BREAKING NEWS
June 22, 2006
Fast Girls on Wheels
Don't look now, but your receptionist is sporting a black eye
Yes, roller derby is back. A new generation of women has rehabilitated, and adapted the rowdy, raucous sport that rolled into obscurity in the 1970s. There are 30 new leagues — nearly 100 teams — competing within the two-year-old Women's Flat-Track Derby Association. About 60 more leagues are starting up across the United States.
The audiences are growing too. On this night in Austin, hundreds of fans crowd into the Playland arena at $15 a ticket to see the inter-league bout between the Derby Liberation Front and the Honky Tonk Heartbreakers, the reigning champions. The buzz over what remains a women-only phenomenon isn’t confined to Texas, the birthplace of the Roller Derby revival.
The Derby Liberation Front's league — the Rat City Rollers, which is only in its second year of competition -- recently sold out a 1,500-seat arena outside Seattle for an exhibition match. The same sense of excitement is filling skating arenas in Gotham City, the Windy City, Sin City, the Twin Cities and elsewhere. One of the roller derby's charms is its improbable blend of real athleticism with high camp.
"The draw is part sex (appeal), part sport, part freak show," says Ziv Kruger, a music lawyer in Austin who also is a volunteer photographer for the Texas league. Roller derby was created in 1932.
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Roller Derby Heads Towards The Main Stream
By: Pete Kendall, June 23, 2006 |
Everything from the nicknames to the bruising nature of the competition to the complete dominance of female participants points to a bright future for [roller derby].
Sociotimes, May 9, 2006 |
I know you've written about this. However, Roller Derby is now on the front page of a very popular internet news site. The roller derby picture/link is right next to the big North Korea picture/link [click here to see yesterday’s entry on conflict with N.K.] Right at the top of the page. Two socionomic biggies in one day on the same page at the same time! Double omen?!
--Eugene Fina
Right, it’s not news to Socio Times readers, but the article definitely expresses deepening level of enthusiasm for the sport. It goes on to explain the intricacies of the game like the positions and the key maneuvers, “jamming, whipping, blocking and bruising. Flattening players on the opposing team with a walloping body check — known as a ‘take-down’ — is not the main goal, but there are legal ways and strategic reasons for doing so.” It quotes a form stripper/Navy wife who goes by the Roller derby alias of Mommacherry and says the sport “saved my life” by helping her lose 50-pound and rescuing her from the “deadly boredom” of a “more conventional past.” The article notes that roller derby is still a long way from the front of Wheaties box, but “the sport is gaining momentum” and with her “do it yourself derby” hints, the author hints of a future in which roller derby is mainstream. As we explained in our original entry of May 3, the sport’s violent streak, birthdate, 1970s high-camp ethos and the fact that it is a “women-only phenomenon” suggest that it will, in fact, hit it big.
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