Not so long ago, women’s roller derby skated on the fringe, its matches relegated to warehouses, its fans following along with cultish fervor.
Although the sport still skates the thin line between legit competition and trashy entertainment, derby is making its second big swing back into the mainstream.
Since its last rise during the Great Depression, girl skaters bearing naughty noms de guerre and decked out in saucy gear have built a booming national association of leagues and have brought their black eyes and floor-burned forearms to the mass market.
Derby is officially rockin’ the Rockies this weekend, as the Drew Barrymore-directed derby film “Whip It” hits Colorado theaters, and Derby on the Rocks, a regional playoff tournament, continues in Denver.
“Everybody knows somebody who plays roller derby,” said Portia Hensley, a.k.a. “Frida Beater,” co-captain of the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls’ all-star team competing this weekend at Derby on the Rocks. “It’s exciting for the sport, and it adds another level of competition for us players.”
Colorado has five Women’s Flat Track Derby Association-sanctioned leagues battling for dominance on the track, three of which are represented in this weekend’s tourney.
How is it played? Here’s the gist: Each team has five skaters, one of whom — the jammer — scores points. The teams play two 30-minute periods, each split into a series of jams, which are races for points. The blockers start in a pack ahead of each team’s jammer, whose job it is to lace through the pack and score points by legally passing the other team’s blockers.
Lite-Brite and physical
This type of derby is played on a flat track, rather than a banked one, and the athletes wear helmets, pads and uniforms — accented in some cases by body piercings, half-sleeve tattoos and Lite-Brite hair colors.
All players have their sassy derby names sewn on the back of their jerseys, a constant reminder that this is no sewing circle. The sport, like hockey, is built on contact — something its fans crave. But the rules are strict, and it’s not uncommon to see glossed-but- swollen lips filling the penalty box.
But is derby a trend about fashion or feminism? Or is it just a part of our growing extreme-sports mentality? Judging from the skaters’ profile pictures on the league websites, spotlighting black eyes and blood-spurting noses, it’s probably a bit of all three.
“We worked really, really hard to get here,” said Tracy “Disco” Akers, a skater on the Denver Roller Dolls’ Mile High Club team, which is competing this weekend. “Last season, we played a lot of big hitters and we were learning. But now we’re ranked second in the region, and we’re on a 7-1 streak. The only game we lost was to (top-ranked) Olympia, and we only lost by a couple of points.”
Akers will lead her No. 2-ranked Dolls against Hensley’s No. 8-rated Rollergirls and eight other teams at this weekend’s Derby on the Rocks, the 2009 Western Regional WFTDA tournament that started Friday.
The two Denver teams are co-hosting the tourney, which also featured the seventh-ranked Pikes Peak Derby Dames from Colorado Springs, which was bounced from the competition Friday afternoon. The other participating teams are from Portland, Ore.; Olympia, Wash.; Seattle; Oakland, Calif.; Albuquerque; Tucson; and Los Angeles.
Events roll out in tandem
The tourney continues today — synergistic timing, given the opening of “Whip It,” the derby-themed film starring Ellen Page. Critics have lovingly called it “Juno on Skates” — Page played the title role in 2007’s “Juno” — but it’s also getting a lot of attention as Barrymore’s directorial debut.
“It’s about bank-track derby, and it’s really a very cute movie,” said P.J. Shields, a.k.a. “Dangerous Leigh A’zon,” a B-team skater with the Rollergirls and spokeswoman for Derby on the Rocks.
“The archetypes are all there, so you can look at the characters and say, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s so and so, and that’s so and so.’ Like all sports movies, some of the sport is exaggerated. But we’re excited for the movie,” she said. “And we understand Drew Barrymore did her own stunts, and anybody who’s had their bell rung in derby feels her pain.”
With younger local leagues in Greeley (Slaughterhouse Derby Girls, a nod to the city’s packing plant heritage) and Fort Collins (FoCo Girls Gone Derby) and other non-sanctioned outfits in Castle Rock (Castle Rock ‘n’ Rollers) and Pueblo (Pueblo Derby Devil Dollz) finding their feet, derby is making a very real bid for sports-crazy Colorado’s attention.
And with Barrymore’s help, they just might get it.
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com
Derby on the Rocks
Western regional tournament of women’s roller derby. Bladium Sports Club, 2400 Central Park Blvd., in Stapleton. Today. 2 p.m. to midnight. Sunday. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. $20-$25/day. Schedules and ticketing: . Bladium contact: 303-320-3033
