Dunedin Derby is presenting "Frozen Fury", Sunday, 1pm at the Edgar Centre.
The free afternoon of demonstration games will feature athletes from Dunedin's A team, the Gallow Lasses and B team, the Bonnie Brawlers, along with players from Southern Most Skaters, of Invercargill and Dead End Derby, of Christchurch.
Dunedin Bonnie Brawlers coach Kate Kavanagh said the inter-league scrimmage was an opportunity to showcase what roller derby was all about.
"It is a fun game."
The family-friendly and inclusive sport built confidence, she said.
Whether you are suited to be a nimble "jammer" or a sturdy "blocker", there were plenty of roles.
"If you are tall or small, or you are strong and big, or you are little and tiny there is a space for you."
The free event on Sunday was an opportunity for people to learn about the sport and decide if they want to join.
Besides training to be a player, there were other opportunities for people to take part.
Participants could serve as non-skating officials, timing penalties and jams or operating the scoreboard.
People could also train as referees "in the zebra stripes", skating while monitoring the action inside and outside the track.
"So yeah, there's lots of ways that you can get involved in derby."
For those choosing to take the plunge, the team’s "Learn to Skate" programme took place on Sundays in the afternoon, she said.
"It takes around six months to get from Learn to Skate to actually doing contact and being able to play. It's quite an intensive course."
"We do have skates and protective gear for people who want to learn to skate that they can borrow."
The course taught skills such as skating forwards and backwards, stopping safely and manoeuvring around others.
If people decided after the programme that playing was not for them, the skills would still come in handy for on-skate or off-skate officiating.
"A lot of the skills that you do in Learn to Skate will transfer to being a ref."
For beginners who had never skated, a pathway into roller derby was to first join the Dunedin Inline/Roller Skaters entry level group.
The roller derby team trained on Tuesday and Thursday nights and Sunday mornings
"Safety is really important to us, obviously we wear lots of gear, we don’t want to get injured.
"We do quite intensive warm-ups to make sure we are ready to skate."
Roller derby players adopted derby names; for example, Kavanagh’s was Flatliner.
She said it was a very enjoyable sport.
"I think the people are awesome, a really good group of people.
"The fitness is amazing, so it is a really good way to keep fit.
"The sport is a good way to relieve a bit of stress".
"If you're doing the contact stuff, you know, you can come and hit people. And they want to be hit, so that's quite fun."
