- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 13
-
Sparkle (0)
January marks the start of the most wonderful season of the year, roller derby season. Like many lesbians, oh how I do love roller derby. My mind drifts off into a dream of blazing fast jammers, slamming blockers, wipe outs, and pile ups just thinking about it. Roller derby is an intoxicating mix of speed and agility, power and endurance, strategy and cunning, and balance and shear determination. And too, it's maybe just a smidgen watching hot chicks in short skirts and fishnets stockings go all out, skate fast, knock each other down, and risk life and limb to win a jam. There's just nothing quite like a modern day derby bout.
I remember seeing roller derby on television when I was a kid, back in the '70's. At the time, I didn't find it all that interesting as a sport. It seemed hokey and staged, and it was pretty theatrical, like professional wrestling is today. In large part, I didn't know or understand the rules, or how to score. So, mostly I just didn't get it. Still, though not a fan, as a young budding female athlete with limited sports options available in my future, during a time when the only televised female sporting events were tennis and figure skating, there was something empowering about seeing those bad ass women of roller derby engage in a physical contact sport on television.
Eventually, derby disappeared from television, and it became a vague memory. I never thought about it again until I caught the A&E show Rollergirls, in January of 2006. Though the show did feature highlights of the bouts in each episode, it was really about the women, their relationships to one another, and how derby became a part of and changed their lives. I was fascinated by the idea that the women owned and operated the league. They did it all. They formed and govern the league. They run the teams. They do the marketing and promotion. They set up and run the bouts. They do it all. I was immediately hooked. This was something I knew I had to support. I became a fan of the sport. All I needed was a team.
The following year, Naptown Rollergirls (NRG), a Women's Flat Track Derby Association league formed in a town about an hour away from us. NRG's one team was an instant success. Every bout sells out. The merchandise line is always long. Fans arrive early to tailgate, and to get in the head of the line to get a much coveted suicide seat (Suicide seats are on the floor, along the edge of the outer track. If you position yourself in a turn, you just might end up with a rollergirl, or maybe a ref, in your lap. Or slamming into you as they go flying off the track. Either way, it's all good.). Now in their third season, NRG has added a second team. I am, along with several thousand others, a proud NGR fan. And I've got the t-shirts, seat cousins, bout posters, and helmet sticker (which I put on my hockey helmet), to prove it.
Roller derby fans are an interesting and eclectic crowd of people. The derby draws young and old, and people from all walks of life. At one of the last bouts we attended, we sat by a girl, maybe 10 years old, and her dad. She was so excited to be there, and she had the best time. I remember thinking what a cool, positive, female power kind of experience for young girl to have. When we have kids we'll definitely be taking them to roller derby. Thinking a long these lines, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that there are so many lesbians who are fans. Yet, I still am sometimes shocked by the noticeably large lesbian fan base.
When I think about it, it makes sense for there to be such a large lesbian following. After all, I'm a lesbian, and I love it. Betty Please loves it. I'm sure most every other red blooded lesbian likes it for the same reasons we do. It's a fast paced hard hitting girl on girl sport. The
