Roller derby hit Quesnel hard Saturday.
While just outside the sun shone down on a peaceful Relay for Life in Lebourdais park, inside the Twin Arenas fans of roller derby were screaming for action at the May Massacre.
The fans got all the action they could want in The Gold Pain City’s first win, 103 to 92, over the Energetic City Roller Girls, out of Fort St. John.
Both the Gold Pain girls and Energetic City girls put their hearts and bodies on the line in Saturday’s roller derby match, resulting in a close, hard fought game right down to the very last minutes.
The score ping-ponged back and forth, with both Quesnel and Fort St. John taking turns leading the game, which kept the crowd on their feet.
“Every time we were down (our skaters) just rallied and pushed hard,” Dorine Lamarche, a skating-coach with Gold Pain, said.
The match gained intensity as both teams fought hard to gain some momentum over the other team.
With such a close match, the energy of the players built, resulting in a very physical game, which, combined with a bit of bad luck, put Willow (Willowmeana) Eyford in the hospital early in the match.
“There was a bit of a pile up and when everyone got up, she didn’t,” Lamarche said.
Eyford broke her fibula and fractured her tibia, displacing her ankle.
Both team’s went into the last jam with victory close enough to taste. Then disaster struck for the Gold Pain girls in the form of a one-minute penalty for their jammer.
For the first half of the last jam the Energetic City girls enjoyed a power jam, meaning only they had a jammer and only they could score points.
“It was pretty intense,” Lamarche said.
“But our girls did so well keeping their jammer back.”
For that minute, the Gold Pain girls put up ‘a wall of white’ and kept in the game.
Thanks to the hard work of the blockers making up the wall, the Quesnel girls were still in the game when their jammer got back on the oval and the girls clinched the win.
Lamarche is as happy with the results outside of the oval as inside.
“It did great things for our sport and for our team,” she
said.
She hopes that the victory will encourage people in Quesnel to get involved in the sport.
And to those who are already involved, the teams of volunteers that were on hand to make the May Massacre success Lamarche offers a big thank you.
“We really, really appreciate the support.”
