Terrace’s North Coast Nightmares wrapped up the 2014 roller derby season with a tough 146-97 loss to Quesnel’s Gold Pain City June 28 in Quesnel, an anti-climatic end to the team’s most successful season yet.
The Terrace team went in with a smaller roster than they’d anticipated and, while they played tough and defensively, struggled to fully assert themselves until the second half of the game, something the team says it’s focussing on during the off-season.
“They scored the bulk of their points in the first half, we came out, again, a little bit slow,” said Nightmare Jessica Hogg. “That’s definitely something our team needs to work on for next year’s season – coming out as strong as we can usually play in the second half and making sure we’re playing that way in the first half.”
This is the second time Terrace has met Quesnel on the track this season, with the Nightmares' hosting Gold Pain earlier in the season.
Also during the off-season, the team is serious about attracting new recruits, both players – the team is losing a couple of players this year – and people willing to officiate.
Reffing is a great way for people to get involved with roller derby but who “maybe don’t like that full contact aspect,” said Hogg. And in order to host more games, they’ll need more refs.
But the team is hoping the Fresh Meat learn-to-skate program they’re running in August with the City of Terrace will help draw more people into the fold.
“It’s looking good for next year,” she said. “We had a very successful season, we played twice as many games as we did last year. We’re really looking forward to building on that.”