Roller derby is back in Vancouver with pre-season action already underway on the flat-track.

The first full-game of the Terminal City Rollergirls' pre-season runs on Saturday (January 31) when the Riot Girls take on Faster Pussycats at the Central City Arena (10240 City Parkway, Surrey).

Riot Girls jammer Tina Kuefler, aka Justine Timberskate, couldn't be more ready.

The bout is a rubber match from last season's championship match where the Riot Girls skated away with the victory. "We're calling it a 'grudge match', but it's never really that grudge-y," Kuefler said.

Kuefler was drafted into the sport in 2011 after she watched a bout as a fan and became instantly addicted. "I was like 'Oh my god, why am I not doing this?'," Kuefler said. "I've played hockey all my life, but now you get to hit people, in hockey you don't get to hit each other, so being a full-contact sport, I was like 'I have to do this.'"

"I got my skates two weeks before the tryouts, I tried out, got through Fresh Meat [the beginner derby team], and I got drafted," she explained. 

Kuefler's hockey background has been a huge asset to her skills on eight wheels. "I was definitely stronger on my skates when I started than most people who…just picked roller derby up," Kuefler said.

Roller derby has been steadily gaining in popularity over Terminal City's nine seasons, though it is still seen as a niche sport in the eyes of many, not given its full credit as the intense contact sport with demanding reflexes and strategy that it is.

"It's not just people trying to knock each other down, it's building on a whole strategy and trying to work that into the sport," Kuefler said. "It's pretty complex, trying to explain how derby works. It's not like in hockey where you have two nets and you score a goal, because at any given moment in derby, there's offense and defense happening simultaneously—you're trying to help your jammer through at the same time you're trying to stop the other jammer."

For Kuefler and everyone else who laces up a pair of skates, the level of committment and practice makes derby not just a hobby but a lifestyle.

"I still play women's hockey as well, and we practice maybe once a month for about an hour, but in roller derby we have two to three practices a week for two hours," Kuefler said. "On top of that, we do cross-training, it's a lot more intense."

While roller derby has been gaining momentum in Canada over the years, Terminal City has been ahead of the curve, forming a league within itself where players from around Metro Vancouver compete, occasionally branching out to play teams elsewhere in the province. 

Now official provincial leagues are looming and according to Kuefler, Terminal City is ready to be B.C.'s foundation, "We have just started our B-team, we are deciding on our logo, our image, everything, I'm on that team as well," she said. "There's 20 players from all four teams and some of the Fresh Meat who just went through training and just got drafted will join as well." 

The more seriously people look at the sport, the more seriously players look at themselves, and Kuefler is happy to see a departure from its old image in the '70s of flamboyant violence to be seen as more of a credible sport. "The names are still an important part of derby, everyone has their derby name, but a lot of people that are becoming more of the elite players are going by their real names now," she said.

However, Kuefler isn't ready to give up her "Justine Timberskate" persona quite yet. "I love it," she said, "I'm 'Mom' pretty much 24/7, but in derby, I get to be this cool other person, even my kids don't call me mom at derby."  

"People just see this one side of me where i'm very motherly, and caring, and all that, but then they see me on the track where I'm hitting people and rolling around on the ground, and they're like 'This is really intense and crazy'," she said. "It's nice to have those two sides."