Vancouver’s Junior Roller Derby enjoyed by many LGBTQ+ youth in jeopardy

Posted September 4, 2021 1:02 pm.

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — It’s an inclusive sport for LGBTQ+ kids of all ages, but Vancouver’s only Junior Roller Derby is currently without a home.

For the last eight years, the Vancouver Junior Roller Derby has been using the Mount Pleasant Community Centre for weekly practices,

“That’s been a really productive relationship that we’ve really enjoyed. We’ve never had any negative feedback from the staff or the administration. It’s just it’s all been fine,” chair of the Roller Derby, Madeleine Shaw tells NEWS 1130.

But after the pandemic shut down activities last year, the Roller Derby was told they could not use the facility.

“Since then, we’ve been waiting. Obviously, COVID is one thing, and we understand that we’re in a very special circumstance, but with things starting to open up, we thought we would at least receive an estimate of when we might be able to begin practicing again from Mount Pleasant,” Shaw says.

“But instead, on August the 9th, we received an email telling us that both inline skating hockey and roller derby had been reviewed by the community center board and were indefinitely on hold.”

According to Shaw, the Roller Derby was told they could no longer use the facility because the sport damages the floors compared to others, “which is something that we actually don’t agree with.”

“But that was just their decision. And I think — to their credit — like I think they just thought we could go somewhere else and that would be fine. But the reality is that we’ve been trying. The pressure on gym time in Vancouver is intense with youth sports and things like basketball, you know, popular sports like that, obviously, sort of more kids want to play them and so they get preferential treatment and the gyms book up.”

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Even before the group was asked to leave, they had issues with finding a space that fit all their members.

At the Mount Pleasant Community Centre, 50 kids can play, but there was a waiting list of at least another 40.

“So we actually have nowhere … to even practice. And so it’s leaving a lot of well, all of our kids, all of our families really in the lurch.”

Since Derby isn’t divided into boys, girls or age groups like other activities, Shaw explains that the sport draws a large number of LGBTQ+ youth.

“Gender really matters because a lot of kids don’t feel comfortable choosing either the boy or the girl team. That’s just not how they identify gender-wise. And with Derby … it’s just about playing,” Shaw says.

“For many of them, it’s their only team sport.”

The Junior Roller Derby is planning a rally on Monday near Science World in Vancouver in an attempt to get word out about their situation.

“It’s not a well-known sport that everybody knows like, soccer … it’s a bit more unusual. So we want to show kind of showcase the skating skills that the kids learn as part of playing Derby and also just really tell the story that Derby is special.

“It has a really unique culture that is very inclusive around queer and non-binary gendered people because it’s it doesn’t discriminate like there’s no boys and girls came in Junior Roller Derby like it just doesn’t exist. This is about kids who want to play, and it doesn’t matter what their skill level is, they don’t have to try out, it doesn’t matter what their ages, they’re not sorted into different kinds of leagues or anything. We just play together.”