Hell on Wheels: The Sassy, Rough
& Tumble World of Roller Derby!
By Mary Elizabeth Fratini
and Margaret Michniewicz
“I knew roller derby was going to be the perfect sport for me,” grins 37-year old mother of two Tara “Queen Defeat-Yah” Pfeiffer-Norrell of Burlington. “Fast, fishnets, skirts… and badass.”
Start with one part punk attitude. Add three parts feminist empowerment (post Riot Grrrls, post third wave, and just generally post). Sprinkle with a dash of physical danger. And top with stockings (preferably fishnets) and hot pants. That’s one recipe for the current roller derby revival that’s been spreading slowly but stealthily across the U.S. over the last 10 years.
The sport is quintessentially American – equal parts entertainment, rough-and-tumble physicality, and hard-core competition. It arrived in Vermont in 2007 with the formation of the Green Mountain Derby Dames (GMDD), but is inching its way south and east across the state. While GMDD remains the only team in the state affiliated with the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), they’ve recently been joined by at least two other crews this year: the Burlington Bombers and the Barre-Montpelier Twin City Riot.
“I got sucked into it by word of mouth,” says Twin City Riot’s “Elle’s Bells” (who, with her Twin City Riot teammates, requested to be interviewed “in character”). “I stayed because it’s very competitive. And you get to hit – which I didn’t get to do when I was a kid, and I really wanted to.”
Tradition and Reinvention
Derby roots have been traced as far back as the late 19th century, when roller skaters competed in endurance races. The term “roller derby” first cropped up in 1922. But for many fans today, the current rage seems more like a revival from televised bouts in the late 1980s known as RollerGames. Those of us with fond (or perhaps guilty) childhood memories of the broadcasts are actually remembering something slightly different than today’s competitions: RollerGames was a theatrical rather than athletic interpretation of the sport created by television producers.
Today’s roller derbies are aggressively physical – and intended to be watched live. Two teams of five players skate simultaneously around a flat circuit track. Each team consists of one jammer, three blockers, and one pivot (who starts as a blocker and can become a jammer mid-play depending on strategy and circumstances). Points are awarded each time a jammer laps the opposing team during a jam, which can last up to two minutes. Blockers can impede the jammers’ progress but legal blocks must hit between the knee and neck. Throwing elbows is prohibited.
The current local incarnations haven’t abandoned the sport’s colorful history, but do seem to draw a wider demographic this time around. The recruitment call for Central Vermont Roller Derby, home of Twin City Riot, for example, reads, “We are women who are 21+ willing to give b!tches stitches, hit hard, and help the community. We are Moms, grandmothers, hard workers, athletes, and educated women. We have fun, skate hard, and enjoy each other’s company. We respect women of all shapes, sizes, and lifestyles. We are Central Vermont’s Roller Derby Team.”
As Twin City Riot co-founder Livid Loquita, noted, “I love having women around like these. They are educated, intelligent, and powerful business owners and professionals, and this sport allows for some creativity beyond what might generally be expected if you are working for a bank, or the state of Vermont, or an insurance company. There’s a certain stigma you can break through.”
The names might be the obvious place to start with the stigma breaking, and they remain perhaps the signature element of derby (beyond the skating). Usually they’re characterized by satirical, anti-authority, and sometimes raunchy wordplay on pop culture references. Skaters are encouraged to register new ones to ensure they are competing under a unique alias.
The second place to look is the outfits, which may or may not match the names but always add fun and flavor to practices and competitions. Yankee practicality still reigns, though – fishnets are less common than expected during actual competitions, according to Loquita, because they are just about guaranteed to give nasty “fishnet floor burns.”
Derby skates are old-school style – meaning four square rather than in-line wheels – and other required equipment includes helmet, wrist guards, and knee and elbow pads. An all-inclusive rookie package runs about $250, but upgrades can be more than three times that price. And, as Loquita notes, “you will grow out of the rookie package, because you will love it.”
Rules of the Game
Safety concerns extend beyond the stockings and skin, however, and local leagues and the WFTDA work hard to minimize serious injury. In addition to the required protective gear, the WFTDA requires skaters to pass two levels of assessment. (With a “by skaters, for skaters” philosophy, the WFTDA remains the largest of the sport’s three organizational bodies, and sets guidelines for safety and competition which many roller derby crews – affiliated and independent – follow.)
In keeping with the community ethos of the sport, skaters assess one another. Level One includes stopping, starting, positioning, and speed trials, as well as demonstrated ability to fall safely. Level Two assesses hitting abilities – taking and receiving legal hits safely. Passing both levels is one of the minimum requirements to be considered an apprentice league to the WFTDA; the Twin City skaters passed the first last month and are aiming for the second before spring.
Minimizing risk does not mean eliminating it, however, which is one reason Twin City limits its membership to adults over 21. “There is risk involved in roller derby that you have to accept,” Loquita noted. She took a hit earlier this year that caused a nasty fall – “in my first rookie game,” she lamented. Her dislocated ankle and broken fibula kept her off skates altogether for four months.
Barre’s Future Bouts
For now, Twin City Riot is focusing on improving basic skills, adding hits and falls, and recruiting new members. The crew is having difficulty, however, finding appropriate, convenient, and affordable local practice space. For now, they gather every Sunday night at the Montpelier Recreation Center on Barre Street from 7 to 9 p.m. for an open skate. But their pads can mark gymnasium floors, noted Quad Shot – one of Twin City’s jammers – “so we can’t practice some mandatory assessment moves, like the knee drop,” she noted.
On a recent cold November evening, that meant the women spent the evening warming up and learning defensive strategies to prevent a jammer from making a move up the inside. It wasn’t quite the “whip-it” Ellen Page made famous (at least to a small indy crowd) in the recent flick of the same name (see sidebar), but their progress was steady and their spirit undimmed. “What’s wrong with you all tonight?” Loquita yelled from the center. “Move, move, move! Don’t lose speed on the corners, gain it!”
Vermont Woman Assistant Editor Mary Fratini is a freelance writer living in Barre.
(Trying) to Keep Up with the Derby Dames…!
By Margaret Michniewicz
Vermont Woman visited on a recent autumn night with several of the Green Mountain Derby Dames (GMDD) at their home in the Exposition Center at the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds, managing to pry them away from the action. The Derby Dames have skate practices three times a week, and the enthusiasm they exude is infectious even during a non-bout night.
Najat “Terminate Her” Croll hails from Ripton, Vermont and is in her final year at Johnson State College, where she is working on a degree in Studio Arts. She is relatively new to the GMDDs, having just begun skating with them this past June and working to earn a slot on the roster for the 2011 season.
“It’s so empowering!” she exclaims breathlessly, skating to an abrupt halt to chat with us. “You get a great workout, even if it is 10 o’clock at night. I love the girls, and having a different name… [it’s like having] a different identity from student life.”
On this night, she explains, they are working on exercises for building strength and skating endurance. Elaborating on what she finds empowering, Croll animatedly describes the enjoyment she has found in working with other women: “It’s nice to work hand in hand getting a goal accomplished,” she smiles.
In her capacity as a television news photographer for WCAX, Robynn “Annie Cockledoux” Beams works to bring Vermonters a picture of our daily world here in the Green Mountain State. As GMDD spokesperson (and, as of June, president), the Jericho native and Lyndon State College grad does a highly effective job of portraying in enthusiastic words the action-packed life & fast times of a roller derby skater. It’s hard to imagine, as she claims, that she was initially skeptical; it seemed “trendy”, she admits with a grin.
Beams grew up playing ice hockey, and in college took up rugby. She recalls finally being convinced of roller derby’s appeal: “My best friend Meredith (aka Tofu Torture) brought me to see it in action. I was completely intimidated at first – [the women] seemed so cool!”
The intimidation didn’t last long, apparently, and Beams animatedly describes the “blur” it’s all been since. “I made 25 to 30 new best friends when I joined!”
She continues, “We had our first official bout in February of 2009, and it sold out, our first one! I could not believe it… it was electric!”
The Derby Dames have now completed three seasons, and in those two years the crowds have swelled from 500 to upwards of 1800 for most bouts. Beams says that, unsurprisingly, the summer months in Vermont have seen a drop in attendance, so they have made the astute business decision to adjust their schedule so that they hold home bouts as much as possible during February, March, and April – and then travel to out of state bouts during the warmer months. (GMDD is a skater-owned and operated club).
The Derby Dames traveled to Montreal to participate in their first tournament this past April. “Montreal is a fantastic league,” says Beams, adding with a satisfied smile, “We were the only U.S. team, and we placed fifth out of 16.”
About women who participate in roller derby, Beams says, “ninety percent will tell you it becomes a way of life quickly.” Nor will they be deterred, it would seem, by the risk of injury, most of which involve tendon and lots of ankle or leg injuries, she reports; she has seen worse, however: “Broken legs, jaws, ribs,” she blithely replies.
The GMDDs are comprised of 22-year olds such as Terminate Her, to women well into their 40s, Beams says. They include college students, an IBM engineer, an employee of the Vermont State College system, an environmentalist, and hairdresser, she adds. It’s a commitment of time and travel they embrace (team rules require attendance of two-thirds minimum practices, held three times a week, and work on committees).
“We’re all so different,” Beams says, but their common bond is love of the sport. “It’s so infectious!”
And empowering. “Knowing you can come and live outside the box of what a woman is supposed to be,” she explains. “You can be strong, skate fast, hit hard… be smelly, and look like hell – but love it anyway! There’s not a lot of things you can do that are that.
“You hurt – but you don’t know it ‘cause you’re still having fun. And the feeling during a bout… people who don’t even know you screaming for you. The crowds [we draw] are great: on one side of the track you might have the Vermont Ice Storm [football players] and on the other, the House of LeMay drag sisters; moms with a baby and a few seats down someone with a walker; conservatives and liberals! Some fans even travel with us!”
An important element of the GMDD mission statement is “to be a positive force in the community,” Beams notes, explaining that 10 percent of each bout’s revenues are donated to a non-profit organization (a different charity per bout). “We’re an amateur sports team, and it’s pretty amazing: we’ve raised twenty-two thousand dollars for local charities,” Beams reports.
By day, she’s a 30-year old electrical engineer. Kristin “Star Slayer” Ackerson of Mallets Bay has been a Derby Dame since March 2008, and serves on the GMDD Board of Directors.
“My parents come to every game and are my biggest fans,” she says. “My boyfriend has coached a couple games, my cousin ‘Breaker’ played alongside me on the A-team in 2009-2010, and my younger cousin and Breaker's sister, Sarah, just joined the team this fall. Roller derby is becoming quite the family sport!”
Ackerson was drawn in to roller derby, she explains, by “The intensity of a full contact sport for women that also highlights the femininity and creativity of its players.
“The diversity of the group is amazing, and I love watching people become part of the derby family as they open up and their self-confidence blossoms. We also have the most amazing fans in all of derby and our crowd is just as diverse as the girls who play.”
Star Slayer relates her favorite moment: “An opposing blocker linked my arm, bringing me down on my head, and partially knocking me out. The crowd was silent as the EMT's (and my mother) rushed to my side after I collapsed trying to instinctively get up and keep skating.
“It was only a partial blackout and I was fine; so after I sat out the required three jams, I came back in to score a triple grand slam (that means passing everyone in the field, including the other team’s jammer three times). Every time I went around I'd fist bump the crowd and they were just going crazy while the GMDD blockers dominated the pack at the same time.
“It was the total contrast of the complete silence when there is an injury – to the absolute roar our crowd can produce, helping to pump up the adrenaline and get you skating even faster or hitting harder!”
“Atomic Muffin” is 42-year old Richmond hairdresser Mary Katherine Dow. She has been with the Derby Dames since 2007.
“I was going through a divorce and needed to channel my anger,” she recalls. “I was invited by a friend to attend an open practice – while eating a creampuff at a friend’s baby shower. The derby appeal is all about having a forum to let myself go – to become someone else and drop the civilized trappings of my normal, day-to-day life.
She adds mischievously: “My favorite derby moment was when Semi-Precious of the Toronto Slaughter Daughters screamed at me on-track for touching her with my (gasp!) hand – and I responded by patting her on the behind, saying innocently, ‘What? Don't touch you? You mean like this? (tap-tap-tap!) Boy was her blood boiling. She laid me out for the next 40 minutes. But it was worth the look on her face when she turned to the ref and he said, ‘it's not a penalty, you’re still skating!’
“Ha!!”
Margaret Michniewicz is editor of Vermont Woman.
|
