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I’m no
Severin Von
Kusiemski,
but there is a
strange primeval
pleasure found in
the company of a woman who is capable
of beating my ass to a pulp. Last week I was watching tryouts for the Salt
City Shakers—The Salt City Derby Girls All-Star team—and I heard a
story about an unidentified Shaker, nearly banned from the Women’s Flat
Track Derby Association for hauling off and punching
some high-falutin harpy from Los Angeles square
in the face. Valkyries on wheels! Sleeve-tattooed
Vixens! Be still my heart!
Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little. Still, there’s
a lot of entertainment surrounding this sport.
In fact, compared to the snooze-fest that is a
baseball game or golf, roller derby can deceptively
appear as though it is a Russ Meyers
film shown two minutes at a time. In the early
70s, televised roller derby matches were
comparable to professional wrestling—
choreographed camp with some collateral
bruising. However, since the
sport’s revival in the early 2000s,
roller derby has been slowly but
surely gaining some overdue
respect as a legitimate sport.
A Junction City Roller Doll,
known to me only as Stryker,
defends the game rather vigorously.
“This is an actual sport,
and we are actual athletes.
We train twice a week. We’re
very competitive.” She recites
a litany of injuries, incurred or
witnessed, which is almost
(26) SaltLakeUnderGround
too gruesome for our readers. Rage N Red, of the Junction City Roller
Dolls, dislocated her kneecap all the way to the other side of her leg.
Seventy years ago, such an injury would have consigned her to a lowgrade
carnival freak show. “Any play can be your last,” Striker says.
Smack and Deck Her, a pivot who captains
the Death Dealers of the Salt City Derby Girls
league, also defends roller derby’s legitimacy, “A
lot of people think it’s still the theatrical stuff from
the seventies—throwing people over the rails or
whatever—but we’re on skates a good eight hours a
week, training. It truly is a sport.”
Derby takes place on a circuit track . Each team sends five
players out to skate—three blockers, one pivot and one jammer.
Blockers and pivots begin making their way around the track,
setting the pace for the round. Afterwards, the jammers begin
skating. The basic object of the game is for the jammers
to break through the pack, scoring one point for each opposing
team member they lap. Blockers and pivots try to
prevent this, and this is where most of those gruesome
injuries come from. At its sleekest, watching a jammer
slalom through the pack is like watching salmon deftly
evade the swinging claws of waiting grizzlies. At its
worst, it’s a stampede, a mosh pit on wheels. Typically if
one girl falls, a couple will fall down right over them.
From where I’m observing, roller derby appears as much
like a sport as any football or hockey game. Even if it were
all pratfalls and staged slaps, the game would still require
its players to skate at considerable speed, continuously for
two minutes. After a half an hour, I’m starting to become dizzy
just watching it, and
I’m sure the effect
is similar for those
actually participating,
plus all the
exhaustion and
sweat. A couple of
times, I see a blocker
quickly wheel over to
the sidelines and fish out
an asthma inhaler. Two
quick puffs, a moment
to collect herself and then
she’s back amongst the
throng.
“That’s not to say that roller derby
can’t be entertainment and sport,
because I think it can,” says Hannah