Fort Smashley vs Harbour Hellcats review - the director's cut :P

Roller Derby Au asked me to do a review for the Fort Smashleys vs Harbour Hellcats bout last Saturday. I was a little apprehensive at first because it's a bit different writing a laid back blog that a couple of people read compared to a more professional site that's read nationwide. I said yes in the end and I'm glad I did because I really enjoyed doing it. Here's the final version. I'm a self confessed Fort Smashleys fan but I tried to make it as un-bias as possible.

Of course there were other things that happened that night that I couldn't really put on the proper review so I thought I'd put it all here instead.

After my own league NRDL has become my next favourite league. I think it comes down to that whenever I've seen them bout I'm always reminded of Whip It. They play at a high level but they also look like they're having so much fun at the same time and it rubs off on the crowd. To me that's what derby is all about. They've also got their fair share of characters in there like The Cramp. Not just that I've also met a few nice people off skates there too.

There were two people I wanted to meet at the bout. The first person was Cass aka Apocalypse Pwnie. She messaged me out the blue a few weeks ago telling me she could relate with the struggles of progressing in derby and she read my blog. We ran into each other at half time and had a chat. She's ace, she really is derby personified - doing NSO duties, getting her skates checked out at half time and down to what she was wearing, she's 100% derby :) I even managed to get a photo with her.

Ness was running around meeting her favourite skaters from the Hellcats and getting them to sign her shirt at half time. She managed to get The Cramp, Suzy Pow, Booga and Heartless Desire so she was pretty happy after that especially since the Hellcats were leading on the scoreboard at half time.

As if the half time break wasn't already action packed enough, so who do I run into while I'm lining up to buy a drink none other than Godjilla! After last months shocker of an intro when I was too shy and starstruck to even say hello, I did what I should have done last month and introduced myself, told her I was a big fan and shook her hand. She asked me what my derby name was and I think she sounded impressed.

At the end of the bout which the mighty Fort Smashleys won I was chatting to Cass, had Jilla hook me with Belt'er Goodrem to ask her a few questions for the review I did, then I waited to ask Jilla if I could have a photo taken with her but then something completely unexpected happen. I had a girl come up to me and ask me if I wrote that blog, I told her I did write a blog and then she told me she was a fan. I swear to you never in a million years did I expect a complete stranger to come up to me and tell me they liked my blog. It took me a second to get over the surprise. I discovered she was Cahlee AKA Beth LeHell and was the NRDL equivalent of me! So there's more of us out there who don't pick up derby as quick as everyone else. She was cool to talk to. I'll get to skate with her and the others in the NRDL social skate group on the 8/10 which I'm looking forward to.    

To top the night off I caught up with Jilla and got a photo with her :D I was proud of myself, I actually acted normal in front of her this time around. I can be around my skating idols without going too fangirly hehe. It was such an amazing night, I had the best time. Mon, Lauren and I are heading up to watch the Newcastle vs Adelaide bout on Saturday night so I thought I'd do a little review on my blog, nothing proper like the one I did for Roller Derby AU.

I'll leave you with this...