BRDG Winter Highlights! (Or: "What Christmas Break?")

It's been a little while since our last proper update - we promise we haven't been hibernating! Here are some of the best bits of Bath Roller Derby's winter season... Get ready for a post of great epicness!

Halloween Inter-League Scrimmage

Epic BRDG Zombies vs. Witches Halloween showdown! This was a fantastic evening's intra-league scrimming; brilliant costumes, terrifying make up, some ace skating and probably too many sweeties if we're honest. A hard-fought win for the Zombies! Braaaaaaaaains! Braaaaaains!

BRDG's Second Fresh Meat Course Kicks Off!

After the success of our last Freshie intake, we've been dying to get Round 2 underway and at the start of January, it happened! Our 10 week Fresh Meat course was totally booked out, with over 30 lads and lasses taking their first steps into the wonderful world of derby. We're over halfway through the course now, and already seriously impressed by this gang's excellent attitudes and hard graft!

We devised a shared coaching rota for this FM course, with a wide range of league members stepping up to take on teaching each week. This seems to be working really well; each session's coach is chosen because they excel at the skills being taught in that session, so Freshies get a great intro to each new element, as well as getting to know us 'big girls' in advance of joining our league training after graduation. Yays all round for integration!

BRDG skater, The Hendenberg, also organised a super sweet wheel swapping evening, giving Fresh Meat the chance to borrow league skaters' wheels and test out loads of different kinds, sizes and combos before committing to buying their own.

BRDG Christmas Social & Player Awards

Bad jumpers, Secret Santa and a roast potato cook-off; the undisputed king of Christmas party formulas! As well as partaking in pressies, mince pies, and mulled cider, we announced our 2013 BRDG Player Awards, which you can check out here.

Friendly Scrim with Dorset Roller Derby

In January, we spent a great evening hosting Dorset Roller Derby at our Beechen Cliff venue. These girls are so much fun to play! We enjoyed a really close, evenly matched game; coming up against some really impressive walling, great tactical jammers and a few monster hits! Hopefully we can head down to their neck of the woods before too long for another session - thanks again for travelling to see us on a school night, ladies and gents!

BRDG's First Sur5al Adventure!

Earlier this month, Smasha Cake, Lazy Susan, Nan-Imosity, Scarlet O'Harma and Smashing Thumpkins headed down south to represent Bath Roller Derby at Sur5al, playing against skaters from Leagues across the South West, including our eternal favourites, The Devon Clotted Screamers! Big thank snogs to all the refs, NSOs and other skaters at this brilliant event - the rest of the league is itching to have a go at Sur5al too now!

Victorian Roller Derby Bootcamp

Massive thanks to Ruby Ribcrusher and The Flyin' Nun Chucker from the Victorian Roller Derby League for this epic four hour bootcamp! We learnt ridiculous amounts and had so much fun. It was really nice to have a few of Wiltshire's skaters join us too, thanks for coming ladies - we should train together more often! We ended the day in traditional BRDG style; Hell Cat's place, industrial amounts of vegan food, and freely flowing cider. As days go, that one's going to be hard to top...

Closed Door With Wheels Of Gory

Huge respect for Wheels Of Gory who played a super fast, pacey game incredibly short of players. We don't know what you're feeding your Duracell bunny jammers, but we want in on the secret please! Seriously impressive fitness and endurance... Was a real pleasure playing these girls, we're already looking forward to the rematch.

International Bootcamping: Bruges & Berlin!

BRDG went international this winter! Steg, Petra, Conway Barbarian and (an off-skates, boo!) Hell Cat flew out to Berlin for a gruelling but totally, epically amazing weekend with the Berlin Bombshells (video to follow soon!) We had an incredible time, one of the highlights being checking out Quad and stocking up on all manner of roller derby goodies. If you get the chance to go, go!

In February, LaySu, Tink, Steg, Lou Bootin' and Petra also hit up Derby Revolution in Bruges, where they trained with some bone fide derby legends! We've all been benefitting in league training sessions from the excellent jamming drills taught to them by none other than Suzy Hotrod, eeeeee! Getting to learn from some of the best players in the world, first hand... What a truly amazing sport we're a part of <3

Coming Up...

+ BRDG play their first INTERNATIONAL BOUT in Lisbon!
+ Fundraisers galore: BRDG Auction of Promises and Pub Quiz V
+ Grin N Barum Closed Door, Scrimming with the Clotted Screamers...
+ Fresh Meat's impending graduation!