Don’t Stop Believing – the longest weekend in Detroit DDG and Fergus FRD

scooby dooby doo

It was the longest weekend. First stop Detroit.

It was a high honour to be invited to the Detroit Derby Girls end of year rewards night and festivities. Celebrating their ninth year, it was a good collection of the ladies and gents of the league who came out in their finest and dapper Great Gatsby outfits from the Roaring 20s.

Yours truly was amongst the four nominees for Golden Lens and photographer of the year as voted by the fans. Winning was not the goal, getting to Detroit was. The journey almost was not a journey, eventually it took two full Greyhound buses to accommodate the overflow. Finally, leaving Toronto around noon, next stop London. Getting out of Toronto and the congestion. How familiar did the road feel.

It felt like home again being amongst the league for the first time in a while. The players and coaches and announcers alike letting me and a couple of photographers handle covering the night was a fun duty indeed. The night felt comfortable – never say easy – and derby ladies and gents always appreciate a good photo of themselves. Memories are built of this.

/… more to come

Hi-Death

Detroit does gives out a lot of awards to all its teams: Devil’s Night Dames, Pistolwhippers, D-Funk All-Stars, Grand Prix Madonnas, the Pistoffs and all deservedly nominated or won. There was a lot of booing or Boo D. Livers from the Pistolwhippers all night. A lot of craziness ensued. It was a party done right. Hot nibblies and snacks, and lots of red drink tickets and a most excellent barstaff who could keep the food and the drinks flowing. Shandy and Long Island Iced Tea for me. Midnight was drawing near, and the last Tunnel Bus back to South Detroit [yes, Detroit is NORTH of Windsor – have to keep remembering that ] had to be caught.

Lazer Beam or Lucy?

/… more to come including waiting in Windsor Terminal until 4 a.m. for the bus back to Toronto.

Irony of ironies, going all the way back to Toronto from Windsor, then catching the ride with good friend and referee Gwailo Fo’Sho and company to photograph Windsor’s Border City Brawlers in Fergus? At least we rocked the BCB t-shirt and Fergus as well as simultaneously.

 

Then Saturday night with Fergus Roller Derby and Border City Brawlers in Elora, Ontario.

Brawler on the floor

Last call for Cutsie Bootsie

Cutsie Bootsie

This amazing captain of Durham Roller Derby’s purple clad Motor City Madames was skating her last bout. We can only say we were so honoured to have been at the beginnings at the first Gibson’s Cup in Ajax at the Village Arena complex and to be in Ajax Memorial Arena yet again to see the two home teams bout in memory of the league’s great fan Gibson. We have missed Durham this year in Durham yet travelled the six hundred miles of so to Montréal to finally see the Atom Smashers take on Motor City Madames at Beast of the East 2014. Quel ironique!

Events may not have transpired in traditional Rocky style endings for the purple but it was hard fought and jarring with a serious looking time out on the floor at one point. In the end, the Atom Smashers captured their third straight Cup or Boot.

Motor City Madames with fan

One last time

And one last noble gesture:

Hail victor!