Derby Name: Eva Lucien. But my alter ego is Evil Lucien, who, I hate to admit, has been making more of an appearance lately with the stress of captaining or assistant captaining 2 teams! I’m using my 6 weeks off über derby to put Evil back in her box and resurrect Eva. 
Number: The beloved and abhorred fish on skates 
. But on my All-Stars jersey, that number will have to change before Dec 1 to conform to new regulations passed by WFTDA, which only allow up to 4 alphanumeric characters containing at least 1 digit. I could go on and on about why that new regulation is ridiculous in light of the fact that it was created to try to reduce number confusion (it doesn’t), but I’ll spare you my rants. I haven’t settled on the details of my new number yet, but rest assured that the “fish” is not dead!
Team(s): The Rolling Pin-Ups, BRRG All-Stars
Position(s): *sigh* Just jammer. I’d love to work on my blocker skills, though, someday.
What do you think is making the biggest impact with league recognition locally? Try as we might with our advertising, our local recognition is still largely built on word-of-mouth. After 3 years, we’ve become more recognized, but I would still say that a majority of Clevelanders don’t have any idea that they can watch live roller derby in our city. We’re hoping the Wolstein Center will help change that for us. Also, with each year, we all become better derby players, which is gradually helping people associate “BRRG” more with “sport” and less with (just) “entertainment”.
How did you learn about the league? I learned about the league back in February 2006, back when there wasn’t any league in northeastern OH and some dude in Elyria just wanted to be owner of a roller derby league. He even had all the team names and “themes” picked out; they were horrible. Anyhow, a group of women–many of whom had gotten excited about playing roller derby before getting totally frustrated with this dude (like me)–decided to form their own league under the amazing notion of being owned by women skaters for women skaters. I still remember when I heard the proposed name “Burning River Roller Girls“–it was awesome. I really didn’t feel cool enough to be in the crowd who first formed our league, but I loved derby from the start and stuck with it.
What made you feel like this was the sport you wanted to play? Oh, I knew as soon as I heard about it, long before I even knew what roller derby was. I signed up for what would later become BRRG 6 weeks before seeing my first actual game. That wasn’t so uncommon back then, though–I think a lot of the original women had never seen a game before they joined. It just combined roller skating, which I’d loved as a child, with contact sports. What is there not to love about that combo?
How excited are you to be playing in the WolfStein Center this year? Ha, I’m kinda the league raincloud when it comes to Wolstein. Let me first say that (1) I totally speak for myself here and (2) the folks at Wolstein have been amazing, and their enthusiasm for us and our sport is really inspiring. But I worry that the new venue will really change the “feel” of our games, both for the crowd and for the players. The electricity that flows through a full-to-the-brim venue can be really electric–what will that same energy feel like spread over a larger space, with potentially a lot of empty seats (unless we can get 8,000 fans there–wouldn’t that be awesome?!?)? Also, the coolness factor may translate into higher costs for fans for tickets, parking, beer, which is probably my biggest worry–how is that going to change our fan base? For as much as I want roller derby to be recognized as a bona fide sport, I love how eclectic and atypical our fan base is for a sports crowd and how accessible derby is for everyone, and I really, really don’t want that to change.
But I don’t deny that there are so many upsides, too–fans will be more comfortable, they’ll all actually be able to SEE everything, the advertising and production is likely to be many times better. It’s just hard for me to predict how all of that will balance out.
What is your personal goal in the realm of roller derby? I guess it’s to be a nationally recognized player, as part of a nationally recognized team. That makes me sound like an egomaniac, but I don’t mean that I want to be famous. The highest compliment in anything is to be acknowledged and admired by one’s peers–the ones who know exactly how hard it is to be good at what you do–so that’s what I aspire to in derby.
How are you preparing the Pin-Ups for Season 4, what are your hopes for the draft? Well, Margarita Mayhem has taken over as captain of our team, so I’ll be helping prepare the RPUs as much as any other player will be, by working hard and trying to put forth my best effort. I’d like to see us keep improving on our basic derby skills, so as much as I’m able to teach those, I’ll help out.
How does having “U G” as your significant other benefit your game play? It’s immensely helpful to have a partner who is involved in derby and sympathetic to my commitment to it. I see other women who struggle to balance home and derby (and do an amazing job at it), and it makes me feel really fortunate. My only guilt about roller derby, with respect to my relationship, is that U G hasn’t had the time lately to be as involved as he used to be.
What skates are you currently using, how significant of a difference have they made for you? Huge thanks to Rich Ratcliff of Skater’s Edge for suggesting that I try a cheap-ass set of skates. Although it was only 3 weeks before Regionals when I first put them on, and I had a much more expensive set of wheels at home, those cheap Labeda boots with the nylon single-action trucks were what I competed on at Regionals. The lightness of the gear and the speed/agility of the trucks made such a remarkable difference. Now I just need to figure out what I’m going to do when they break!
Tell us a little bit about an individual you are inspired by? Sh*t, so many people for so many different reasons. All of the All-Stars inspire me to play smarter, skate faster, not second guess myself, be more aware, hit harder, be more confident, be more cheerful, skate beyond what I think my limits are. And all of the Pin-Ups inspire me to depend on teamwork and never give up.
What are your thoughts/feelings about “Whip It”? I thought it was a fun movie. I think of it as more of a historical perspective on roller derby, from back ca. 2001 when it was just getting started again in Texas, which allows me to forgive a lot of the aspects of game play shown in the movie. A lot has changed since then about the sport, but the movie still did a good job of capturing what it feels like to be part of a roller derby league. And it was so fun to see so many friends from other leagues on the big screen! I guess I’m relieved that it wasn’t a terrible movie, because that would have been disappointing. I do worry that people will come to our games expecting to see that kind of derby, though; hopefully, they’ll be even more excited when they see how we’re playing it 8 years later.
Is your family supportive of you in the league? Yeah, as much as they can be from 3,000 miles away. They weren’t very excited about it at first, but it helped a lot when their friends heard about it and thought it was cool and not a disgrace to them and myself. And it helped even more when they could come to Cleveland this past May to see their first game ever.
What travel Team would you like to rematch the most? Definitely Brew City. Not only have they given us a run for our money twice in the last 3 months, but they’re a lot of fun to play against. All I can say is, 3rd time’s the charm!
What has been your fondest derby memory so far? I love the thought of us making it to Regionals this year, but it’s hard to say it made for a “fond memory”, because it was so physically and emotionally tough. I guess I would have to say that two bouts within the past year have made me extremely proud: the first was our first All-Stars home game ever, vs. Ft Wayne. It was our first WFTDA win, and it was so amazing to hear an entire arena all cheering for one Cleveland team. The second was our May RPU home game vs. the Hard Knockers. My parents and friends were all there, the RPUs won in an exciting game, and I played with a tenacity that I don’t usually feel during intraleague games. It was exhilarating.
How did it feel being/playing in the regionals this year? There are so many fantastic teams in the North Central region, so being able to compete at Regionals was a huge honor. I’m really happy and proud about how our team performed there. We played smart against Grand Raggidy, hard against Detroit, and we persevered through the Brew City game and almost came out with the win. The close loss at the end really kills me, but what can I say? We’ve only recently started winning any WFTDA games at all, and with more experience, eventually we’ll figure out how to play as strong at the beginning and end of games as we do in the middle. It’s also satisfying to know that the critics who questioned our ranking before Regionals should very well see now that we’ve earned it.
Emotionally, too, preparing for each game was really tough. Between captains’ meetings, hashing out rosters and line-ups for each game, wrangling people, and making sure that I remembered to get myself ready to play, there was very little time for rest in the entire week up until our Brew City game. My stomach was sick for that whole week! By far, though, rosters were the hardest part. Our travel team has a committee of 5 women who choose each game’s roster (as well as the team charter for each quarter). Everyone on our team worked so hard to get to Regionals, so having to choose which people weren’t going to dress down for each bout was like trying to decide which pet you’d rather feed to a hungry lion. I’ve been on the Selection Committee since our team was formed, and each one of those games at Regionals was the hardest decision we’d ever had to make, because everyone had earned a spot on the track. I have a huge amount of respect for the All-Stars who didn’t skate yet who sat in our fan section and cheered so loudly for our team.
So, yeah, by next time this year, maybe I’ll be ready to do Regionals again.
What are some of your interests outside of Roller Derby? I haven’t had time for many non-derby, non-work activities in the past couple of years, but pretty much anything that involves making stuff with my hands–knitting, sundry domestic activities, playing guitar/piano. I also really love my job and being out of school, and I hope that I’m doing work now in urban ecology that can have a lasting impact on humans and the environment.
It is time to show Cleveland and the Wolfstein Center just what BRRG is all about! I am very happy to see that Ida Bitter and Dita Von B. are on separate teams, those two tear into each other! Stroker and Soulie on the same team =’s No Snowboarding…YES!! As always I will not be choosing who I will cheer for, that will be decided by all of you. However, if anyone has any insight on who I should place my money on in the full contact musical chairs, last time I lost my pants off!
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