Down And Derby

My wife and I watched the film Whip It the other night together. Whip It, if you've never seen it, is a movie that features roller derby; a sport that was popular in the seventies, then fell out of favor, but has recently experienced a surge in its popularity. We enjoyed the movie, so when I saw free tickets to a roller derby event sitting on the counter at work, I snatched them. Watching the Midnight Terror versus the Devil Dollz seemed like it might make a fun night out.


While it was fun seeing these women skate around in circles trying to knock each other's wheels off, watching roller derby to me is like watching a rugby or cricket match. It's just incomprehensible. They handed out a rule sheet with the program, which helped a little, but seeing it happen left me with a lot of questions that the rule sheet didn't really address.

Despite the difficulty of learning the new sport, we still had a great time. Roller derby does its best to make it interesting in lots of ways too, from the goofy fishnet stockings and short shorts that the players wear to the crazy nicknames that they use like "Skull Candi," "Skatey Gaga," and "Black & Deckher." It was an interesting crowd at the event, so there was a lot to look at, and we even rode the elevator down to the parking garage with the father of one of the players, which, of course, isn't really saying that much since they're all local women. It's like saying we got the autograph of the kid who scored the winning goal at the local rec league game. But still, I thought it was cool.