Brick and mortar

Slightly blurry picture of the shop interior, featuring Dax the dog.

I'm in Toronto at the moment, but unfortunately I don't have a whole bunch of time to do derby-related stuff though, which kind of sucks. (Explanation: I had to fly here for a funeral. Gah.) But I did randomly get to google roller derby stuff, and there are so many teams in Toronto!! SO exciting. Check out their website, at Toronto Roller Derby. So much stuff! Plus there is lots of info there about the upcoming Roller Derby World Cup, which will be held in December this year. Squee!

Alas, I didn't get to bring my skates with me (well, it would be kind of inappropriate for the occasion I think), and the derby season seems to pretty much be over here. If I were here for longer, I would probably see if I could borrow some skates and go to a training session. The fact that a derby girl or boy can go anywhere in the world and get to train with other leagues is super awesome. Anyway, the cool thing about the site is that they linked to a skate store in downtown Toronto. Now, I've never actually seen a real roller derby store before, because we just ordered our freshie kits from Sydney Derby Skates and Derby Skates, but they don't have an actual store. But today I had some spare time apart from doing family stuff, and headed down to Rollerbug Skate Shop near Ossington.

Squee, cute-as-fuck skates!!

It was pretty cool, to be in an actual skate shop! They had tons of space so you could test stuff out, and the store was pretty new in that location so it looked awesome. Skate stuff is WAY cheaper here than in Australia; it's kind of stupid. Plus there was a dog in there! Anyway, here's a photo of the store. Check out their Moxi Ivy skates! SO CUTE. 

Unfortunately they didn't have like ANYTHING I wanted; I wanted to check out some gumball toe stoppers and they had run out, and the smallest set of hired hands wrist guards were still too long for my stumpy finers. Boo. However, Triple8 is apparently putting out a new line of derby-specific pads next year, since now they recognise that most skate pads are designed for guys that are much bigger than us. The current small size for guys is probably what should be a smallish medium for women, so if you're small for a woman you're pretty much fucked unless you can find junior sizes. But it was cool; I talked to a bunch of people in the store about derby and how it's taking off in Australia and everything, and they were really excited and supportive and we talked about the World Cup and everything. I wish I had some VDL merch to give them! Oh and I considered buying a set of Scabs, but I didn't really need them. Oh wells.