It hurts to play rough. But, for an interesting group of Evansville women, this is something to live for. The ability to slap on a pair of skates and blast around a skate rink is just one of the many perks of participating in the Tri-state's first roller derby league.
Roughly three months ago, veteran derby skater Molly Hartshorn decided to bring Roller Derby to the Tri-state area, after falling in love with the sport while attending college in Massachusetts.
Along with co-founder Josh Pugh, she founded the Demolition City Roller Derby League, the first ever amateur, flat-track, roller derby league to invade the tri-state.
"To our knowledge, there's never been a roller derby league in this area," Pugh said.
This competitive sport has been growing since the 1930s. With the start of the Demolition City league, Evansville has joined in on the biggest roller derby revival since the 1970's, with over 170 amateur leagues in the United States.
In a nutshell, this is a full contact, high adrenaline, all female, roller-romp around a skating rink. Gone are the ideas of old, where giddy children would spend hours at a skate rink dancing with each other. These women don't play nice.
"The game is played with three 20-minute periods," Pugh said.
As two teams of five skaters take the floor, the stage is set for battle. Rotating around a skate rink in hopes of scoring points, three of the skaters per team are known as blockers. They try to block jammers, often roughly, in hopes of allowing their own jammers to score points.
"The jammers lead the pack," Pugh said.
"When a round starts, the blockers form a pack behind a 'pivot,' who sets the pace of the game."
This pack is a force to be reckoned with. Once all the skaters get in formation, with the jammers roughly twenty feet behind the blockers, the round starts.
Things start to heat up when the referee blows his whistle to start a jam. Once a jam is started, the jammers have two minutes to try and score points.
"The only person who can score points is a jammer. They skate around the track as fast as they can, as many times as they can without getting knocked on their tails," Pugh said.
"The lead jammer can, at any time, put her hands on her hips to call off the jam, if for example this jammer's team is way ahead."
Among nine USI students on the team, fellow students Ashlee McCann and Jennifer Goff joined sides with this new-to-the-area activity in hopes of busting a few moves in the rink.
"I have met so many awesome women over the Midwest. We may be harsh on the rink, but we can all party together after a bout," says McCann.
It's not all about knocking people down on roller-skates however. This growing community of skaters is looking to make friends, and grow to be a respected sporting group in the area.
What sets the girls of the Demolition City Roller Derby League apart from the rest?
"Rough and tumble appeals to me. It's symbolic of life. You take your knocks and you get back up because if you sit there, chances are you'll get run over," says USI senior Jennifer Goff.
"Although it can be rough, they wear full pads and guards and are trained to be able to handle the hits," Pugh said.
Both Goff and McCann are very enthusiastic about participating on the team. After all, if your not in it for the love of the game, then you just like getting beat up.
With the league is in its infancy, the women are actively looking for new members. Men and women over the age of 18 are welcome to try-out. Men can try out to be referees, while women can try out to be team members. Currently, the league has about 20 team members and four referees.
To try out, newbies are welcome to attend either their Wednesday practices at Skateworld on Fairfield Drive, from 6:30-8:30 during open skate. which are open to the general public, or Sundays between 12-2pm to catch the private practice.
"You don't have to have any experience to do this. In fact, probably 80 percent of our league could not skate when they started and now they're out there tearing it up," Pugh said.
"Wednesday practice is an open skate and you get people watching you. We are, after all, an anomaly. The only ones out there in knee pads and doing formations," said Goff.
For more information, visit www.myspace.com/demolitioncity or E-mail demolitioncity@gmail.com.
Be the first to comment on this article!