Hammer City Roller Girls

Helmets belonging to the Steel Tank girls roller derby team

Despite not finding the arena last night I actually found it today after picking up Leah's brother. We were only 10 minutes late. Not bad considering we didn't exactly know where we were going. I knew the general direction but the roads in Hamilton and region consist of a lot of one way streets which I found seemed to all go in the opposite direction that you wanted to go.

As a photographer they let me have the run of the rink. As a result of my floating around the track there were a few close calls of a girl skating into me and all my gear but usually they recovered at the last minute or I managed to back away just in the nick of time.


"Get ready..."

While shooting at the Molson Indy, one thing they tell you to do is if you're crouching down, always crouch down on on knee and not on both. With a foot firmly planted and leg that's ready to push yourself into standing position you can get away from a wayward car speeding toward you or at least your changes of avoiding the car are better than if you were sitting on the ground. It was this technique that helped me move away from the skaters and save my gear from possible ugly circumstances.


Miss Carriage gets a pull from SleezeBag

Shooting the bout was quite challenging. Mainly due to low lighting with quick movements but also just finding the spot of action taking place in the group of skaters. I found that whatever side of the rink I was on the accidents and people falling over one another always seemed to take place on the other side. Luck of the draw I guess.