Roller Derby

Roller Derby, it’s punk, it’s girl-powered, it’s generally amateur, it’s DIY, it’s retro, it’s unapologetically brutal….there’s so much to recommend it!

Played on a flat, oval track by teams of five, the Roller Derby used to be a commercially run ‘entertainment sport’, until its popularity waned in the 70s and 80s.  In the 2000s, it began to be resurrected in a DIY-ethic movement, self-organised leagues of young women recreating the sport as an amateur community with a punk culture style.

The rules are pretty straightforward.  Here’s a very dry instructional video that tells you all you need to know.  In summary, a bout goes for 30 minutes, broken into two minute jams. There are three positions on each team – one jammer, three blockers and a pivot, who plays as a blocker but can swap with the jammer. Points are scored when the jammer overtakes other players.  The job of the blockers is to stop them.

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Like Catholic schoolgirls playing hockey, no quarter is given by rollergirls and injuries are not just common but a source of pride, with some leagues even displaying their injuries as badges of honour on their websites, such as the Houston Roller Derby Injury Ward, and the Rat City Rollergirls Hall of Pain. From the common injuries like bruises and fishnet burn(!!), to black eyes and nosebleeds, all the way to broken limbs and internal bleeding, this is not a game for soft little princesses.

I mentioned the punk culture aspect.  Tattoos and fishnets abound, looking more like a Distillers concert than a sporting event, and league, team and even player names reflect the subculture attitude, punk with a sense of humour.  The Dallas, Texas league is the Assassination City Roller Derby, host the the Deadly Kennedys team. Across the US you’ll find teams like the Breakneck Betties and the Deathrow Dolls, and players with names like Princess of Wails, Semper Thighs, Hellion of Troy and Cher the Pain.  It could be as camp as WWE, but the homegrown factor makes it awesome instead.

Smog City Roller Girls

This next paragraph is wildly inaccurate, so you should ignore it and read the one after it instead

Roller Derby in Australia is growing, with quite a few leagues in NSW and QLD.  Unfortunately, it’s not so big in Victoria, there’s some regional leagues but Melbourne Roller Derby League died out, leaving the VRDL which meets irregularly.  Surely this is the kind of sport that would appeal to tough, mad Australian women, and Victoria being Australia’s home of sport this is a mystery! Until it reaches its full potential in Victoria, there’s a documentary you can watch on the ABCs iView, called Roller Derby Dolls, made in 2008 about the growth of Roller Derby in Brisbane.

Correction: VRDL’s Kitty Decapitate visited to point out that the VRDL is actually very strong, meeting for training pretty much every night of the week, playing 9 bouts a year between the three teams in the league, as well as inter-league tournaments.  Also, the VRDL won the first National Tournament, played in Adelaide earlier this year. See below for her full comment, visit the VRDL at  http://vrdl.wordpress.com/ or you can friend the VRDL on Facebook.