14 Opinion October 24 2012 - Over the Edge PHOTO SOURCE SHELLEY TERMUENDE BEERS WITH BEN: THE RED PEN CHALLENGE BEN FILIPKOWSKI COPY EDITOR Attentive readers of Over The Edge are no doubt aware of a number of changes made to the paper over the summer, and indeed the past few weeks. We are a new team approaching new challenges and obstacles; each issue you read is the result of dedication, commitment and numerous hours of hard work. We are all too aware of the reputation our paper has had in the past, and we are well aware of the challenges we face. By way of meeting these challenges, and in an attempt to remedy our reputation, we have introduced the Red Pen Challenge. In short, the Red Pen Challenge is our attempt to get you, the student body - our audience - involved and invested in the new- and-improved — production and _ publication of Over The Edge. We want to create the best product we possibly can, and we work hard to do so; obviously, we are only human, and despite our best efforts, errors slip through. This is inevitable, and the Red Pen Challenge is there as a tongue-in-cheek way of acknowledging that. Again, in short: we get it, there are errors, and there were errors in the past. Beyond that, though, there’s a more insidious, pervasive reason that the Red Pen Challenge exists. It’s our dark secret, your worst nightmare, a challenge we throw down to you: the Red Pen Challenge isn’t just there to help us catch mistakes. It’s there to get you to read the paper. Shock of all shocks, I know! We tricked you. The challenges we face aren’t easy ones. It’s an ongoing obstacle to our success that we have yet to truly get our readers invested and interested in our success. As. students at UNBC, you've all paid fees that help keep this paper up and running; we're asking you to continue helping us by reading the paper cover to cover and telling us what you thought. Like I said before, Over The Edge’s past has sometimes been a rough one. Mistakes have been made in the past - grammatical, typographical and factual - and as a result, the paper had a checkered past. Help us make sure the future is one of polka dots. A NIGHT WITH THE ROLLER GIRL GEOFF SARGENT SPORTS EDITOR Rock-It Man _ is _ sitting down with me while the derby team — stretches in anticipation of their practice. "You know," he admits, es bf Rock-It Man keeps a lookout for fouls. "I'm probably more of a feminist than most women are." On its own, out of context, the quote would strange. seem But it comes Aenean. he pack jostles fo r position before the jammers arrive. © about ten minutes into a conversation covering everything about roller derby, and it makes sense. Rock-It Man is a roller derby official - a head referee, to be precise. He's been involved with the sport in Prince George for over four years, and is one of the original members of the current group. "Have you seen the movie Whip It?” he asks. “You should watch it if you're trying to get a sense of this. The way they portray derby - it's a Texas league; the way they actually showed derby being played was _ ridiculous, pretty much_ everything they did would be a major penalty, expulsions. What they really captured was what draws them into it. Why they're so passionate about it.” The passion is evident at first glance; everyone I talk to ensures I know the rules. The basics are easy to follow: five skaters per side, one jammer and four blockers; the jammers race around the track trying to get through the pack as quickly as possible, earning points for each blocker they pass. When the rules questions dry up, the conversations always turn back to the community. “It is a sense of, everybody helps everybody, on and off the track,” says Lockdown. “Even off the _ track, everybody pushes’ each other to do better, to train better. Even family-wise, if there's problems within families, or you need help .. If my car breaks down, I can phone any one of these girls and they would come and get me.” Lockdown's shirt is sporting a C that I recognize from _ other sports; I ask her how she became team captain. "Our captains were voted in,” she corrects me, stressing the plural. “There's three of us: myself, Sista Viberosis, and Loki.” Lockdown is heading into her fifth year with the group; she had taken her daughter to a bout, but when her daughter was too young to join, it was Lockdown who was urged to play. “My intentions were just to watch a practice - what happened was Cruely Sue, a few of the other vets were here, and they said ‘oh here, have my gear' and they were handing me elbow pads, knee pads and a helmet, within a month I had my own skates.” Derby names - some of the others I heard mentioned included Penny Dreadful and H-Dawg - are as much a part of the sport as the skates. I didn't ask for birth names, nor were any provided. “Some _ people say there are alter egos. It's kind of like Hallowe'en where you come out as someone else, and so some women will say they can be a different person,” says Rock-It Man. “It's a show, campy sort of thing, not as much as people think, but there is that side of it. Some of the girls don't even know each _ others’ real names.” As well as a weekly Fresh Meat program for getting new recruits prepared for theintensity of participating with experienced players, the team is preparing to host their third annual Sk8fest in the Roll-A- Dome, November 3rd at 7:00pm (tickets from the Wintergarden, Books & Co., Handsome Cabin Boy). “You feel the intensity,” says Lockdown. “Even people who come to a game can feel it after the first couple minutes, like "Holy Crow, these girls are serious’. We're not out here just as a show.”