CNY Roller Derby Zombies invade The Green Onion!

Our photographer friend Marc Goldberg asked us if we would be willing to combine 4 of our favorite things: derby girls, zombies, The Green Onion Pub, and of course Marc!

On 10/25/2010 the ladies of CNY Roller Derby gathered at Mean Squeak's place to get 'zombied up' and then continued over to South Utica's favorite neighborhood bar, The Green Onion, for photos.

You'll need a facebook account to view these:
'Becoming Undead' album, or, 'how zombies are born'

Green Onion Photos


Thanks Marc and the Green Onion for letting us live out our zombie dreams:)

CNYRD Presents Donation to YWCA of Mohawk Valley!

Last night, the hard work of CNYRD and the support of our awesome fans paid off for the YWCA of Mohawk Valley. Little Bastard, the league's Chairwomen, presented a donation of $1230 to Natalie Brown, the Executive Director of the YWCA, in front of the Mayor of Utica and the marchers gathered for Take Back the Night.



Over the 2010 season, the league collected one dollar from each ticket sold at our home bouts at the JFK Civic Arena in Rome to put toward our end-of-the-season donation to the YWCA's domestic violence programs. Little Bastard, addressing the crowd last night, explained that we selected the YWCA because both CNYRD and the YWCA share a commitment to the empowerment of women. And it was fitting that we were able to present our donation at Take Back the Night because the annual march is devoted to stopping sexual assault and abuse. Frisky Whiskey, Mean Squeak, Willa Crasher, Doris Doomsday, and Cereal Suicide presented the check with Little Bastard.

BIG NEWS for Central New York derby fans!!!

As of November 2010, Central New York Roller Derby will have a new structure. The public has been awesome in supporting our teams, The Utica Clubbers and The Blue Collar Betties. Since our beginnings we have wanted to represent the entire region in flat track roller derby, and we have always felt guilty that only The Utica Clubbers were representing CNYRD to the outside derby world, since we are so much bigger than just Utica in our membership. The Utica Clubbers name was conceived before we ever had the idea of CNYRD as a league name, and so we just stuck to it. Earlier this year we started The Blue Collar Betties as a B-team, and they have done amazing both at home and away of showcasing our newer skaters to the derby world. But as we grow, things must change, and this change is pretty exciting!

As of the end of our 2010 competition season in September, we have had a HUGE influx of membership. We had a wonderful newbie class graduate in August, and also gained experienced transfer skaters from as far away as Georgia and as close to home as Utica and Syracuse in surprising numbers. Our current newbie class set to graduate in December has over 40 new skaters currently. On September 1st CNYRD announced that we finally met our biggest goal since our founding; to officially represent our region in WFTDA sanctioned play. Because of all of these exciting changes, we are also changing up how we roll!

Starting November 2010, CNYRD will have a third league team established. They will be known as 'The Rome Wreckers'.

The three existing teams, The Utica Clubbers, The Blue Collar Betties, and The Rome Wreckers, will make up the new Central New York Roller Derby League as 'home' teams, all of which will be chosen by draft pick from our entire current membership. When our league competes against outside leagues for standings, we will compete as the CNY All-Stars travel team, made up of the best skaters from all three league teams.

Our 2011 season will be comprised of both travel team and home team bouts. You can expect a running round-robin season of games between our home teams which will culminate in a championship bout to name the CNYRD 2011 league champion team. Our travel team bouts will feature other leagues' travel teams vs the CNY All-Stars.

Congradulations to Slay West, Gutshot, and Moody Obsession on being elected our 2010-2011 home team captains!!!

We cant wait to see you at our first intra-leauge bout of 2011! Come cheer for your favorite girl(s) or team! Stay tuned for information on team rosters, and schedule!!!

ZOMBIE WALK This FRIDAY!!!

This Friday, Oct 1st, CNY Roller Derby wil be participating in the 2nd Annual Utica Zombie Walk. Some good friends of our got this going last year, and we had a fantastic time. Because what goes together better than rollergirls and zombies, right!?

A couple weeks ago during the Utica Music and Arts Fest we got together with photographer/graphic designer Darrell Nieman and ghoulish makeup artist Katrina Burnett and created some ummmm....'ads' for the event. These are SO COOL! Thanks Darrell and Katrina for making us zombie-rific!

If you're interested in being a part of the zombie walk, registration is from 5-7pm on Friday at the Uptown Theater on Genessee St in Utica. The walk kicks off from there at 7. During registration you can hear DJ's spinning live tunes while creepy rooftop footage of last year's zombie attack plays on the big screen (courtesy of our own grambo!)

Tough Cookie Bake/Yard Sale Event Recap

On Saturday 9/25/2010, CNY Roller Derby hosted its second annual bake sale fundraising event at the Tramontane Cafe in Utica. Last year's event featured classic derby movies shown on the big screen an a chance to mingle with the girls and learn about roller derby.

This year's event got a lot cooler!

Dubbed 'The Tough Cookie Yard and Bake Sale', we pulled out all the stops to make this event a really fun way to fundraise in our off season. Assembled by Heather 'Freegan Brutal' Snogles and her motley crew of Non-Bout Events Committee ninjas, they really put together a nice time. Since the date of the event coincided with the streaming of WFTDA Eastern Regionals hosted by our friends at Suburbia Roller Derby in Yonkers, we had the tournament streaming on the big screen courtesy of the wonderful folks at Derby News Network (We love you DNN!). On top of the already awesome bake sale, we added a yard sale portion of the event this year under tents in the lot across Lincoln Ave from the Tram.

In case you didn't know, CNY Roller Derby has an amazing collection of bakers, cooks, crafters, and collectors of cool vintage stuff in its membership. A few are even professional confectioners! There were Gluten free treats, raw food options, Vegan yummy stuff, and a ton of decadent, amazing, tastey other treats all priced very low. By the time all the food was there, we had nearly 2 full 8' tables stuffed with baked goods!

The yard sale portion was very cool indeed...because after all, what's more fun than going shopping through derby girls' closet leftovers?! There were clothes, books, baby items, furniture, toys, and crafts, just to name a few.

To make things even more awesome, The Tram kept the food coming! Many of us took shift breaks and got our favorite Tram sandwiches for lunch and/or dinner, and continued to get waaaaay caffienated to keep us going strong. The gracious Tram regulars were awesome as usual about the bunch of us overtaking 'their' place for the day:) Many of our friends, family, and fans who had never been to the Tram before came to check it out and loved the great food, drinks, and cozy atmosphere and have said they'll be back! Thank you SOOOOO much Garrett and Robin for alowing us to take over your business again this year!

We also had our merch table set up just like at bouts, and we were so happy that people took this chance to get some more tshirts and swag. Also made special for the event were recycled bottlecap buttons made from the Tram's own bottlecaps, our recycled bout programs, and the love and elbow sweat of Little Bastard:)

Another serious thank you is due to the Foodshed Buying Club for their wonderful donations of awesome food for the sale.

Overal, the league netted more than $900.00 from this event. This money will be spent directly to foster the future of CNYRD by purchasing sets of pads and helmets from a local skate shop for our new skaters to use while they get started in the sport. This both helps CNYRD grow as a league, keeps everyone safe while learnign the sport, and supports the local economy. Thank you for helping us continue to bring in new people who are excited to learn to play the sport!

OD Article Correction: We are NOT homeless!!!

On Monday Septemeber 20th The Observer Dispatch in Utica ran an article about a former practice space of CNYRD's called 'Skate-A-Rama'. You can see the article's text HERE.

CNYRD praticed at Skate-A-Rama from Dec 2007 through March 2009, and was coached for a time by the rink's owner, Bill Schmelcher.

The article highlights Bill's troubles with a burdensome tax debt and the threat of forclosure. Unfortunately, the printed article in Monday's paper used an old photo of former members of CNYRD playing roller derby at Skate-A-Rama, with a misleading caption which has caused much concern in the past few days by friends, family, and fans who think we are losing our current practice space.

CNYRD has not practiced in this facility since March 2009. We hold summer practices and events at JFK Arena in Rome NY and we currently have our winter practices at the Utica Center for Development (former YMCA) on Washington Ave in Utica. CNYRD wishes Bill and Skate-A-Rama the best of luck in this unfortunate situation. We hope that the community does not lose yet another skating rink, along with one of the only options for cheap indoor recreation during teh long winter months.

To sum up: We are NOT losing our home!!!! Thank you all for the concern, but we have practice space, and we have some great opportunities on the horizon which may be announced soon.

The Utica Clubbers Take It All in "The 315 Throwdown"

On Sunday, September 19th Central New York Roller Derby’s (CNYRD) Utica Clubbers took on Assault City Roller Derby (ACRD) in the long-awaited rematch, “The 315 Throwdown.” Hundreds of fans from around the region, including many who drove from Syracuse, came to the JFK Civic Arena in Rome to witness the thruway rivals play each other again.

The last time these teams played each other marked the emergence CNYRD, a new league comprised of mostly inexperienced skaters and skaters borrowed from other leagues. Sunday was a very different story. CNYRD now has two teams and new recruits all the time. And the league recently became WFTDA certified.

The Clubbers and Assault City both played a rough game, but CNYRD took control from the first whistle. In the very first jam, Clubbers’ jammer Mean Squeak took lead jammer status and managed to make three scoring passes before Assault City’s jammer could score a single point. Mean Squeak kept it up, scoring 50 points in the bout. The Clubbers continued to build on this mastery, ending the first half with a 40-point lead over Syracuse. Things did not improve for Assault City in the second half. Their jammers, with the exception of Blaze, could not penetrate Utica’s ferocious blocking by Lady Die Mentia, Moody Obsession, and Slay West. The final score was Clubbers 146, Assault City 66.

The two teams awarded MVP trophies at the end of the night. The MVP for Assault City was awarded to Chainsaw Mama. The MVP for the Utica Clubbers was awarded to Moody Obsession.