Winnipeg Roller Derby: Murder City Maidens vs. Babes of Thunder
Roller derby made its triumphant reemergence in Winnipeg on Saturday, and in a big way. The bout between the Winnipeg Murder City Maidens and Thunder Bay’s Babes of Thunder played to a capacity crowd of 2000 (TWO THOUSAND!) at the Convention Centre.
Let’s just consider this feat for a moment. Getting two thousand people out a) in Winnipeg, b) in February and c) during the Olympics is a pretty awesome feat. Alas, I was not one of those 2000. Jeff Monk was, though, and he stopped by my office today and we talked about the event and how “every punkette in the city was there” and that the energy in the room was positive and amazing.
There are a lot of factors that contributed to this incredible first success from the WRDL. Obviously, roller derby has been growing in mainstream profile over the last number of years, with lots of ink spilled on the subject as well as a (rather excellent) Major Motion Picture last year. But it’s not just that. The women of WRDL have been hard at work getting ready for this for two years, building their skills and their marketing savvy. I mean, this organization has local youth-oriented top 40 radio station HOT 103 on board, as well as our daily paper of record, the Winnipeg Free Press on board as sponsors. What’s really put the WRDL over the top, though, is the fact that its participants are very involved and present in the existing indie/underground community — a blanket term I’ll use for the combined spheres of music, art and culture here in town. If you’re in any of those communities, or heck, if you sometimes shop for vintage clothing, you’ll recognize at least one face in the MCM team photo. And that counts for a lot in the age of Facebook and viral marketing.
So congratulations to the Murder City Maidens on not only their victory in competition on Saturday (apparently the Babes were thoroughly whipped), but on the achievement of building something like this in a city where so many lofty ideas never get off the ground.
Leif Norman took some great shots, and he said I could share them with you here.
Portage ‘n’ Maim
More pics behind the cut!
Red De Lizcious
“Sheila Killya” is a great name. Also, the Babes’ yellow-and-black colour scheme is pretty cool (though not as cool as the Maidens’ army green and red, natch).
LOOK AT ALL THE PEOPLE. JUST LOOK AT THEM.
Tags: roller derby, winnipeg
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I was in the crowd! It took me a while to catch on to the rules and rhythms of the sport, but once I got it, it was a great show!