Whip It, for real

To my elders,

So last weekend I went to visit E for the Elliott Brood concert. Which really did rock. I did not turn my pan into a bowl however. Its called using the flat side of the wooden spoon, not the edge.

After our eventful Friday of a late night concert, we decided to take it a bit easy Saturday and saw a Hitchcock double feature (Psycho, which was actually pretty creepy, and surprisingly progressive, even though one of the pivotal screens is ridiculously famous, its only half way through the movie, so the rest is still a) a surprise, and b) really interesting and The Trouble with Harry, which I had seen before, but the dry humour came off better the second time). And then Saturday night came and somehow, one thing lead to another and we ended up going to Roller Derby. My first ever roller derby bout, actually.

Now I, like many a young person before me, had seen the Drew Barrymore/ Ellen Page movie Whip It last year when it came out, and I, like so many other people, walked out saying "I am going to track down a roller derby game and go. Because its awesome." I then proceeded to never actually do this. So with E and myself encouraging one another, and feeling a little stupid and shy along the way, we made it to our first game? Tournament? Whatever, I sat through an entire sporting competition of my own volition. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

I must say, Whip It really does help to understand the rules of Roller Derby and what the heck is going on, cuz its confusing to watch for the first time. Though the teams did give us a demo to help out the "first timers." But that's really where the similarities kind of stopped... The game we went to was populated with, well, some of the people you'd expect to find at, you know, a roller derby game, your average alternative kids of many varieties. But there were also your standard twenty somethings. And your middle aged parent types. And old people. And thirty somethings with small children. Seriously. SMALL CHILDREN. Wearing Roller Derby t-shirts. I am perpetually impressed by this generation's parents of being cool. Well, when they're not being neurotic. Oh, and the players do actually dress like the girls in Whip It.

Moral of the story: Roller Derby is awesome. And kinda hot. And if small children can go to a match, so can you.

-K

p.s. Montreal Roller Derby game. July 9th.

p.p.s. Slaughter Daughters rule.