derby derby

/ roller derby warmup /

last night angela, the other animal keeper at te manawa, invited me along to a roller derby competition at the arena manawatu. i wasn't sure what to expect from small town nz teams, but it was actually a lot of fun!

/ the roller rats versus the taranaki rumblebees /

angela is currently undergoing 'fresh meat' training to hopefully join the palmy team in a couple months, the swamp city roller rats. surprisingly only one person exited the competition from an injury but there were some pretty impressive spills throughout. it wasn't as rough as i expected, but i still wouldn't be tough enough for it. luckily angela knew a few of the rules so i could follow along.. for the most part.

/ rumblebees and the richter city convincts /

 one of the best part was the girls' names, like organic hurtiliser, justass for all, knock out nikita, anna pave-u'ova and whakintawh (if you're outside nz, a hint that 'wh' is pronounced as an 'f').