Here’s a list of confirmed bouts thus far for the 2010 season:

Saturday, March 13th vs Sintral Florida Derby Demons (HOME)

Saturday, April 3rd vs Gainesville Roller Rebels (HOME)

Sunday, May 2nd vs Bradentucky Bombers (AWAY – Bradenton)

Saturday, July 24th vs. Duval Derby Dames (AWAY – Jacksonville)

Saturday, August 7th vs. Bradentucky Bombers (HOME)

This schedule is subject to change and we are still waiting on a few more dates to be confirmed for the 2010 season.  We hope to see you at our bouts as we take Florida by storm!   Also just released, the new SRG t-shirt is also available in black.

Click the logo to purchase one from Wicked Skatewear!  

Well we have it – the brand spanking new identity and logo.  Many thanks to all the entries we received, they were loved by all but this one won by a landslide.    As a thanks to all the entrants, we will be giving them each a pair of tickets to the season opener bout on Saturday, March 13th.  The winner, Jason Garvale, will be receiving season tickets as well as a shirt with his logo, as well as our undying thanks.

If you’d like to purchase a new logo shirt, please click the link below for Wicked Skatewear.  They print each shirt as ordered and a portion of the proceeds go back to the Sarasota Roller Girls.  Shirts are only $14.99 and there’s all kinds of other nifty things you can get there.

Here’s Jason’s statement:

“The idea for the Sarasota Roller Girls identity is to convey two concepts of a derby girl, beauty and strength. The Femme Fatale characters of the classic Film Noir genre became my influence for characteristics. These women always held power over their male counterparts through intellect, physical prowess and sex appeal. The identity is meant to convey class, strength and femininity while keeping a simple, modern look.”

Jason Garvale is a graphic designer in Sarasota, Florida specializing in print, identity, web and display design for various markets and creative projects. Please visit www.jgarvale.com | jaygarvale@gmail.com

Thinking back on the events over the past few weeks and looking into the future, this quote rings true.   The Sarasota Roller Girls have bound together to do amazing things in such a short period of time, without expectation of anything in return.  Why?  Because we care for each other and our community.  We are privileged to be able to call the greater Sarasota area our home, we are privileged to have met and made some wonderful new friends and we are privileged to have diverse skaters and fans.

Whether it was meeting an amazing little girl that showed us that all things were possible without limitation or coming together for a skater that had tragedy strike one morning, these ladies have proven that we CAN be a team full of tried and true athletes -ready to beat up on each other, but also ready to extend a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on.

That being said after a wonderful , and busy, weekend of participating in the Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Juvenile Arthritis and Team Chicken and an all day marathon benefit for Danger Girl, it’s time to get down to business.  We are throwing ourselves into continual training to hopefully complete in the Sunshine Skate 2010 in February and open up our Inaugural Season at home on Saturday, March 20th  vs. the Sintral Florida Derby Demons.  Sure that seems like a long ways away, but once the holidays are over and Superbowl has passed, derby will rise again from the sleep and be here to entertain you.  We will be posting a calendar shortly of all our bouts for 2010.

Thanks for a great year: – (in no particular order):

VTown Surf and Skate 2

Stardust Event Center

Herald Tribune

Hollywood 20

A Gulf Coast Journal with Jack Perkins / WEDU

WTMY

Tailgaitin’ w/ Moffett and the Machine

Sarasota Rocks

The Paddy Wagon Irish Pub

Big Sugar

RooksAds.com

Fort Myers Derby Girls

Tampa Bay Derby Darlins

Bradentucky Bombers

All the leagues cross-country that helped out Danger Girl

Haitz

Whiskey Mike

Big E and the Lazy Texans

The Crestliners

Poorhouse Productions

Our family, friends and amazing skaters:

Have a safe and happy holiday season and we’ll catch you in a few short weeks!

~Redneck Ophelia

First, the ladies of the Sarasota Roller Girls would like to wish everyone a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving.  We have a lot to be thankful for this year and hope that you do as well.

And now the goodies….it’s CONTEST time.  That’s right, the SRG is looking for a spiffy new logo for our uniforms, merch, banner, pamphlets, web, etc. and we’re leaving it up to you!  Here’s the criteria:

• must contain our colors of black and pink (we favor the the bright/hot pink variety)
• should look good in both black/white and color (we’ll be using it for publications as well as promotion)
• the final chosen piece must be of good enough quality (at least 300 dpi) so it will look good printed as large as a banner or as small as a button
• artist must agree to release all copyrights of chosen piece to the Sarasota Roller Girls and agrees that they will have no claim on future revenue from the winning artwork
• deadline is Dec. 15th, 2009

So go ahead and submit your work to sarasotarollergirls@gmail.com.  On or around 12/15 we will post the entries for the world to see and for our skaters to vote on.

The winner will receive public recognition, the love and admiration of many derby ladies, 2 tickets to each home bout for the 2010 season and a shirt with the newly design logo.

As I sit to write this entry, I’m reminded of how lucky we are.  Over the weekend, one of our skaters, Danger Girl, lost everything in a 2 alarm house fire that has obviously shaken up her and her family.  Luckily no one was hurt, but their house is inhabitable at the current moment and she’s working with another one of our ladies to find a temporary rental so that her and her kids can get life back on track.    We’ve had emails and calls from around the country from friends, family, derby family and fans of how they can help and where to send donations, etc.   For the time being, donations of clothing, house goods, whatever can be sent to:

Our head ref/asst. coach will then make sure everything gets to her.  They literally left with the clothes on their back and this is what we have for info:

Danger:  size 8/10 , 8 shoe

Daughter: size 16, 7 1/2 shoe

Son: size 8/10, 5 men’s shoe – and prefers elastic waist pants

The Sarasota Roller Girls and Danger Girl are beyond able to express the thanks that need to go out.  Help was mobilized at lightening speed and we’ve promised to her to help get them back on their feet as quick was we can so that normalcy can be restored.  As soon as we had put the word out, we were bombarded immediately with pledges to help.  We can do this.

In other news:

I’m also getting lots of emails about when our 2010 season will begin.  We were leaning towards March when we are scheduled to play the Sintral Florida Derby Demons, but it looks as though we’ll be able to another bout before that at home in early February.   So keep checking back or join our email list and as soon as we have a concrete date, we’ll post it.

And don’t forget, the 2010 Jingle Bell Run/Walk is Friday, December 11th in Bradenton and the Sarasota Roller Girls will be skipping/running/walking for Team Chicken.  Lil’ Miss Chicken is an adorable little girl with Juvenile Arthritis and an honorary member of the Sarasota Roller Girls and we can’t wait to walk/run/skip along with her and her family.

Lastly, the SRG is still recruiting through the month of December.  If you’re interested in skating, reffing, announcing or volunteering with us for the 2010 season, please stop by a practice (Tuesday / Thursday 8:45-10pm) at Stardust Event Center on 12th St across from Ed Smith Stadium. We’ll be happy to answer your questions about becoming a member or volunteer.

Until next time, have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving and remember there is a lot to be thankful for this year!

Sure, it was a crushing 100+ point loss, but we never gave up and kept skating with style, class and a smile.

I can’t believe that between skaters, volunteers and fans we had over 500 people in Stardust.

The Sarasota Roller Girls, those skating and those volunteering, are truly the most fun, most classy ladies I know.

We couldn’t have done this and blow the doors off of Stardust, and cause a traffic jam down the street, AND have a line into the parking lot with out our supporters and believers and skaters!

Team Chicken was fully represented and Lil Miss Chicken is a SRG Roller Girl forever and we were so happy to be able to help them out.  It was the least we could do.

2010 is going to be HUGE!  You thought last night was awesome?  3 more months of training and we’re coming to take on Florida!  We’ll have a VERY full bout schedule posted very soon.

The list of Thank You’s is long.

THANK YOU:

Ronni and Larry and the Stardust Family – for believing in us and making us part of the family

My skaters for putting on the show of your life.  I HAVE NEVER seen a team lose so gracefully!

Electra Shocker and the Volunteers for keeping it all together.

Vince Hannity from the Tampa Bay Derby Darlins for being our voice last night

Mick Jagoff, The Most Reverend Holy Shaitz, Adam, Josh and Ozzie for pimping us out to the end.

Jen Italia and the Brazilian Waxer for making me feel like a movie star by being my entourage.

Our friends and family for putting up with the insanity that is derby

Team Chicken for allowing us to help such a worthy cause

Our FANS for BLOWING THE ROOF OFF of Stardust and staying until the bitter end.  2010 is our year!

RooksAds.com for sponsoring us and building us a beautiful website.

It’s only been 3 months since I had this crazy dream to start this league.  3 months.  These girls put their heart out on the floor last night after 3 months and managed to put points up on the board.  The next 3 months we’ll fine tune our skills and get ready for the packed next year!

Peace, love, and bearing grease,

Redneck

ps.  please send pictures to sarasotarollergirls@gmail.com