 Hi We are so happy to have you onboard on our journey to Orléans! With 3 months to World Cup we are ready to announce our training squad. As promised, we're giving you a head start, and will proceed to share our the news on social media later this evening. Our skaters will have two training weekends and The great Nordic Punch 7 and 8 March to prepare, before we roll to France in April. As a Norwegian proverb goes: We have only the time and the road (Not much margins here). We will present our squad below, and have three more treats for you:
Say hello to the training squad!In total we had 46 applicants for our five-country national team, of whom 24 have now been selected for the training squad. Congratulations to each and every one! Äbyssmälström, Roughneck Roller Derby Thank you for the tryoutsWhile the road towards World Cup takes up a lot of our time and energy, this project has from the beginning been about more than that: We want to knit the Nordics closer together and help open-gender roller derby grow. Our tryouts have been a platform not only to select a team, but to build a new Nordic roller derby culture. We thank everyone who took part, for sharing, connecting and bringing energy, joy and initiative.  We are also indebted to the officials in Gothenburg, Oslo and Copenhagen who made scrimmages possible, and those who helped us out in other ways, like skater housing and photographing! Merch newsCombine Finnish saunas, Danish hygge, Icelandic wool and Swedish sustainability with a dip in a Norwegian fjord, and add a spark of roller derby. What do you get? The Thingy sauna hat! Thanks a lot to our Instagram followers for your collaborative efforts; we asked you for merch ideas and you did not disappoint! We will have a limited number of sauna hats for sale at the Punch in Gothenburg, but there's no need to wait: Knit one yourself, or bribe a friend (we'll have stickers) to do it for you! The pattern is right around the corner.  We have a diversity of merch almost done cooking, from Thingy themed things via logo shirts and totebags to a collection revolving around a topic that has proved massively popular: Absolutely absurd Nordic proverbs). Do you prefer your derby merch fluffy and cute or hard as metal? We'll serve you either way! Thank you delegates!Did a bright red and yellow cartoon story pop up in your feed in late October? Unless you were one of the 8 people involved in the Kalmar Union initiation, you may have wondered what actually happened, and who the speech bubbles belonged to. So who are they, and where did it all begin?  Okay, we made up the Optimus Grime interaction Enter the delegates: Tee-Bag and Sturrmbart (Denmark), Roy and Tim (Sweden), Bilbo Blockins and Q Jalla (Finland), Toget (Norway) and MissTík (Iceland). They made the timeline and infrastructure, released the calls for players, coaches and management, set some ground rules (e.g. that all included countries should be represented in the selected training squad) and agreed on a dual mission: To show the Nordic potential at the World Cup and contribute to grassroot growth in open-gender derby in our countries. The delegates will stay with us, but we are about to embark on the next chapter in our journey, with a training squad about to figure out how to work as a team on and off the track. So we want to stop for 30 seconds and thank our delegates: Without your efforts we would not be here. Thank you!  Uniform sneak peakAccording to legend, the Danish flag fell down from the sky as they were working on conquering Estonia, back in 1219. Since then, most Nordic flags have followed the same template:
The Kalmar Union flag is believed to be a cross in Danish red on a Swedish yellow canvas. Obviously, the uniforms for our new five-country national team had to involve yellow and red. We decided for red as our main colour and a simplistic Nordic design. And how do we make decisions in the North? Through democracy, of course!  Close race between pure red and side panels! We then turned to providers: Experiences were exchanged (is it good or bad if a jersey 'can stretch from the jammer line to the pivotline'?) and wishes were checked against reality (could they deliver by the Punch?) with a hand-picked selection of possible providers. We are happy to announce Cloud Seven Clothing as our official jersey provider! Come to Gothenburg in March to see them, or wait for the bout photos. Here's a little sneak peak:  Cuteness overload! How can you say no to anyone wearing this? Our training squad will be able to hand in their order tomorrow. Not in the squad? We are working on an exclusive chance for you to get your hands on a jersey. Stay tuned! Well done reading this far! We'll leave you with this gem of what it looks like when we offer our goofy bunch to try on Oslo's Cloud Seven jerseys for size. 
 Kalmar Union is the Nordic open-gender roller derby national team. We're here to strengthen the sport across borders and inspire future generations of Nordic roller derby by competing under the same banner at the World Cup! You are receiving this email because subscribed to our newsletter. We value your privacy and will never share your contact info with with third parties without consent. You can update your profile or unsubscribe here. © Kalmar Union (kalmarunionrd@gmail.com) |
