Roller Derby, Anyone?

Last night, Gabe and I had our first roller derby experience -- we went and saw the Rat City Rollergirls take on the Rose City Rollers in an old hangar at Magnuson Park on Lake Washington in North Seattle. Neither Gabe nor I really knew the rules, but it seemed like one of those sports that is kind of like hockey...you may not get how the game works, but there are a lot of people out there shoving each other around, so how can it not be fun watch?

For those of you not familiar with women's roller derby, apparently it was really big in the 1970s (I think) and is in the midst of a resurgence here in the U.S. Two teams are on the track at once, and there are five women from each team out there -- one "jammer" who is the sprinter of the group and whose job it is to get through the pack; one "pivot" who skates at the front of the pack to set the pace; and three "blockers" whose job it is to not let the other team's jammer through and help to clear the way for their jammer to get through. Each team scores one point for each member of the opposing team that they lap. Oh, and -- if it wasn't already obvious -- this is all done while wearing the old school roller skates, not the modern-day in-line kind. Needless to say, there are some pretty good blocks, shoves and falls to see! And, for the men in the audience, almost all of the women on the roller derby teams wear skirts that don't quite cover their rear ends, fancy undies, low-cut shirts, thigh-high stockings and garters. Quite the spectacle, to be sure! And this was made even more interesting with the "Score Whore" -- a woman who had on a skin-tight, butt-barely-covering red dress, a Farah Fawcett hairdo and big aviator sunglasses who skated around between matches with a dry-erase board to ensure all the fans were up-to-date on the score. It was great to hear normally clean-cut, mom-looking types say, "Where's the Score Whore?"

Another fun thing is that each player also has a special roller derby name -- for instance, "Jowanna Ass Kickin'," "Pris Toff," "Ann Munition" and "Carmen Getsome." The Rat City Rollergirls have a newsletter they send out, and it includes a game called "Match the Roller Derby Girl with Her Day Job," that is quite educational -- many of these women who may be "Tash-ya 'Round" on the track are cancer researchers, mortgage lenders or stay-at-home moms in their day-to-day lives. And the crowd is a neat mix of people, too -- you have the rockabilly, greaser types wearing their cuffed jeans and appropriately hip screen tees with their favorite roller derby team emblazoned on the front, to the grandma- and grandpa-types who were probably into roller derby back in the day, right on down to the typical-looking suburban family bringing the kids out for a little weekend fun. It was definitely good people watching.

Gabe and I had general admission tickets, so we either had to sit on the mats surrounding the track or on this teensy end of wooden bleachers in the beer garden where the poor general admission suckers like ourselves could try and squeeze in. We managed to score a seat after standing near the bleachers for a little bit, and Gabe was able to enjoy a couple of PBR tall boys to get the full roller derby experience. It was definitely a good time, and I'm sure Gabe and I may check it out again.