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Barbarians cage Wildcats at derby

The Bavarian Barbarians continued their winning ways at the second event of the new East Kootenay Roller Derby League season
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The Bavarian Barbarians

The Bavarian Barbarians continued their winning ways at the second event of the new East Kootenay Roller Derby League season, defeating the Elkford Wildcat Brawlers 349-130.

Kicking off the opening bout of the night, the Barbarians started strong with help from rookie jammer Derby Little Secret weaving through the pack. Her counterpart, Wild Thyme—with the Wildcat Brawlers—was constantly in hot pursuit, while both teams provided some tough blocking.

But the Bavarians proved to be too tough, and came up with the win.

In doing so, the Bavarians applied some new strategies learned from Ziv Krueger, a coach who came up from Texas to do a clinic with a league out of the West Kootenays at the beginning of the month.

A Barbarian member was at the event and invited Krueger to come out to Kimberley, which is conveniently on the way to his eventual destination of Banff.

"He went through some really interesting, new strategies to the derby world," said Nicole 'Indiana Bones Crusher' Kapell. "So we thought, lets take these new strategies and these nine skaters with all these rookies and lets see if we can execute them and see if it works for us.

"Obviously, based on the score, it really did work, and we're pretty excited about it."

The Invermere Killer Rollbots went up against the West Side Wheelers out of Alberta in the headlining bout, falling in a close match at 153-108.

Even though there are a few rookies on the team that began skating in the 2013 calendar year, the Barbarians have become a force to be reckoned with in the EKRDL.

"We're quite small in size, compared to other teams that play roller derby, so we try to use our speed, or our size, to be faster and have more agility, because we're not as big when it comes to blocking," said Kapell.

The next bout is in Elkford on June. 7th, and the Barbarians will be going up against the Killer Rollbots with the league's top spot up for grabs.



Trevor Crawley

About the Author: Trevor Crawley

Trevor Crawley has been a reporter with the Cranbrook Townsman and Black Press in various roles since 2011.
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