The Rise of Roller Skating How roller-skating became the sport du jour of the pandemic CL AIRE BRNJAC Arts & Culture Editor ANNIKA MCFARLANE Illustrator
Two months into quarantine, I made a roller rink in my dad’s garage. The rink itself wasn’t a lot; it was just a clear space that was devoid of broken glass and dirt. When my skates arrived a month later, I tentatively strapped them on and made my dad move his car to the road while I wobbled my way around the small space in tight circles. Amateur as it felt, there was the thrill of freedom in the way I zoomed around.
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I got the idea to try roller-skating from a social media trend on the app TikTok, where beautiful, graceful people zoomed down streets and did tricks in cute skates without breaking a sweat. During the pandemic, other people did the same, causing stores like Roller Girl, a roller skate shop in Mount Pleasant, to have their highest sales in fifteen years.
To understand the fervour and to better understand how to learn a sport in quarantine, I talked to Carla Smith, the co-founder of Rolla Skate Club, a Vancouver-based rollerskating facility, who had noticed this jump in popularity as well.
