Derby fans old and new streamed into the Memorial Centre on Saturday for the first derby bout of the season in Kingston, May the Fourth Be With You. All three KDG teams took the track, beginning with the Disloyalists taking on Toronto’s G-Stars. The travel team bout was hard-fought and things did not look good for the Disloyalists going into the second half, with the GTARollergirls team ahead 103 to 46. But the ladies in blue looked like a different team in the second half, avoiding some of the penalties that cost them in the first half and staging an impressive comeback. Manic Breeze had the crowd on their feet with a 32-point power jam that took the Disloyalists to within closing distance. Unfortunately, it was not quite enough, and the G-Stars took the game 193 to 171.

The second bout, a home-team showdown between KDG rivals the Rogue Warriors and the Skateful Dead, was neck and neck from beginning to end. The Skateful Dead wore red bridal veils during their warm-up and intros in honour of team member Dyke Spice, who wed her fiancee (and KDG alumna) that afternoon. Both teams were showcasing new players, all of whom made impressive contributions to their teams. With several lead changes in the first half, the Skateful Dead seemed to be dominating and the Rogues struggled to pull ahead. In the second half, Rogue jammers showed exceptional endurance against fierce Dead blocking; the Rogues took the lead and wound down the clock in a final power jam for the win, with a final score of 155 to 135.

THANK YOU to all our volunteers, refs, and NSOs, as well as our sponsors. We couldn’t play roller derby without you all.

KDG was extremely grateful to have so many amazing fans come out — the derby love continues to grow in this city and we love our fans right back. Mark your calendars for our next home bout, Apocalypse…Pow! on June 8 at the Memorial Centre. The Rogue Warriors will be taking on Area 705 Roller Derby from Peterborough. See you then!

Three years ago tonight, the very first Kingston Derby Girls laced up their rollerskates at the Memorial Centre for the very first practice. Those first few months were a trial, with more injuries than we care to think about, and the slow dawning of the knowledge that no one in Kingston actually knew how to play roller derby.

How far we have come in just three years, baby!

These days, our newest players understand the game far better than our most knowledgeable players did then. Many of those now-veteran skaters are still with us, and many talented new skaters have joined us along the way. We now have three amazing, skillful teams competing with each other and other teams across the province and internationally, and we are exploring the possibility of applying to become a WFTDA league to compete at an even higher level. We skate safe and we skate strong. We have players who have showcased KDG’s awesomeness at the Ontario Roller Derby Skills Competition, we have earned the respect of the Derby Nerd, and this season we’re playing against such formidable opponents as this past weekend’s Beast of the East champions, the Slaughter Daughters. The Kingston Derby Girls are on the Canadian roller derby map and our star continues to rise. We do not apologize for the mixed metaphors. Happy, happy birthday to Kingston’s first and greatest roller derby league; long may KDG continue to grow and thrive.

If you’ve got skates, you’ve got skills, and you’ve got attitude, Kingston Derby Girls want you. We are excited to announce that KDG is going to run a Smash Squad over the course of the 2013 season. We are looking for track-ready skaters who want to take their minimum skills, be part of a Smash Squad, learn to rock the flat track, and become the future Kingston Derby Girls. If you are ready to join this first KDG Smash Squad, download this info sheet to find out everything you need to know! Registration nights are April 30th and May 7th, so act quickly if you are ready to be a derby girl! Still have questions? Email Skate at Home Mom to get yer answers!

The KDG website is in the middle of an update, so if you happen to be looking up your favourite derby girl and find that her photo has gone missing or that the teams pages look a little messed up, please forgive us! We’re putting up all kinds of great new stuff, including brand new headshots, group photos, and bios, but the process is a little time-consuming and derby girls aren’t known for having a ton of spare time (we practice a lot). So please pardon any website inconsistencies or absences you catch while we get this update finished. You can always find the most important stuff, such as information about our season opener on May 4th or our bout schedule, as easily as ever.

It’s contest time! The most certain way to win tickets to our season opener, May the Fourth Be With You, is to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, where you’ll hear about contests as they come up. Watch the downtown stores for opportunities to win, check back on this website often, and listen to our sponsor radio stations 98.9 The Drive and 98.3 FlyFM for your chance to WIN BIG! We love to give tickets away — you’ll have tons of chances to win in the next couple of weeks. Will there be a chance to win season tickets? Keep up with derby news to find out! It’s derby season, Kingston! ARE YOU READY?

Saturday, May 4th, 2013, marks the start of the fourth season of roller derby in Kingston! Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the whistle blows at 6:30 at the Memorial Centre (303 York Street). This action-packed double header starts off with KDG’s Disloyalists taking on Toronto’s GTARollergirls’ G-Stars. The Disloyalists haven’t met the girls from GTAR since the end of our second season, when a hard-fought battle ended with a final score of 108-102 for the girls from the T-Dot. This year’s Disloyalists are fiercer than ever, with two new drafts from the Rogue Warriors, AmandaTory Sentence and Box Punch, and transfer skater from Rideau Valley Roller Girls, Bones, not to mention another season’s experience under their belts. Will it be enough to conquer the GTAR all-star team? Come to the game to find out!

The second game in this double header will see last year’s house champions, the Rogue Warriors, take on their hometown rivals the Skateful Dead. Last season ended in an edge-of-your-seat overtime jam in a penalty-packed game that just barely saw the Golden Boot land in the Rogues’ hands, but with two former Rogues now drafted to the Disloyalists and pile of talented (but untested) fresh meat packing the Dead roster, who will have the upper hand this season? This game is not one to be missed!

Win prizes at halftime! Enjoy the music of amazing surf/punk/power pop band Teenage Frankenstein! Hang out in the bleachers or the trackside beer garden (!) or bring your own chair for trackside seating up close to the action in the “suicide seats.” This bout is licensed and there will be food and beer, all courtesy of The Mansion. Follow us to that same bar for the afterparty — don’t miss your chance to party with the derby girls.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door (kids 10 and under are, as always, free). Buy your tickets online — you don’t even have to stand up or put on pants! Or if you’re out and about (pants recommended) you can get your tickets at The Mansion, at the UPS Store downtown or in the west end, at Novel Idea, at Blossoms Kingston, or at Get Funky Boutique. For a derby experience you won’t soon forget, you might also consider getting some friends together to buy yourselves a fancypants VIP table to sit trackside and have your beer and food brought to you. Contact the fine people of our sponsorship team to find out more about VIP tables.

Huge derby fan? We know you are. It’s not too late to buy yourself some season tickets and make sure you don’t miss a second of the best roller derby season in Kingston yet.

Want to know when else we’re playing in Kingston? Check out our Bout Schedule, yo!

May the Fourth be with you indeed, friends. See you soon!

This is going to be the best season the Kingston Derby Girls have ever seen. Don’t believe me? Just check out our bout schedule — as if you don’t already have all those dates marked in red on your calendar. Don’t miss a second of hometown derby action — buy Kingston Derby Girls season tickets! A limited number of these superfan tickets to all five home bouts of the season are available at a drastically reduced price. Pay just $40 for one season ticket (one ticket free!), or just $150 for a pack of four season tickets (two tickets free!).

Get your KDG season tickets while they’re hot — and while they’re still here — by zipping over to Brown Paper Tickets to pick them up.

While perusing one of our favourite roller derby blogs, Derby Life, we stumbled across a discussion of roller derby logos called Rebranding Roller Derby by derby fan and professional branding consultant Michael McFarland. McFarland goes over some of the basics of strong logo design and decries the state of roller derby logos across the board, most of which, he says, are hard to read, have too much going on, and are too similar to one another. To be fair, most roller derby leagues are working on tight budgets and rely on the generosity of friends and family members to come up with something they can use as a logo.

And us?

Well, we’re awfully lucky.

Neil Bettney of Bent Knee Design is the official designer of the Kingston Derby Girls. Not only is he the talent behind our eye-catching posters (here he gets some help from the stunning photography provided by league photographer Steve Koopman of Unveiled Photography), but he also designed all four of our logos: the original Kingston Derby Girls’ logo, the Disloyalists’ logo, the Rogue Warriors’ logo, and the Skateful Dead logo. If you’ve ever worked with a group of strong, opinionated people who don’t always agree, you might have an inkling of what it’s like to design a logo for a roller derby team. Neil incorporated team feedback into his designs and managed to give each team a distinctive look and express the team vision while creating four logos that look amazing side by side on t-shirts at the merch table. We are so grateful to Neil for sharing his talent with us and this article reminded us just how fortunate the Kingston Derby Girls are to have Bent Knee Design on our side. Click the logos to the right to see ‘em a little more closely.

Maybe we should email Michael McFarland to let him know that derby design is alive and well, at least in the Limestone City.

Thanks Neil!

[Update: We did post a link to this blog post on the discussion thread about McFarland's article on the DerbyLife Facebook page, and McFarland replied, "These are pretty great. If more leagues were branded at this level, I would own a lot more t-shirts!" We should send that guy a t-shirt. Or four.]

Seriously, I mean, have you SEEN it?

No?

Well, why not? It’s right here on our Events page.

Seriously? You’re too lazy to click the link? Fine. I’ll put the bout schedule here. Now I know you want to mark all these on your calendar. Don’t miss a second of Kingston Derby Girls’ fourth action-packed season! With three teams playing all over the province and internationally, this is going to be our best season yet! Come out and support your Kingston Disloyalists, Rogue Warriors, and Skateful Dead!

2013 HOME GAMES
(All home games take place at Kingston’s Memorial Centre)
May 4: Season opener! Skateful Dead vs. Rogue Warriors and Disloyalists vs. GTARollergirls’ GSTARS (Toronto, ON)
June 8: Rogue Warriors vs. Area 705 Roller Derby (Peterborough, ON)
July 13: Disloyalists vs. Port City Roller Derby (Oswego, NY)
August 10: The Skateful Dead vs. Bombshell Battalion (Alliston, ON)
September 7: Season closer: Back to Cruel 4! Skateful Dead vs. Rogue Warriors and Disloyalists vs. Forest City Derby Girls (London, ON)

2013 AWAY GAMES
May 25: Disloyalists vs. Rideau Valley’s Slaughter Daughters (in Ottawa, ON)
June 22: Rogue Warriors and Skateful Dead vs. Durham Region Roller Derby (in Oshawa, ON)
July 6: Disloyalists vs. Dolly Rogers (in Ottawa, ON)
July 20: Skateful Dead vs. Black River Roller Derby (in Watertown, NY)
Aug 17: Rogue Warriors vs. GTAR’s Derby Debutantes (in Toronto, ON)
Oct. 4: Dead Rogues (mixed team) vs. Bombshell Battalion and Disloyalists vs. Misfit Militia (in Alliston, ON)

This is a guest Post by Rogue Warrior captains Kimminent Danger and Flaming Hips.

Years ago, and for reasons long forgotten, women in rollerskates and derby gear went to battle, touching off a fury which fuelled them all. Only those fast enough to jam or brutal enough to block would survive. In this maelstrom of decay, women were battered and smashed. Twenty women wandered out into the wasteland. It was here in this blighted place that we learned to live again. As Rogue Warriors.

With one full, successful year of roller derby behind us, and as champions of the Kingston Derby Girls’ 2012 Battle of the Boot, your favourite post-apocalyptic derby girls are carrying the torch of dystopian heroism into the next season. We have searched the shadows of the former world for formidable opponents, and proudly present the Rogue Warrior 2013 Bout Schedule:

May 4 – vs. Skateful Dead @ Kingston
June 8 – vs. Area 705 @ Kingston
June 22 – vs. Durham Region Roller Derby @ Durham
Aug. 17 – vs. Derby Debutantes @ Toronto
Sept. 7 – vs. Skateful Dead @ Kingston
Oct. 5 – “Dead Rogues” combo team vs. Bombshell Battalion @ Alliston

Simultaneously fighting the challenges of mass global destruction and gangs of angry girls on rollerskates, your Rogue Warriors are juking and sternum-blocking their way through the dust clouds to bring you a season of incredible roller derby. Having loved and lost three fantastic players at the end of last season (Amandatory Sentence and Box Punch to the Disloyalists, and Bad Princess to Durham), this powerful mob of twenty amazing women have strapped on their yellow goggles to form the 2013 roster, which includes three fresh meat, two transfer players, and fifteen veteran Rogue skaters:

Zesty Enterprise
Lusty B. Fearsome
eff ewe (formerly Cabin Fever)
Veggie Smash
Violet Von Tramp
Nikki Heat
Smashley
Fate Tempter
Dandylion
Frieda Frankenstorm (Disloyalist transfer)
Princess Rednek (Peterborough transfer)
Deus ex Smashin’ Ya
Kamiquadzi
Cat O’Clysm
Tinker Ring’r Bell
Impatience (formerly Incarcerator)
Little Tank
Bluestocking
Kimminent Danger (Co-captain)
Flaming Hips (Co-captain)

This inspirational lineup of fierce and feisty women won’t be navigating the chaos of the track alone; the Rogue Warriors are pleased to be whipped into shape by our two fearless coaches again this season: Glitterbomb and Reba Smackintire. Armed with lethal skills in statistical analysis, strategy, and physical fitness, these coaches will not rest until they’ve drained every last ounce of hope from the hearts of all derby girls who cross their path.

With two months of off-skate training, rules school, a fitness challenge, and killer karaoke, we have recently hit the track with renewed vengeance and vigor to whip, check, juke, hit, and skate our way to victory. We join our favourite allies and archenemies, the Skateful Dead, along with our beloved derby sisters, the Disloyalists, in training at Queen’s University for the next couple of months. In April, we come home to the Memorial Centre just in time to play our first bout, on May 4th against the Dead.

Though there will be challenges, not the least of which will be learning to play under the new WFTDA rule set, your 2013 Rogue Warriors vow to bring audiences to their feet and opponents to their knees.

Gas masks and derby love,
Hips and Danger