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Next day several of us were up at 5am to make sure we made the earliest bus to the airport. The entire team was on different flights - six seperate flights to four different airports. I was going to Gatwick and would meet the two Saskatoon gals there from a seperate flight and we all would go into London together. Security was tight; I had to shuffle through security barefoot holding my pants up because they took my belt and made me untie my shoes.

Once in Gatwick we were met by a London Rollergirls representative. I have no idea how we would have made it into town without her. We took an hour long train ride into London, fought crowds of people to get to the tube with all our gear and luggage (people don’t like it when your bags get in the way) in 30c heat. It was insane. We had a ten-minute walk to the hostel where we would crash for an hour before going to the bouting venue. After our “rest” (hah) we got back on the tube and rode for 45 minutes with all our gear again, all the while standing up, got on a bus for another 30 minutes, and then walked for half an hour to the venue. At this point some members of the team were practically comatose and others were in tears. We got our gear on, skated in a few circles to warm up and promptly got our arses thrashed.Final score: Canada - 45, London - 128.

(Check out the great recap from the London Rollergirls’ website, and feast your eyes on the hawt photo of Shifty jamming! Woot! ~ Andi))

I am extremly proud of the Canadian team for persevering. We never gave up, even when we were so thouroughly exhausted and disheartened. We played cleanly, and for some strange reason got better the longer we played. Pretty damn good for a team who had played a sum total of an hour together, ever, before this game. We also had the fantastic services of Trophy Wife to help us with our line ups. It was a fantastic treat to see her there. She will be helping us with the line ups in Birmingham too. The London team is tight! They have some fantastic jammers. We managed to make it out to the afterparty and had a few drinks. But we were pretty low energy.

The next day the majority of the team went on an open topped bus tour of London. 8Mean stayed with a cousin of Mack’s and, sadly, did not come. She was sorely missed. I have actually seen 8Mean maybe a total of three hours this entire trip. That seems wrong, but she’s with family a lot and, frankly, I would not want to expose my kids to the shenanigans that the team has been getting up to…

~ Love, Shift Kicker

(Thanks again to Hoochie Mama for the photos)