With Liberty and Justice to Brawl – The DC Rollergirls
I remember as a kid watching TV on Sunday mornings before church, waiting for my favorite program, The Lone Ranger to start at 11:30. Before it came on, I would scan the channels and being a Sunday, the choices were limited - religous programming, wrestling (fake and theatrical), Meet the Press (perhaps just as theatrical), and roller derby. The derby always won.
The history of roller derby dates back to 1935, when Leo Seltzer, a promoter who combined aspects of dance marathons, indoor walk-a-thons and the latest craze - roller skating; into a new form of sports entertainment.
The first Transcontinental Roller Derby consisted of twenty-five 2-person teams who were required to skate around the indoor track at the Chicago Coliseum for 11½ hours-a-day, until they completed the required 3000 miles - the distance between LA and New York. Eleven days later, only nine teams finished.
Seltzer took his new sensation on the road to 50 cities and it quickly grew in popularity. One aspect of the derby that seemed to be the most exciting were the collisions between skaters when one tried to pass or lap another.
Realizing that this aspect could be exploited, Seltzer developed rules to establish a team competition with five-person teams where points were scored when one skater from one team laps or passes a member the other team. Today, that basic concept is still the premise of roller derby.
A 6-team league was quickly formed, including a DC-based team, the Washington Jets and the sport hit the television airwaves in 1950. Roller derby’s popularity grew over the years and the league expanded, peaking in the early 1970s. Venues included Madison Square Garden, the Oakland Coliseum and Comiskey Park in Chicago, where derby’s highest paid attendance for a single match occurred when over 50,000 people attended.
With the popularity high, even Raquel Welsh started a movie in 1972 called the Kansas City Bomber, where she played a rough-and-tumble roller girl.
Fast forward 35 years and enter the DC Rollergirls, the new, all-woman amateur DC-based roller derby league. The league consists of four teams - the DC DemonCats, Scare Force One, Secretaries of Hate and the Cherry Blossom Bombshells.
With names such as Condeleeza Slice, Madeleine Allfight and Beltway Betty, you know these skaters are all business. And speaking of business - their backgrounds are just as varied - one skater is a a pastry chef, another is a journalist, there’s also a school teacher.
The rules are fairly simple, a bout consists of two teams or 15 skaters competing against each other in a series of 2-minute plays called “jams“. Each team designates four players as “blockers” and one as a “jammer”. The jammer must try to breakthrough the other team’s blockers who remain in a pack. If the jammer can pass any of the opposing blockers, they earn one point for each blocker they pass. Blockers are allowed to use hockey-like body checks, but not elbows, to try to stop the jammers from passing. One of the most exciting moves is called a “whip” where a jammer trails behind one of the blockers and grabbing their hand, is whipped forward to increase their momentum and speed. A roller derby game is three 20-minute periods.
The next Rollergirls match pits the Cherry Blossom Bombshells against the Scare Force One. Then matches are played about once monthly. Upcoming bouts are June 30, July 21, Aug. 25, and Sept. 22, with the Championship Bout on October 20th at a location to be determined.
DC Rollergirls Roller Derby
Dulles Sportsplex
21610 Atlantic Blvd. – about 2 miles north of Dulles Airport, just off Route 28
Sterling, VA 20166
Date and Time - April 21st, 5:00 p.m. - doors open at 4:00.
Tickets - $12.00 and are available online.
Nearest Metro Subway Station - If taking Metro, plan on taking the subway to West Falls Church, then the bus to Dulles Airport, then take a cab the rest of the way.
Photo credits: Kansas City Bomber photo - Helena Kallianiotes & Raquel Welch 1972 MGM, 1972, courtesy of MPTV.net, Beltway Betty - Melissa Cannorozzi, DC Rollergirls by James Calder Photography.
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2 Comments
DCRG all rock my socks off.
The EXPO bout was excellent!
You roller girls will never be as great as the classic gals of yesteryear! Pure and simple. Those gals, i.e. Joan Weston, Judi Sowinski, Sally Vega, Loretta Behrens, Midge “Toughie” Brashaun, Judy Arnold, Shirley Hardman, Terri Lynch, Gerry Murray, et al. were great skaters. You can look them up on You Tube if you want to see examples of great female skaters. They knew how to entertain. And SKATE. All you girls know how to do is titillate your fans with your colorful skimpy outfits. I won’t even call them uniforms. Those are some of the reasons your roller derby comes across as lame and fake. Besdes, if they were to put you girls on the banked track you’d probably be falling all over each other, and spend most of your time on your butts. If you really want to be great roller derby skaters you’ll do everything to convince your manager/owners to get you into the REAL Roller Derby!!!! And on a banked track…….and in real uniforms!!!!