Officials

Flat Track Roller Derby has a lot of rules to keep the skater’s safe and the game fair. In other sports, the action generally happens around 1 spot (usually a ball) and if something goes wrong, the play is stopped. In Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby, action might happen between any of the players at any point on the track. And if a penalty needs to be given, the player is sent to the penalty box while the action keeps going. For this to happen, we need 7 refs on skates and 15 non-skating officials (NSOs).

Our Zebra train hard, on and off the track to fill the roles of Head Ref, Inside Pack Ref, Outside Pack Ref and Jammer Ref. These dedicated equines work hard for their stripes. In some sports, referees aren’t the most popular people but in derby, we’re applying the rules defined by derby skaters worldwide. We even have some fans – after all, we’re the one team that never loses

What’s a pack? Why is that skater flapping? Why are you pointing to that skater? How come when you looked like a teapot, nobody thought it was funny? Are you really doing the pineapple dance? Come talk to us after a bout and we’ll be more than happy to answer your questions.

 

 

 

Señor Whippy (Officials Coordinator)

Axiom Addict

Game Over

Sintax

In Ur Stace

 

Lady Brewsalot

Want to get involved? Email the Referee Co-ordinator

Want to get involved but don’t want to skate?

On bout day, our Non Skating Officials (NSOs) work equally hard and their roles are critical for the bout to run smoothly (and help the teams ongoing). We actually need more NSOs than refs. Some of the roles have higher contact with the league and require more understanding and training than other. Here’s an idea of the sorts of roles available.

• Penalty Box Manager
• Penalty Box Timer
• Outside Whiteboard Operators
• Penalty Tracker
• Penalty Wrangler
• Inside Whiteboard Operator
• Lineup Tracker
• Score Tracker
• Jam Timer
• Scoreboard Operator
• And we’ve recently added Tape Wrangler

Want to Know more? Email the NSO Co-ordinator

If you want to get an idea of what the rules are all about and find us too scary (we’re not), check out the WFTDA ruleset.