SPORTS

SPORTS Roller skating becomes pandemic’s hottest trend

by Breanne Doyle

The hottest fads of 2020 seemed to revolve around throwback trends and simple pleasures: going to the drive-in, taking up a new instrument, picnics in the park, baking, and walks around the neighbourhood to keep you from going insane.

But no trend was quite as cool as taking up the ultra-retro, athletically challenging pursuit of roller skating. Thousands of wobbly beginners took to their driveways and cul-de-sacs to take part in the sport, and we wanted to know why.

We spoke to various skate clubs and business owners around the province to get their take on why roller skating blew up the way it did.

Toilet paper, Lysol wipes, and baking supplies were maddeningly hard to get your hands during the pandemic. And as it turns out, so were roller skates.

Jacqui Streber, the administrator on a British Columbia-based Facebook group made to buy and sell secondhand roller skates, said the group’s numbers have increased massively in the past year. It currently has 1,700 members.

“I was usually getting two to three requests a week, and now I’m getting between five and seven requests to join the group a day,” Streber told the Straight. “Which, you know, for our small little group is pretty impressive.”

It’s not just secondhand purchases that are through the roof. Lisa Suggitt owns RollerGirl Rollerskates, Vancouver’s only exclusive roller-skate equipment store, which has been low on stock for the past year and a half.

“Sales started to surge within weeks of COVID being declared a pandemic,” Suggitt said. “We had good stock and were ready for the skating season to come, or so we thought.”

Suggitt and her team have been working day and night to fulfill orders while constantly selling out of supplies and dealing with a national roller skate shortage.

The shop turned to sourcing and importing roller skates from the U.K., China, and Italy. But come 2021, there was an even higher demand for skates—a demand that the supply chain still wasn’t ready to handle, according to Suggitt.

“We ran out of stock in March 2021 and have been basically operating from one stock drop to another ever since,” she explained. “Stock arrives, we process it, and it sells out immediately.”

WHY IS IT SO POPULAR? Carla Smith, cofounder of Rolla Skate Club in Vancouver, told the Straight she believes the athletic or physical benefits from skating were a huge draw for some new skaters.

“It’s a joyful outlet for people to move their bodies, to improve or maintain their physical health by being active and doing something that challenges their body,” she said. “It also provides an incredible mental release—and that’s something that people have really needed.”

According to her, another part of the appeal is the sense of escapism. “When you’re watching people roller-skate, the thing that jumps out, I think, is you feel their sense of joy and freedom. I think that’s what has subconsciously drawn people to roller skating.”

Besides the physical and mental benefits from roller skating, it’s also just fun, noted Suggitt from RollerGirl.

“You lace up your skates and all your worries and problems disappear,” she said. “You focus on the present, the wind in your hair, the sun on your face, the feeling of speed. It is exhilarating and so much fun!

“It also doesn’t hurt that roller skating has style,” she added. “It looks good, and it makes you look good when you do it. This cool factor helped roller skating take off on social media.”

Carla “bootyquake” Smith cofounded the Rolla Skate Club, which has 500 online members, some of whom pay extra on their memberships to support BIPOC skaters. Photo by Breanne Doyle.

Sales started to surge within weeks of COVID being declared a pandemic.

– retailer Lisa Suggitt

Rolla Skate Club has a portable rental shop for Vancouver skaters. Photo by Breanne Doyle.

DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK The sport, since its golden age dating back to the ’30s, has gone through many phases of mainstream popularity. In the ’40s and ’50s, Vancouver had several rinks dedicated to roller skating, such as Skateland, Trianon Roller Rink, and the Centre Gardens Roller Bowl. From the ’60s through the early 2000s, the disco-rockin’ Stardust Roller Rink was the place to go in several municipalities for roller-fanatics.

Nearly two decades later, roller skating seems to be the cool thing to do once again. Considering the huge increase in popularity now, one might even consider calling this a “comeback” for the sport. But seasoned skaters argue that’s unfair to say.

“It’s become an important conversation in roller skating within the community— to not call roller skating as having a rebirth or a resurgence,” Smith said. “Because that’s only the case for white folks.

“At the beginning of the pandemic… there were some really popular TikTok videos of some white, Barbie doll-ish looking people with a lot of followers rollerskating,” Smith continued. “And there was a lot of backlash against the idea of rollerskating culture as being reborn—just because white people ‘discovered’ it again.”

Alisa Luke, a founding member of the BIPOC roller skate club Bad Bounce agrees.

“Roller skating has always been a part of Black culture,” Luke told the Straight. “Roller skating is representative of resilience and joy to the Black community…. Calling it a comeback diminishes the contributions Black people have made to this art form.”

To encourage diversity and accessibility in its programs, Rolla Skate Club offers 85 percent subsidies to Black and Indigenous skaters in its instructor training program. It also has a “Rollas Helping Rollas” program in which its 500 online members can contribute a few extra dollars toward their monthly memberships to support skaters of colour or those facing financial need.

Meanwhile, Bad Bounce, which is dedicated to advocating for and championing BIPOC skaters in Vancouver, was founded by Alisa Luke, Jessie Wilson, Mariana Menendez, and Katya Isichenko. In reaction to the civil rights movements of the past year and a half, the troupe knew there needed to be a skating space specifically for Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour.

“We were originally inspired to form after we had ventured out to dance [and] rec skate together and noticed how whitewashed the existing skate scene was here,” Luke said. “Our objective is to hold that safe space for folks who may have felt discouraged to enter such a white scene. In doing so, our hope is to open people’s eyes to the problems that are obvious to us yet are somehow invisible to so many.

“After all,” Luke said. “This is a stolen pastime, from stolen people, that we all enjoy on stolen lands.” g