Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Left on the Derby Bucket List

Yesterday the amazing derby announcer from Denver had a birthday and I heard it. Yes, Dumptruck is in town.

There was a gathering at one of the downtown bars for him, and it was ridiculous. Ridiculously fun. Of course. In the course of the evening, I ended up talking with one of the Enforcers, Burns. We were talking about vacations to Amsterdam, Heineken, London, walking around everywhere, looking at really old buildings, and how long we think we can roll with the massive changes that is roller derby and the Derby Dolls in particular.

Once you get two participants in derby talking together, of course the conversation takes off like a rocket. And in the course of this particular conversation, derby goals were brought up. Burns will make his goals for this season, I'm sure. Me? I have one goal that I would like to hit before I retire, and I don't know if I'll be able to do it. What is it? So simple...

I want to skate in a real game as a substitute skater.

Years ago, the Derby Dolls allowed team skaters to skate on other teams if they were running short of skateable team members. There were a bunch of skaters who got to do just that...a Tough Cookie skating as Tru$t Fund Terror, a Siren skating as Fight Crew, etc. I never got the chance to do that. The one time I was scheduled to skate with Tru$t Fund Terrors, I hurt my shoulder and ended up being their team manager for the game instead.

The thing about skating as a sub with a team is that I feel for myself, I can concentrate on just skating, and not worry about team standings, point margins, what the team's fans think, even whether the team wins or not...stuff like that. I can just concentrate on hitting the hell out of other skaters.

It's kind of a dumb goal, but hey, that's totally keeping in my character, don't you think?

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