My face warm, I skate around the track, savouring the self-generated wind.

Moving from skate to quad-skate, I feel like I’m moving faster than I am, stumbling around the corners as seven other new skaters and I navigate the track set out for us.

On the last night of summer, a crisp Whitehorse evening, we roll around the Flexihall at the Canada Games Centre for the Yukon Roller Girls’ Try Derby night – the last one of the season – as the sun sinks below mountain peaks.

The hum of wheels on hardwood is punctuated occasionally by a staccato yell and a soft thud as we put our safety gear to use.

All your safety gear is on the front of your body, so try to fall that way, we’re told as we start skating. This is easier said than done in the heart-stopping moment that you find your wheels no long safely beneath you, but rolling without control into the air in an exaggerated cartoon fall.

Twenty minutes earlier, I was sitting with my back against the baseboard, learning how to put on the loaner gear, generously offered by the YRG.

My knee pads go on first, then elbow pads, helmet and wrist-guards. The skates come last – with a side of what may be dried blood on the laces – accompanied by a mouthguard.

As we sit with our equipment, I ask another skater what brought her out to try this sport.

“I was looking for something fun to do as someone new-ish to Whitehorse,” says Emily Scrivens, who recently moved to the Yukon. “I wanted to try something new and I had never done roller derby before, so why not.”

Scrivens says she wasn’t much one for sports, but has done ice skating before.

Same for Jessica Kish, who is also new to town. A weightlifter, who had competed in figure skating as a kid, she was interested in trying a contact sport. After watching the Roller Girls’ first home bout in three years against the Sea to Sky Sirens a couple weeks ago, she was interested in trying the sport.

Roller derby attracts its fair share of women who haven’t necessarily been athletic before.

“I see a lot of women who are turning up like okay, I’m not sure about playing a sport and doing athletic things,” says Freshmeat coach Felicity Brammer. “There’s a place for everybody in this ... and being empowered regardless of what body type or skill level.”

Head coach Andrea Badger says that generally a lot of their new skaters are people who have some athletic experience, are maybe new to town and are looking to get involved in an activity to meet some people.

My athletic experience spans a wide landscape of sports, but I will be the first to admit I’m no skater. Nonetheless, under coach Badger’s direction, I soon find myself gliding around the track.

Badger, who in her four years of roller derby has mastered the art of speaking normally with a mouthguard, instructs us on how to stop – knee drop, pizza, or the much-dreaded T-stop – and how to perform cross-over strides around the corner to keep up speed around the track.

Her enthusiasm for the sport is contagious. She arrived at her first Freshmeat skate four years ago with her own gear, having already skated around Millennium Trail on her newly arrived skates. With every instruction, she smiles, telling us to do what feels good for our bodies.

And her intuitive coaching works. Soon our jelly-leg steps transform into gliding strides.

Near the end of our session, we get arranged into a pace line. About an arms’ length from one another, we skate around in a line. No one is too slow or too fast, we all skate together, touching arm to back and getting used to the close-quarters that fully-fledged skaters compete in.

It takes a new skater anywhere between three to six months to make it through Freshmeat training. With the Yukon Roller Girls, they train four hours per week – three on skates – to get ready for the minimum skills test.

The test is standard across the Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby association and involves demonstrating skills required to keep skaters safe during full-contact bouts.

As we near the end of practice, Kish is low to the ground, gliding quickly around the track. She says she’s happy that she can see how much she improved from the start.

Freshmeat continues next week when skaters will join the rest of their class, who began earlier this summer.

I skate one more lap, relishing the feeling of balancing on the skates and slide to a stop near the baseboards.

As I unlace my skates, I try to think of what my derby name could be. This morning, a colleague suggested Dear Scabby. While I’m unlikely to continue with skating this time around, I feel like I’ve caught the derby bug. And, damn, Dear Scabby would look great on a T-shirt.