This roundup comes from beautiful Winter Park Colorado where I’m waiting out the morning white-out. It’s brought to you by the letters S for Sleep deprivation (or Sailor Jerry) and O for Ouch-my-hyper-extended-thumb (the worst derby injuries happen when you’re not even playing). Once again I’ll attempt to scrape the derbyverse for news and happenings that may matter to you. As always, if I’ve missed something please add it in the comments below or contact us with your stories.

• British Roller Sports Federation recognizes derby as an “official roller discipline” in the UK. Meanwhile in the states we’re still torn between recognition by official sporting bodies, civil rights organizations, or Alcoholics Anonymous.
• Elwood talks coaching. He’s been blowing up the Seattle Derby Examiner with good stuff for a while, but here’s some interesting perspective on bench coaching a team.
• Derby vs. Dogs- who needs more exercise, really? Is this newsworthy? Nah. But it’s a funny look at how your local community may rank your importance.
• FitSugar breaks down derby as a healthy pass-time. Some consider it an unhealthy alternative to having a life.
• Junior Men’s Derby (boys) discussed on MDC forum. Go Midwest Mayhem! Start the sexism young!
• Boys and Girls: “Your Mom” is probably the best team name ever. Oh, and, if you’re not a WFTDA league and Oly recruits your superstars it’s all good to have a gender-indifferent sport (what kind of crazy hippie world are they living in? Iowa of all places…).
• History Lesson: More from Iowa- a timeline of derby from the past 100 years. Wait… you mean derby happened prior to 2004?!
• Blog-o-sphere (uplifting): “Just Keep Roller Skating” story features inspirational insight from RCR skaters. I don’t normally highlight blogs, especially league-specific and for sites I moderate, but this post is burning up the comment section… which means my moderation queue is overflowing.
• Blog-o-sphere (angsty): Derby’s Dark Side dissected and debated. Admittedly I stopped reading when I determined there were no lightsabers or evil Emperors, but Mike Chexx liked it so we’re linking it.

This Week in Derby Discourse
New feature: if you say something intelligent, we might encourage others to read it.

• In response to Fixing the Big 5 Option 1:
  “I’m not convinced that any kind of clever restructuring is going to eliminate the phenomenon whereby the ruleset itself discourages close games. (There are lots of rules which discourage close games: 2 minute jams, punitive penalties for infractions by jammers, Lead Jammer is retained throughout a jam once won, etc.).” — Hambone, referee (link)
• In response to Minors Make Me Majorly Pissed:
  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard a skater talk about the rules like they have any say in them. What I mean is, I hear skaters say “the rules changed” or “they changed that rule” like they’re talking about the tax code. I’ve never heard a skater say something like, “Yeah, we changed that rule to try to stop so much of x and y from happening” or “We wanted to see more of x and y, so we changed such-and-such rule.”‘ — DrSnarkNStein, fan (link)

Photos!

See more on our Photo Contributors page. As always, if you’d like to contribute photos or other news/media, contact us!