March 2024 : Skater of the Month

Stevie Nicks & Licks (Candice Hogan-Crantz)

Image Credit : Ray Funk

How long have you been roller skating? 

I've been skating since my strap-on Playskool roller skates at age 3/1984. My first ever derby practice was with Assassination City Roller Derby on October 13, 2009.

When did you first hear about roller derby? 

My first exposure to modern flat track roller derby was courtesy of MavTV back in 2007-ish. I kept catching Texie bouts whenever I'd flip over to that channel and immediately fell in love with them, and even more so when I found out that they are the founders of modern flat track roller derby soon thereafter. I kept entertaining the idea of what it would be like to be hit while on skates, but I had 0.0 desire to initiate hits on anyone. I didn't mind the idea of being hit, so I thought maybe I could be a jammer, but kept doubting myself and did not think to seriously pursue it. During this time, I was playing on three softball teams that each had one-hour games every Tues., Wed., and Thurs. nights, and had a lot of fun doing that for about four years. 

Then out of nowhere, all three teams disbanded at the end of the same season. My husband and I were once again watching another bout on MavTV, I made another comment that jamming looked fun, and he said to me, "So we know there are two leagues in the metroplex, and we all know you're a really good skater. Why don't you just go and see what happens? It's better than sitting here watching and wondering. And if you don't like it, at least you can say you tried." 

Eternally, thank you, Kevin, for encouraging me to do something that seemed really different and super challenging that I ended up falling deeply in love with so very quickly. I was never really, really good at any of the sports I played until roller derby. Derby brought out the best, strongest, and most flexible version of myself that I did not know existed until finding it. I am eternally grateful for ALL of the myriad of gifts derby has given me and still gives me to this day. And of course, thank you, TXRG!!!!

How did you come up with your derby name? 

Music and movement rule my world. My body genuinely gets painful when I sit too much, and music almost always motivates me to move. I try to move my body to music in some way at least every other day, whether it is dancing or skating. How did I end up with desk jobs the last 20+ years? Lol. Ugh. Anyhoo. I love that “Stevie” is gender neutral, and like me, is impossible to limit or define. Trying to fit me into one or any box is futile. Stevie is also my favorite name in music! I love ALL the musical Stevies: Nicks, Vaughan, Wonder, and Winwood. When it feels safe and appropriate, I enjoy being playful, especially when it comes to skater butts of all shapes and sizes. Stevie Nicks & Licks is my playful way of saying I'm gonna spank yer butt out on the track! ;-) 

I chose the year I was born as my number, because it's the same year that Stevie Nicks' all time best selling, quadruple platinum album, Bella Donna, was released. Bella Donna also features Tom Petty (my youngest son's middle name is for Tom and my grandpa Thomas) and Don Henley (I f*cking LOVE The Eagles, unlike The Dude). My oldest son's middle name is intentionally James after Robert James Smith of The Cure. I could go on and on about music and how music has saved my life time and time again.

What position(s) do you play? 

Put me in, coach! I'm ready to play! I will play any position, but the older I get, the more challenging it is to keep up my endurance for jamming. It is 100% these awful desk jobs' fault! I still love to jam, though, but I'm definitely a better blocker these days. Is there any better feeling than being in a strong wall making that jammer work? No! I also seriously enjoy playing offense for my jammer whenever possible. I will always remember how difficult it is to jam, and I want to make a jammer's job a bit easier as often as I can. However, I am short and kind of small, and thus my offense is very fast and tight. So jammers, please try to pay attention to me once it's safe because I am always thinking about you and doing whatever I can to make those very fast/tight offensive holes for you as often as possible!

What was the hardest skill for you to learn as a new derby skater? 

Without question, the hockey-stop. I was rolling on a short-forward mounted DA-45 plate (with 45° angle trucks) from 2010-2020, which made skating in general so much more fun for me with all that loopy/squirrely action. However, after discussing this skate setup with my longtime, badazz osteopathic PT during my last round of PT, he encouraged me to be kinder to my hips as I advance in age and stop spending an inordinate amount of time being so forward on my skates. After getting some right-on expert advice from Mo (shout out to Good Foot Skates!), I decided to go back to a standard mount on 16° trucks, which are still a lot of fun, and definitely not as tight/straight as 10° trucks. I say all of this because I now know that it is WAY WAY WAY easier to do a hockey-stop and all plow stops on a plate with a standard mount! That short-forward, 45° setup was making plows and hockey stops SO much more challenging to pull off, along with my bizarrely built hips.

Do you have any pre-bout rituals? 

I definitely have three pre-derby rituals for practices and bouts alike. 

1) Eat the right amount of lean and clean protein at every meal the night before and day of a practice/bout, along with ingesting plenty of trace minerals/mineral salts to maintain hydration. 

2) Perform The Big 6 MLD (manual lymphatic drainage) like it's the greatest, free gift we can give to ourselves in 10 minutes or less because it is. TB6 is one of the primary reasons why my body can still derby with little to no soreness and lots of strength (despite my health history) at the age of 43 as of Sat., March 2nd! 

3) Deep breathing exercises (must get my body and mind oxygen-rich, and keep that oxygen moving and going deep), followed by a meditation (to calm me down and focus my attention inward/we can only ever control ourselves), and affirmatively praying over everyone: officials, volunteers, fans, skaters, the snack bar people, cleaning staff, everyone. Everyone matters. 

I believe in the power of focused intention and attention. Einstein and super powerful microscopes have long since proven that everything is energy (moving at incredibly high rates of speed that make things appear solid and separate to our human eyes when they are anything but) and energy cannot be created nor destroyed; it only ever changes forms. And intention/attention/words/feelings 100% influence energy as water structure (plants, stem cells, and more) experiments have now proven several times over. Animals and traffic alone are all anyone needs to experience to know that energy is a thing. Animals sense and feel something before they hear and see it. You can feel someone's good energy when they let you over in traffic, and you can feel it when they are yelling and flipping a bird or two. Action must accompany our words (words without action are meaningless at best, detrimental lies at worst), but let us stop pretending that our feelings/thoughts/words are not powerfully creative because they are and always have been/will be.

What do you like to do outside of derby? 

I genuinely love to roller skate. Roller skating to my favorite music for and by myself is my favorite thing to do in life. I love skating with my husband, my two sons (when I can get them to the rink), and the Broadway Skateland and Forum regulars. I love doing anything or nothing at all with my family. I feel incredibly honored every single time my two black cats, Florie & Flouis (they are littermates) snuggle with me. I love being near most sentient beings, trees, nature, and water. I love being alone too. I love water skiing, paddleboarding, and swimming. I love laying in the sun and feeling it bringing me back to life. I LOVE to sleep in on the weekends! I can sleep up to 13 hours if no one intentionally wakes me up, hehehe. #hypermobilelife #pisceslife #sleephealsmostails

Do you have any advice for new derby skaters? 

I believe you must want to roller skate for yourself outside of derby in order to have a more rich and full derby experience. There is no escaping the fact that #1 foundational aspect of roller derby is roller skating. I have seen enough derby skaters quickly come and quickly go since 2009, and the top trait most of them seem to share: little to no desire to roller skate for and by themselves for the sheer pleasure of it. If you don't enjoy roller skating and don't find it fun to do by yourself and/or with friends, then you're probably going to have a more challenging derby experience than those of us who regularly roller skate for fun and pleasure. There are exceptions to this, of course, but those derby folk are not the norm/they are the exception. If you enjoy being in the derby community and don't want to leave it, but cannot find a way to fall in love with roller skating, then we sincerely appreciate your willingness to share your other gifts, talents, and capacities by becoming an invaluable, appreciated, and admired volunteer! Like all sports, derby can never have too many volunteers.