Profile
Name:
Canadian Roller Derby Assoc.
Channel Views:
2,468
Total Upload Views:
1,590
Age:
54
Joined:
Oct 17, 2009
Latest Activity:
Oct 17, 2009
Subscribers:
26
Website:
REAL Canadian Roller Derby!
About Me:
By Jane Antoniak London Free Press
Meet Robert Dancel, probably one of the most colourful hairdressers in the city. It just figures he came here from California. And, yes, he is a former Roller Derby star. If you saw the 1975 movie Rollerball, youve seen Dancel. Dancel is a native Californian, born and raised in San Francisco of a Mexican mother and a Filipino father. He began training while he was in college where he was studying to be an accountant. I wanted to travel and Roller Derby was my way, says Dancel. I like fast sports. Baseball bored me. Can you imagine being an American kid and not liking Baseball? My dad was a Giants fan but I was bored. Dancel started playing professionally in 1965, when he quit accounting to become a full time Derby slammer. In 1967, he got a call from a Canadian team in San Francisco on tour. They needed an extra player and he helped them out. Thats when he met his future wife, Caroline. She made only one professional tour, the trip to San Francisco and it changed her life. She returned to Montreal but wrote Dancel for the next six years until she joined him in San Francisco in 1973. That was after Dancel returned from Vietnam. He was drafted in January 1970 and saw seven and a half months of active fighting and another six months behind the lines as a platoon clerk. After being discharged he returned to Roller Derby. He hooked up with some stunt guys, who told him a Canadian director, Norman Jewison, was looking for some Japanese skaters for a futuristic movie. The stunt director had to hard sell Jewison on me. He told him with makeup, I could look Japanese. And he told him I had the skating ability they needed. Dancel ended up acting alongside James Caan.I kill his co-star, and then James Caan kills me, he laughs, But that was a problem because Caan couldnt skate. I told him to just put his skates on and Id let him beat me up, but he said there was no way hed fight me with skates on. So, in the end, Caan and his side kick corner me and beat me up. The end of the movie was also the end of Roller Derby for Dancel. He and Caroline decided to get married, and then Dancel pursued a teenage interest in hair cutting. Their son Gregory was born in 1983. We knew pretty well right from the start that he had Cerebral Palsy. Caroline wanted to return to Canada where she felt Gregory would receive a better education. They settled in Byron and Gregory attended Jean Vanier Catholic elementary school because of its wheelchair accessibility. He has now graduated from Thames secondary school. Dancel and his wife split about five years ago, but they both maintain care of their son. "I still think of San Francisco as home, although I call London home now."
Country:
Canada
Subscriptions
(191)
Subscribers
(26)
Channel Comments
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RosadaDelanoProfundo
(2 years ago)
Yeah! Finally someone, or some group, is trying to do something good with this. I wish I was in Canada so I could join. I love to strap on the old quads again and do the 5 strides around the banked track. Thanks for the invite. I will keep checking up on you. Best of luck to you and your efforts.
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besserderby1
(2 years ago)
Mike great job on the interview! Rich
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