The Calgary Roller Derby Association! We

Roller Derby Roots
Some of the greatest things in the world started as a scribble on the back of a napkin,
and roller derby is no exception. In 1932, Leo Seltzer was sitting at a bar in Chicago
when he was struck with the idea of adapting then-popular six-day bicycle races in to a
sport that paired co-ed couples in a marathon roller-skating race on a track that covered
the distance between New York and Los Angeles. As he scribbled his thoughts out on
the table-cloth, his transcontinental derby race was born. Twenty-five couples began
this 3,000 mile race at the Chicago Colliseum, but only nine of them finished.
Though this is not the first roller skating derby, meaning race or multi-race event, that
happened, it is where the rules of today’s roller derby got their roots.
While watching the marathon race that he had created, Seltzer realized that the most
exciting moments of the derby were the collisions between skaters. This prompted him
to adjust the rules of the game in to a full-contact sport between two teams of five on a
smaller track. And the fans loved it.
Since the height of its popularity in the 1950’s-through-70’s, roller derby has
experienced many attempted revivals and bouts of popularity. Though largely
unsuccessful, these attempts at revival kept the spirit of the game alive and have led to
a large uprising of all-female grassroots leagues throughout North America.
In 2000, a Texas musician named Daniel Eduardo “Devil Dan” Policarpo recruited
women to skate in a roller derby game that he envisioned as a raucous, rough and
circus-like game. After only one organization meeting and a disputed fundraiser,
Policarpo’s spectacle fell apart. The women, however, self-organized as Bad Girl Good
Woman Productions in 2001 and created the new generation of roller derby, one which
was open to women only. This group went on to form both the first flat-track league
(The Texas Rollergirls) and the first banked-track league (TXRD Lonestar Rollergirls). This
revival of roller derby led to the creation of over 135 similar all-female leagues by
August of 2006.
Leagues outside of the U.S. also began forming. In Canada, the first all-female league of
fifty members was the Terminal City Rollergirls of Vancouver, formed in January of 2006.