Roller Derby

Is anyone out there old enough to remember watching the women's roller derby on TV? As I remember it, I watch a black and white TV with a tangle of women throwing elbows and skating like the wind. Their ponytails sailed behind them as the raced around the ring. They all had "battle names" - like Bomber Betty, Rowdy Renae, Tough as Nails Tina, etc. They would skate round and round all the while giving each other a hip bump to get through traffic or assisting their team mate to get through by giving her a slingshot type of assist. The matches were pretty exciting. As I remember them now, those matches sort of remind me of the men's professional wrestling - but for women. I'm not sure they were scripted but they certainly put a lot of flash and drama into the matches to ensure an exciting finish.

Some folks are attempting to revive the old roller derby. There are a few teams around here that have regular matches. I think there was an article in the paper or something. When Doug and I talked about it he mentioned that he would like to go sometime. Really? That doesn't seem like Doug but we both agreed that it we might like to go sometime. That thought sat in our brains and faded until a short time ago.

I get emails from Groupon - a site that sets up local discounts. They offer great deals (like 56% off regular price) at restaurants, rock climbing walls, spas, mani and pedi establishments, etc. A certain number of people must sign up for the offer before it will actually be valid. They call that their "tipping point". I usually just delete most of the offers. But then one came in about the Roller Derby. A race at the old Colosseum on March 20th. "Hey, half price tickets," I thought. "Lets go!" So we did.

Our group included Doug, Scott, Isaac, my mom, a guest staying with us - Sylvia, and me. We headed down to the arena and followed directions to turn in our Groupon for an actual ticket for the event. So I stood in line with about 2,000 other people. Am I crazy or what? I guess if I am - then so are the other 2,000 people in line.

They were not equipped to handle the number of "fans" who showed up. One window was handling the Groupon crowd. And I mean CROWD! And actually when I got up near the window I discovered that two very long lines were merged into the one window. Sheesh! We stood in line for well over an hour. The event started before we had moved very far at all. Then we heard that they had stopped the match because they realized that all these people outside would be really upset if they paid, stood in line for tickets, and then went inside and didn't get to see anything. But while the line-waiting was going on it appears that Doug and Isaac were doing a little socializing with the roller derby babes.

The box office finally abandoned their laboriously slow method of exchanging Groupons for actual tickets and just took the masses of people up to the door and counted the number of people with you and took your vouchers and let you in. My guess is that after about 1 minute of doing this they just opened the doors and let everyone in unchecked. But we were finally in and that is all that we cared about.

We came in during the first match - the Brutal Beauties vs. the Schoolyard Scrappers. What we saw was not really much like the memories of the Roller Derbies we had seen years ago on TV. The women seemed beefier. They seemed clutzier. They seemed daintier. They seemed less daring and aggressive. It seemed that they were mostly ending up in heaps on the skating floor. This just wasn't right. But we watched. The first match came to their half-time break and the second match started - Run Runaway Brides vs. Coffin Draggers. We were pretty ready to go by then. We had had enough.

Not only were we disappointed in the roller derby action. But we didn't understand the rules of the game. Scott scouted out a program and that has the rules printed on it - so if we ever go again we can prepare ourselves better.

But the crowd was - I guess I can say a little scary. We were surrounded by a sea of tattoos and piercings. The tattoos and piercings were attached to scantily dressed girls and ex-con type guys. And actually there were lots of gal pals there if you know what I mean. Sheesh! Talk about alternative lifestyles. I think they were in the majority that night.

Well the anticipation of an event stored in the foggy memories of days past - was way better than the actual event. Doug's rating of the night's activity?

TWO THUMBS DOWN!

But the approval rating for the entire evening went way up when we stopped for a Dairy Queen treat on the way home. Our guest picked up the tab. Thanks Sylvia!

P.S. - If you want to see an old roller derby clip

just pan up to the top and left click on "women's roller derby on TV."