Valley, Valley, VALLEY, Oy, Oy, OY!
We will, we will, KNOCK you DOWN, KNOCK you DOWN!
Vendettas on 3!  1,2,3 VENDETTAS!

Valley Vendettas – Slocan, BC

Going into this season as one of the two newest teams, the Vendettas needed to develop as attitude that would carry us through a season of playing more accomplished teams.  In the off season we did that by developing a culture that was safe and supportive, but that also held each other accountable to always try our hardest.  We expect to work hard at every practice.  We value learning and improvement as a team.
A notable fact for us in 2012 is that being the last team in the league by rank, we never pulled another player from another team to help us wen.  Even if our numbers were low, we played only with our team members.  Also, all of our games were VERY close, most of them within 10 or 20 points in the last minutes of the fame – with the exceptions of our game against the Babes and our cancellation of our game against Gnarlies Angels due to too few players.
Over the course of the season we have grown a lot as a team and clearly defined our values.  Because of our emphasis on equality and learning, it meant that we had fewer conflicts within our team and were better able to make decisions that reflected our team values quickly and easily.
We have been very fortunate to have a lot of support from our community, which has included having a free space to practice in the winter at WE Graham School.  This has allowed us to continue to keep our fees at $20 thus far.  We are one of the most spread out teams, and WE Graham is fairly central.  It has been important to keep fees low because of the driving costs incurred by players.

Team Strengths:
Keeping it real and having fun!
Equal track time for all! (Providing you attend practices)
Recognizing that derby is what we make it.
Taking ownership of our learning and experience.
Valuing the time we put in together.
Our team has consciously recognized that people have lives, and we support each other, even when it means we’re unable to attend practice.  We believe this has created a stronger team.

Highlights of 2012:
We had a conflict and a struggle within the team after a game and we were able to get it out on the table and resolved within a week; we were stronger for it.  It happened, it’s over, we changed and we grew.
The game we played for fun in Kaslo during May Days.  It was an incredible amount of fun, the game was tightly paced and it was played in front of many people who had never seen roller derby before, and we won!  We spent the rest of the night hanging out with our new fans of derby and fellow derby-women, getting to know each other better.

Challenges of 2012:
Injuries
This season was very busy, and while our team is very dedicated, we wound up feeling guilty because some were not able to give what they thought was expected without compromising their families and livelihoods