Roller Freaking Derby

There may come a time in your life when you'll be sitting on a backporch with some close mates, sipping a frosty beverage and laughing into the evening over the insanities you pulled in days when your jeans fit better and your credit card debt wasn't so high. You may pause to reflect while a story drones on in the background, and you'll tilt your head back in your plastic deck chair and smile contently at the stars as the hoppy goodness makes your memories sweeter and funnier than they were when they happened. And then, from the celestial ceiling above, you may catch a moving speck of light that drifts across the pallet of the night sky; and if you're lucky enough, it gets bigger and bigger as Earth's gravity coerces it closer. And if you're even luckier, this little xenomorphic lightning bug will catch on fire as it hits the atmosphere, and will plummet in fiery glory to the field behind your house. As you and your compatriots stumble through the grass to find what happened, you'll begin to detect bits of evidence that will start to reveal a story - you may find grass scorched at its tips, scraps of rock laying haphazardly around, or the beer can your buddy crushed and chucked into the field in the passion of reliving a tale.

And once you've gathered that evidence, your mind begins to formulate what might be at the end of this yellow brick road. You'll either discover an amazing explosion of flashing lights and beeping buzzers as the door of an alien space craft creaks open to reveal that aliens from another planet are actually the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, and they brought you chicken wings; OR, it's going to be a piece of really boring, smoldering space rock that you could've created yourself by leaving a muffin in the microwave for 23 minutes.

A couple weeks ago I went to the Cincinnati Rollergirls Rollerderby; specifically, The School of Hard Knox. Much like your theoretical sky light, the evidence I found along the way slowly framed the picture of what was to come. By the end, you decide if I found a space rock, or an amazing extra-terrestrial leviathan of awesome glory.

I arrived at the Cincinnati Gardens promptly at 6:15 p.m., for the first bout to begin at 7 p.m.

Space Rock Evidence Item 1: I couldn't quite remember what the Cincinnati Gardens was used for. I feel like I had seen a hockey game there, but Mighty Ducks or Cyclones was beyond what I knew. There was a chance that I had seen a Silverbacks indoor soccer game in the area, but that memory died as fast as the team did. Maybe a circus, or a convention? At any rate, the setting gave me a feeling of dilapidated, multi-use generalization that you get from finding an old roll of duct tape you're not sure is still sticky anymore.

Once inside, I waved down a buddy of mine, Danny, who I knew from high school and was the valedictorian of our graduating class, now an engineer for G&E. Let me just make this clear - I can say with near OCD certainty that he was the only valedictorian within a two-mile radius. But a decent into an off-kilter sport as an academic is exciting as the descent into a foreign cavern by me.

Space Rock Evidence Item 2: Soon after I had connected with Danny, Tina Turner leapt from around a corner as she exploded from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and started skating towards us at breakneck speed. Two thoughts crossed my mind: First, dear god let her be looking at someone behind us. Second, if she is to make us fight in a giant steel sphere and then destroy us, please let it be over with quickly. But she came to a screeching halt in the style you did to spray your little sister with snow when skiing, and sweetly asked, "you guys want a program?" Taking them hesitantly, we reached out our hands, waiting to have them bitten off by the techno cyber-chick. "Have fun," she touted, and sped off to feed Mel Gibson to the lions.

Danny and I found the entrance to the arena, and stepped in through the tunnel. Sweetly enough for us, our contact (a Jammer for the Cincinnati Rollergirls) had secured us floor seats in the area known as the "suicide seats." Now, they're very adamant that they're no longer called this, but we all know what the are. The "suicide seats" are where the players land when they get a thorough butt-whooping from an opponent, and go flying into the audience. Yeah, we get to catch the defeated. We got second-row seats on steel, fold-up chairs, with 40 minutes until game time.

Space Rock Evidence Item #3: A big banner over the arena declared "$1 PBRs until 7:30." First, "$1 anything" at any location immediately helps set the environment. You've never been offered "$1 caviar," "$1 cappuccino" or "$1 monkeys." But this just wasn't your average $1 well drink or hotdog special: these were $1 PBRs. Sure, PBR is an experience all unto itself; but $1 PBR: you're talkin' culture, baby! Danny raised a questioning eye brow towards me, and I immediately nodded with an understanding gesture. Our hands were frosty and full of PBR goodness within minutes.

We were seated along one of the ends of the track, an elliptical slalom of destruction about the length of a basketball court. Single rows of chairs lined the long end to our left, where the athletes would sit and cheer for more blood, and along the other end was a flat wall, from behind the scorekeepers calculated away in safety. In the far corner from us were the announcers, of whom I couldn't understand a single thing the entire match because either A: They had been involved in $1 PBR for the past six hours; B: Their faces were full of nachos with cheese and pork rinds found outside; C: The microphones were technology from 1974; or D: all of the above.

Beyond these walls were regular arena-style seating up either side of the long stretches of track, and in the middle were the referees and more scorekeepers, ever slowly circling on their roller skates denoting the lead jammer and fouls. You have to have guts, or be insane, to stand in the middle of this womanly whirlwind for three hours. By game time, there were over 1,200 people seated in psychotic spectatorship.

Space Rock Evidence Item #4: The announcement for the national anthem came, which more or less sounded like "murgle mck burble niner STAND UP murgle blip scratch tickle." When the crowd rose, most shakily from the PBR extravaganza, I noticed a golden retriever just hanging out on the floor to my left. The owner, looming overhead, was clearing looking around at the crowd and pointing things out to his friend; thus, this was not a seeing eye dog. I can confidently say that I've never been to an indoor sporting event where pets were allowed to just "chill." Can you image at The Masters, as Tiger begins to come down from his backswing, you heard "woof!"? First case of canine proctology club removal, I guarantee it. Oh, and the dog was wearing an American Flag scarf - "America, f* yeah!"

As our singer crooned on in America's tribute to women beating the crap out of each other, a bat quickly darted in and out of the spotlight highlighting the voice of our country. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Roller Derby is played in the Bat Cave. Again, do you think sweepers in the Olympics have to brush away winged rats as they polish the ice for the rock? No.

So lets recap before we hit game time: $1 PBRs, Tina Turner, dogs, bats, and duct tape arena. Got it? Awesome. Game on.

The lights dimmed down and the crowd began to roar, all on their feet, as laser lights and your usual arena start-up music began to thunder the stadium (sadly, it was NOT Space Jam). Each athlete (or homicidal octo-wheeled maniac), would come from behind a curtain, skate at lap, and sit at her respective bench. Names like "Sadistic Sadie," "Polly Rocket," and "Shirley Temptya" were shouted over the speakers. We apparently were behind Sadie's mother, as she literally lost. her. mind. as Sadie was introduced. Perfectly normal-looking soccer mom - except with a hidden agenda of wheeled doom.

The game began, and Danny, myself, and my boss and his family (joined shortly before gametime) watched on in anticipation at something we have never seen before. Here's the basic premise from an EXTREMELY layman's point of view, and what my fuzzy memory can handle:

Two teams of girls (I think there's about six on each team) begin to skate around the loop. After a few seconds, two other girls, one from each team, begin to skate after the pack. These two psychotic murderers are known as the jammers (and this has NOTHING to do with delicious toasty toppings). To begin the round (which is relatively short), a jammer must pass all the girls of the opposing team. Once she does that, she can score one point each time she passes the entire group again. Her teammates, while blocking the opposing jammer from passing, can push and fling her forward to get through the blockers of the other team. There are a bunch of these little rounds in each session, and the jammer can call the session over at any time by smacking her hips (which oddly looks like the "su*& it" move). They can't outright punch, kick, or headbutt each other - but full on hits with dropping the shoulder - not only allowed, but awesome.

There is a Junior Varsity game and a Varsity game, both of which are equally exciting (unlike HS soccer, which was like watching Bumblebee ball, and then the World Cup). The girls skate around in this circle at breakneck speeds trying to maneuver between each other, wearing black helmets, sparkly tu-tus, rhinestone onesies, fishnets, biker gloves, and even war face paint. Mad Max meets WWE meets Roll Bounce. Yes.

I loved every minute. You pick your heroes early, and cheer your heart out for them. Whenever a Jammer makes it through the blockers, the arena goes nuts. Every time there's a big hit, the crowd goes wild, like a fight in hockey. I kid you not: by the end of the night, three girls were carried out on backboards. One, while being paraded out by paramedics, raised the devil horns. We call that "bad - ass."

I nearly forgot to mention! Between JV and Varsity, there was a halftime performance by Cincinnati Cool. It was Roll Bounce incarnate, skating in beat and time, jumping over each other, and just trying to look smooth on roller skates. Who knew roller skating could not only be hardcore, but hip too?

My favorite part of the entire night was this one, single, glorious, kiss my @$$ moment. The Cincinnati Roller Girls were ahead by at least 60 points, and there was NO hope of the opposing team ever coming back. Before the match had started, I had picked my player on the opposing team I wanted to watch: Goblin. A woman standing about 5"10, Goblin wore a green helmet and white facepaint with her eyes and mouth blacked out. She looked scary in the program, so I assumed her level of awesomeness as a Jammer was high.

She provided the performance of a sprinter: strong and scary in the beginning, but tired out quickly. By about 3/4 through the final match, she looked like a lazy little pre-teen aimlessly skating around Castle Skateland - as a JAMMER! Sadistic Sadie, our home town girl, whizzed by again and again like a moth around a light, racking up the points faster than Michael Jordan alone on half-court. But, the problem was, Goblin was a trash talker. Even when beaten, she had a big mouth that liked to fire, especially at Sadistic Sadie as she whizzed by Goblin each time.

On one of these advantageous passes, Goblin shouted out some insult to Ms. Sadie; inaudible to the crowd, but certainly stinging to the lead Jammer. As Sadistic Sadie passed Goblin, a gleam shot through her eye, which usually signifies for most of us brilliance, or pure evil. S.S. slowed her speed to a casual drift, and allowed Goblin to catch distance. As the fatigued skater closed the gap, Sadie smiled a self-satisfied grin, lowered a shoulder, and threw her entire body weight into Goblin as she attempted to skate by. Goblin's exhausted, yet war-painted body, flew a good six feet through the air before she painfully thudded to the arena floor. The crowd went wild; and as Sadie skated on in satisfied triumph, Goblin brought her hands to her hips in pathetic loss, signifying defeat.

The Cincinnati Roller Girls compete one Saturday each month. Tickets aren't expensive, and it is an athletic and cultural event to behold. Go. See. a. match. Wherever you are in the country: look up your local team and go see a match. It's 100% real, and 130% fun. It seriously worth it = you find a hero, get committed to the match, and will really miss something if you blink. The Bengals lose, the Reds are a toss up: the Cincinnati Rollergirls will entertain, whether they rollaway in victory, or are carried out on a stretcher.