After contacting Terminal City Roller Girls about this project, Booty Quake so kindly offered to meet and talk about her derby experience. She has been involved with TCRG, and in particular her team The Bad Reputations, since 2007.

"It's such a good example for little girls who want to have a hero. Having women play a sport and being aggressive and confident and doing something a little outside of the norm. It's a really fantastic role model to have!"

Listen while Shawn LaRock - dj for Roller Derby - remembers back to his very first bout at Kerrisdale Arena...

"When you look up at the Kerrisdale Arena sign that says Terminal City Rollergirls Championship...and then you look down [East] Boulevard and see the people lined up, it's a cool community feeling! "

Photo by Bob Ayers

Kristi works in the skate shop once a week now for fun, but she basically grew up at the Arena - first taking lessons, then as part of the figure skating club and then teaching kids how to skate. She invited us to pop by and have a chat. 

When I asked her if there were any ghosts in the building she said:

"Mostly at night, when there is less people around, I've often out of the corner of my eye seen someone walking down to the men's washroom and when I turned to get a better look at them - there is nobody there! It's just a feeling that all of sudden there is somebody here and yet there is no one physically around.  I just wave or say hi and then keep going with what I am doing. I like it, it is one of the fun things that this old place has, it has lots of character!"

Here are more things that Kristi shared:

Maureen brought the Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club scrapbooks to the Arena one afternoon...

"I started skating here in 1950, in fact I used my babysitting money, 25 cents an hour, to pay for my Kerrisdale Figure Skating Club membership! 
I've been in some of the Carnivals but I wasn't a competitive skater. I didn't have the money for 'patch' (when you practiced your figures) but if you were a member of the club and the community centre you could skate in the mornings for free! So I would haul across on the bus with my skates and books and do 'patch' for free and then go to school!

They used to put a rope up at the end of the rink and Dr Helmut May would be teaching figure skating and the other part of the rink was used for the public and I would watch and listen and copy and he noticed this and then got a group of us together and taught us together once a month! I really liked the figures. I eventually went into adult dance sessions and even won a 'senior dance' trophy with my partner Gordon Fox in 1963."

Top left Maureen and Gord in 1963

"I'm now one the board of the KFSC."

Here are a few more of Maureen's memories....

Margot can often be found at the Kerrisdale Arena, and although President of the Arena's own Figure Skating Club for 26 years, her childhood was also busy with, you guessed it, skating!

"...everybody belonged to the skating club..."

"I have skated here [at Kerrisdale Arena] five or six times! My Dad has taken me here twice, but he doesn't skate - he takes pictures of me. One time I was skating and some people where in a long train. They crashed into me and made me fall. That was the only time I fell on the ice!"

"It's fun seeing the look on their faces when they are having fun! That's what really made a impact for me and I hope I made an impact in their lives as well!"

Ansel talked about bringing kids to Kerrisdale Arena to skate as part of a Marpole Place Neighbourhood House day camp.

The Arena 'studio'

"My Dad started coming [to Kerrisdale Arena]  when I was about  9, so I've always come to the public skates and then just recently, I started working here…the community is really great."