Royal City Roller Derby looks to bounce back

Rolling out for a new season, the Royal City Roller Derby is picking up the pieces after challenges brought on by the pandemic.

"We're not returning to the same league that we had before the pandemic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing," said Emma 'Ziggy Stardust' Eckerich, vice-president of RCRD.

As noted in a 2016 article by GuelphToday, the organization started with 25 players and grew to over 100 players, coaches and volunteers. Currently, membership has decreased from the level seen in early 2020 and late 2019. The group also lost its practice space in Kitchener, which was sold to new owners.

"Navigating just the public health regulations has been like a whole job for us as a group," said Eckerich, noting the RCRD was able to run virtual practices and mini practices last April. 

"Now with that kind of on the back burner, we're actually able to put our full effort into the training and the skating and the play."

While building back up membership, the Intro to Derby program already has a waiting list. Eckerich said they saw a rise in roller skating during the pandemic and lots of people reached out to them during that time to ask how they could get involved.

"We didn't doubt for a second there would be a large group of people who would be interested in seeing what we were all about," said Eckerich, adding the first Intro to Derby program is taking place in Westwood Public School now until December.

Eckerich mentions the organization also created a new program called Bounce Back, meant for returning players. She said these players fit into two groups; 'transfer' players who moved to Guelph from other cities, and women looking to return to the full-contact sport.

"We have all walks of life at our practice and who participate in our roller derby's, but because it is so dominantly women, it's really hard in a lot of cases for women who are moms, who have really demanding careers, to really carve out time for themselves," said Eckerich.

"We're trying to create a space for people to come back at their own pace and not feel like they've missed their opportunity, like the whole league is taking off without them."

Eckerich describes the organization as gender expansive, but the RCDC is looking to do more to create a safe community space and include all residents. 

"We've been able to take the time sort of away from skating to focus on some of those membership values and work towards that sort of thing, and so, I feel like coming out of it, we've learned a lot, and hopefully we'll be able to carry forward the lessons that we've learned from society and the major cultural shifts that have been going on, and carry that forward with us as we continue to develop the league," said Eckerich. 

Despite all the changes made, rental space still remains an ongoing issue for the RCRD. 

"We lost access to our space, so we were just kind of crossing our fingers, hoping that the UGDSB would let us in," said Eckerich. "At the time, when we were using that space, we had more than 100 members paying rent to another municipality and we would love to have that go back into the Guelph community, but it simply wasn't an option."

Renting a facility out of town for multiple years, Eckerich said the organization continues to ask the city about investing in a facility which could accommodate multiple indoor sports, including roller derby. Guelph did have a former roller rink, but Eckerich adds it has since been turned into medical offices.

"There's definitely interest in it and there's examples of it all over – Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener and Waterloo, they have roller rinks, they're not 100 per cent dedicated roller rinks, but they're being used in roller rink style and can accommodate other sports," she said.

Eckerich adds there isn't any waning interest in the sport. As an organization, she said they have competed in international competitions and have plenty of talented local athletes who want to continue playing.

"If the city wanted to, there's definitely the opportunity and the income available to create a roller skating friendly space."

To learn more about the Royal City Roller Derby, go to royalcityrollerderby.com.