Buffalo Herd

Happy birthdays to Cassadee Dope and Oxford Trauma! Cass’s birthday was last month, but our PR team was busy with quarantine things and missed a few birthdays We are confident that Oxford won’t mind sharing her birthday with Cass, though. The Herd is so lucky to have these dedicated and brilliant women on our team!

We miss our fans, skaters, and officials; but most of all we miss Thrash Bandicoot today because it’s her birthday! Please help us wish Thrash a very happy social distancing birthday! CK Photographic Systems

Even though the season is on hold right now due to social distancing, we want to send a big birthday shout-out to our Head Skating Official Nicky Needles!!! Nicky has been an integral part of our derby family for several years and we appreciate all of the hard work she does! Thank you Nicky and Happy Birthday!! CK Photographic Systems

Our league PR team is simply the best! We never knew we needed Herd valentines cards, but now that they exist we’re not sure how we ever got by without them

BIRTHDAY SHOUTOUT!! Friends of the Herd, it is time celebrate Rene's birthday!! Rene is one of our master photographers running around to document all of us looking fierce during the game...or catching us being silly in the box. He has been an integral part of our derby family for many years and here's to many more! Not surprisingly, because of his dedication to our league, he spent his birthday evening with QCRD taking photos of the Herd and our wonderful league-mates at t...he bout this evening. Leave your favorite photos that Rene has taken in the comments below! CK Photographic Systems

Our league PR team is simply the best! We never knew we needed Herd valentines cards, but now that they exist we’re not sure how we ever got by without them

Introducing your 2020 Buffalo Herd, Queen City Roller Derby’s team of officials!

As many of our Herd members will be spending time with family this week, we would like to take a moment to thank our Herd parents for their dedication to our team. In the last year we have welcomed two new Herd babies, both of whom have two parents each who officiate with The Herd. We are so impressed with the juggling that they, and the rest of our Herd parents and partners, do to simultaneously support their families and our league. Thank you for all being part of our chosen Herd family

Please help us wish a very happy joint birthday to Jenna Hart and Wolfram! Rene van Ee

Although it’s our off season, we are sending some well-deserved appreciation to Friend of The Herd, Queen Kicktoria, today! It’s the last day of WFTDA Champs in Montreal today, and she organized a cheering section for the Champs officials. Officials do their best not to draw attention to themselves and away from the skaters, so it’s always great when officials get the recognition they deserve for donating time to roller derby. Queenie is a 19th Warden from Rochester and has... been helping out The Herd for 5 seasons. We are so grateful for her as a ref, human, and supporter of other officials! (Queenie is holding the We Officials sign. Herd officials Heiny and Jenneral are also participating in the officials cheering section)

Queen City’s draft party was last night, and although The Herd doesn’t formally draft new officials, we were excited to celebrate several new additions to our team and to find out what skating teams some of our current members were drafted to! We are also happy to announce our 2020 head officials: Head Ref Nicky Needles and Head NSO Attorney Jenneral. Thank you to our spectacular photographer, Rene Van Ee, for always capturing great photos of our officials.

Please join us in congratulating our newest WFTDA-certified official, Warden Runa. She received level 1 certification this week; joining The Herd’s other certified official, GeogREFer, who received his level 1 certification in March of 2019. Herd NSOs, Attorney Jenneral and Santa Claws are WFTDA-recognized officials. Certification requires passing a rules test, obtaining recommendations from skaters and other officials, and a review by WFTDA. WFTDA has 4 levels of certific...ation ranging from recognized to level 3, which is the highest. Certification levels represent a standardized level of skills and knowledge that an official has. They allow a league to easily communicate the skill level of officials working in a sanctioned game to WFTDA or for an official to communicate their skill level while applying to work an out of town game or tournament. Photos by Rene Van Ee and Antie Razzi