certain air of confidence. Winless three years prior, both notched round-robin victories (tight wins over Portugal and Switzerland for Brazil and a dominant performance over Denmark for the Argentinians), before Argentina scored the upset of the event in a very physical 205-143 victory over France in the Round of 16. France had finished 7^th in 2011 and was expected by most to be a lock for a Top 8 finish in Dallas. Similarly, other returning nations like Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand have emerged as leaders of the global game.

Most fans were decked out in national colours all weekend, but Australian fans were particularly noticeable.

And there was shifting at the top too, with England gaining revenge on a Canadian team that had topped them three years before with a hard fought 156-112 win in the semifinals, and then Australia did so as well, taking advantage of a spent Canadian squad with a thoroughly impressive 197-128 victory in the bronze medal matchup. And finally, England shattered all expectations and won over the hearts of the world with a performance for the ages against the Americans, truly winning the silver medal in a 219-105 loss in the gold medal game (no national team had ever held the Americans to such a low total or managed to score so many).

But despite the giddiness of that result (and the 54 points Australia managed against the American juggernaut in the semifinals), lets not kid ourselves too much: USA still represents the best in the world. At the conclusion of the final, England, battered, bruised and exhausted, looked as if they’d truly left it all on the track, while the Americans—still very much bigger, faster, stronger—appeared as if they were ready to play at least another 60 minutes.

There is still no jammer who possesses the blend of speed and strength of Atomatrix or the unflappable composure of Nicole Williams. In the pack, the wily Akers and the bluntly powerful Sexy Sladie continue to be forces, while Smarty Pants remains a marvel, always in the right spot, seemingly teleporting herself around the track, showing an unbelievable intelligence and vision for the game honed through a decade of commitment to the sport.

And to show they too are continuing to grow, this Team USA has also advanced, and has been slowly taken over by a new generation of skaters from jammers Vanessa Sites’ and Scald Eagle’s combination of strength and agility, to the on-track leadership of Penelope Nederlander and Shaina Serelson. Serelson herself—in her heart-on-her-sleeve intensity—harkens back to that first generation of USA skaters as well, now representing the fiery core of the national team once occupied by the sisters DeRanged and Psycho Babble, although Serelson represents an evolution of even those fine skaters, sporting a discipline that allows her to better focus that intensity into controlled, well-calculated aggression.

So even if the bar does not quite seem as high as it once was, it is still the Americans who are setting it.

On so many levels the 2014 Roller Derby World Cup was an absolute success, but interestingly, the greatest harbinger of the sport may have come in an exhibition game. On Sunday, right before the bronze and gold medal games, the Junior Roller Derby Association held an all-star game. It was a stunning bout, a shockingly well-skated game, a display of talent by teenagers who will, in time, change the sport in ways unimaginable.

From the women who trekked from every corner of six continents of the globe, to the boys and girls who left fans with jaws agape in the JRDA all-star game, perhaps the most heartening conclusion to be taken from this World Cup is that the game of roller derby—right now already healthier than it has ever been—is in unbelievably good hands.

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***For full results and links to specific team websites, visit the official World Cup website.  You can also find all the results and stats (where available) on flattrackstats.com.

***Photos courtesy of Joe Mac. Visit his blog here.