You don’t need to know everything or anything about roller derby: the most important thing is that you’re willing to coach. We are looking for different persons with different strengths and interests. Let’s find a suitable role for you together! As a coach you can be there for us on game days and help us succeed. You can also plan and run practices if that’s your thing! Or are you a PT or physiotherapist and want to use your expertise to help us get our off skate practicing to a new level?

DRRD has currently one competitive team which aims to play scrimmages and games of different levels in 2022. If the SM series or Division 1 are restarted at some point, we will consider taking part in those as well.

Fill in this form and tell us a little about yourself! The deadline is 28 February 2022. If you want to come and watch our practices and get to know us and our sport a little bit before filling in the form, send an email to martta.malila@dirtyriverrollerderby.com.

Everyone participating in DRRD activities should read and commit to our values: https://dirtyriverrollerderby.com/en/drrd/our-values/

Link to the form: https://forms.gle/xShnDQyYfEqQQcKQ6

During the Summer Olympics a while ago, a lot of discussion went on about the inclusion of trans people in sports. A lot of these discussions have been focused on trans women and trans feminine people in women’s sports. Dirty River Roller Derby states in its guidelines explicitly that we support trans players, and do not allow transphobia or trans misogyny. Excluding trans women and trans feminine people from sports is not only harmful to trans people, but to all women, especially black and brown women (cis and trans) who are often the target of transmisogyny.

Roller Derby from its origin is intended to be an inclusive sport, and even though the sport has not always been successful on this front, it has always been at its root. Dirty River Roller Derby intends to be a place where we include all kinds of different bodies into sports, this includes trans bodies. We want to be a league where people who haven’t felt welcome or able to play sports can engage with roller derby and its community. There is no one type of body that can play roller derby, all kinds of different bodies can engage in this sport, and by being inclusive to different bodies we hope to make it possible for people to imagine themselves on the track. DRRD is always trying to create an atmosphere of acceptance and love of difference.

Within DRRD we will endeavour to continue looking at our own praxis and prejudice, specifically regarding trans people, especially trans women and trans feminine people. We are driven by our values which everyone of our members agree to comply with. Trans women and trans feminine people are underrepresented in our league, and we will try to examine the reasons for this and continue these conversations internally. We encourage other sports leagues to have these conversations or keep having these conversations as well.

The Coaching Department at DRRD has been actively working with the topic of harassment and bullying and how to prevent them for a long time. The Department has, however, been especially active in this regard during the past year, since the study about harassment and bullying (in Finnish. A summary of the key points is available in Swedish and English also) in our sport by SUEK/Luisteluliitto was published.

As one concrete action, all Finnish-speaking members of our Department have now taken or will take the Et ole yksin online training which aims at creating a safe environment for sports and offers guidelines on how to prevent and tackle bullying and harassment. More info: https://etoleyksin.fi/ (in Finnish and Swedish).

The Coaching Department at DRRD used the training as a starting point for a critical discussion about our own activities. We also suggested various concrete actions to other actors within our league. Some examples include surveys on practices and well-being as well as opening a low-threshold feedback channel for our members. All our league activities are guided by our official bylaws, our strong core values as well as the Code of Conduct approved by our membership.

We would like to challenge all derby leagues in Finland to boost their work against bullying and harassment. Let’s share good practices, learn from each other, admit it when we mess up and roll together towards a brighter future!

We have our very own merch shop with exclusive items coming up that you don’t want to miss! You can already add drrd.mycashflow.fi to your bookmarks as the shop will open during this spring.