‘It’s definitely chaos:’ Women of all ages embracing roller derby revival across the Okanagan

It’s full of hard hits, skilled skating, blocking and hitting. While this sounds like a description of a hockey game, these are actually skills needed to play roller derby.

The Okanagan has several roller derby teams, including those in Penticton, Armstrong and Revelstoke.

Kelowna’s team, called Okanagan Roller Derby, is made up of a variety of female players.

“We have really young girls in their early 20s,” said team member Melanie (Prairie Fire) Matwichuk. “We have girls that are in their late 40s. It’s all sizes and shapes. Small, big, medium, large. Derby does not discriminate against anybody.”

With an immense amount of body contact, playing in a roller derby requires a high pain threshold.

“Lots of fun, but lots of bruises. Lots of sore parts after a game and after practices. Lots of sweat and tears,” Matwichuk said. “But we play it because we absolutely love it.”

So what is it that draws stay-at-home moms, university students, nurses and graphic designers to the sport?  The women agree it’s the bonds created during practice, in the rink and during after-parties.

“It’s the camraderie. It’s the togetherness. It’s girls ‘rah rahing’ for girls. It’s how everybody wants you to do awesome,” Matwichuk said. “When I started I was really scared to play against or even just practice with the veteran players that had been skating for years. And they all said ‘Fire, you got this. You’re going to do so good!’ Even though I was falling on my face, they were still cheering me on.”

The rules of the game are somewhat complicated.

Essentially, there are four blockers per team whose job is to stop the jammers from coming through and scoring points.

Each game is called a bout and bouts are full of two-minute jams, which are rounds.

Local women with a glimmer of interest are in luck. The team is always recruiting.

“If you don’t know how to skate, we will teach you. If you don’t want to skate, you don’t have to. We accept anyone,” Matwichuk said.

The Okanagan Roller Derby is having a Halloween bout on Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. at Central Sports Club in Kelowna. Everyone is invited to watch the fun for free with a non-perishable donation to the Kelowna Food Bank.