DC RollerGirls Are Awesome!

After helping put out an issue of Barrelhouse with Roller Derby-themed art, essays, poems, and fiction last summer, and having a great party with the Roller Derby girls to boot, I finally got around to seeing my first Roller Derby bout, between Scare Force One and the Cherry Blossom Bombshells this past Saturday…and…it…was…AWESOME!

The rules to Roller Derby confused me, but seeing it in action, it’s quite simple—in essence, one girl on each team (the jammer) must pass the pack to get points, and each team’s pack is trying to block the other team’s jammer from doing so.
The action was fast and furious, with my favorite (increasingly rare) hockey move, the hip check, being thunderously employed about every 10 seconds. In the end, Scare Force One was too fast. Scare Force One’s Lois Slain stood out in the jammer role, slipping through holes in the pack like a running back, while Dr. Skabs dominated the physical defensive play. Ringside Announcer Diamond Derby Dave was the right mix of informative and hilarious, and his co-announcer was funny when you could hear what he was saying.

Besides the bout itself, which included a co-ed exhibition match, the whole event stood out as a cool slice of Americana. It was almost strange to witness Roller Derby in metropolitan DC; the event seemed more appropriate for somewhere in flyover country, the weird, eccentric America that too often gets forgotten in these days of broad, unhelpful dichotomies: Red State vs. Blue State, urban vs. suburban, Wall Street vs. Main St., etc.
The halftime performances reinforced this fact—an all-women percussion band, Batala got me all pumped up like before a football game in high school, and also semi-pumped because, you know, they’re all women. The other performers were the Jim Moyers Circus Club, an impressive group of local kids doing acrobatics and juggling (some of the kids were under 10 years old!)

There were a few minor issues at the event, held at the DC Armory. There was quite a line to get in, mainly because the security checkpoint and the ticket area were scrunched into the foyer, and there’s no advantage to buying tix beforehand—you still have to wait in line to get into the venue, and the Will Call window doubles as a ticket window. And of course, there’s the absurd Ticketmaster surcharges, so you are better off just buying at the door. There was quite a line at the one beer vendor, for those wanting to imbibe, but you can’t have everything.

Pulling off an event like this takes a lot of time and effort, and kudos to the DC RollerGirls for putting on a great show! We have 4 more opportunities to see the DC Roller Girls in action!

• February 21st, 2009
• March 14th, 2009
• April 18th, 2009
• May 9th, 2009—League Championship