Passion, I am thankful that I have passion in my career but there is other passion in my life and when I’m not working or spending time with my family I’m pursuing another passion of mine on a flat track with 13 other women. Yes, I play roller derby. And for me, there’s nothing better then when I have the opportunity to combine two of my passions.
My roller derby team the Boardwalk Bombshells of the Santa Cruz Derby Girls is attending the Division 2 WFTDA Championships on November 10th in Milwaukee. And although we have the privilege of watching the best teams in the world compete against each other for a weekend long tournament, WE are only playing in one game. That’s right, traveling across country to stay for four nights for one game. You might ask yourself, why are we staying so long for one game, well the answer is because we need to. We found out at our Division Playoffs that less than 24 hours arrival (traveling three time zones) prior to playing an extremely crucial bout was surely not enough. And it showed. As we nearly lost our first game to the number 8 seed, mind you, we were ranked number one going in. So the more time we can adjust to the time change the better, we can relax, watch amazing derby and just get ourselves amped for our game on the final day of play.
Now…I can talk for hours about what a dream come true this is and all the hard work that went into our team making it to Champs but that’s another post for an entirely different blog.
So back to the merging of two passions…Tam Communications, recognizing the hard work that the team had put in all season and the expense that we were undertaking to make this trip happen, took it upon themselves to produce a fundraising video. The goal of the video was to assist the league in offsetting the cost to fly 16 of us on this once-in–a-lifetime trip.
So what did Tam do to make this happen? Well, the talented Susan O’Connor Fraser stepped up to the line and came up with a great concept and script and then the equally talented Mildred Fierce (aka Kim Luke) added her wit and flavor to it. We spent half a day shooting at NextSpace in Downtown Santa Cruz and in the end produced a very fun video that showcases the personality and gratitude of the Bombshells. Although only six of us were on camera, we spoke for the entire team in thanking our fans, the Black and Blue Crew. It was clear while shooting that my teammates share so deeply in my passion for roller derby and are overjoyed about our upcoming trip to Champs.
So do you want to be a part of making history? Then visit santacruzderbygirls.org and click on the donate button and help the Bombshells and their “Serious Baggage” get to Millie-wah-kay.