Young women all across the country have discovered a new game. It's beautiful and brutal. The best players are competitive, combative, and confident. But it's not no-limit hold'em; it is Roller Derby.
Peppermill poker dealer Errin McCann is one of the organizers of the "Battle Born Derby Demons," Reno's new woman's roller derby team. "It's athletic, fun, and completely different from anything else we do."
She's right. Young ladies, most in their 20s and 30s, have revived and updated the old roller derby sport that died out in the early 1970s. Today, it's an athletic contest, a sexy sideshow and a personality parade.
The women attracted to roller derby come from a wide variety of backgrounds, educations and inclinations. Like poker, roller derby provides a forum for the participants to assume another identity, another role very different from their daily lives.
Even to a larger extent than in poker do derby women adopt nicknames for their alter ego. Melanie, a Reno public school teacher wears a t-shirt identifying her as "Mel's Belles." Amanda, a plumber, is "Josie Dirt." From the world of finance comes Pricilla "The Killer," and "Itty Bitty," an accountant.
The Reno team formed about three months ago. About two dozen women comprise the team. They practice downtown, next to the Truckee River, on a flat concrete park that serves as the city's public ice rink in the winter. "It's OK during the good weather, but we've got to find a permanent home before winter," McCann says.
Unlike the high-banked tracks of yesteryear, today's roller girls skate on a flat surface. According to McCann, "Any hard flat surface of 12-15,000 sq. ft. works. We're looking for a warehouse with a concrete floor, an empty building, anything with a roof for winter."
Women's roller derby is similar to poker 15 years ago. "We need sponsors and venues," explains McCann, "Currently, we raise all our expense money from fund raisers, but we hope a casino or businesses in the community will get behind us. After all, we'll be able to bring out some pretty large groups when we start competing against teams from other areas."
Today's version of the sport of women's roller derby started three years ago in Austin, Texas. It caught on immediately and has exploded in popularity. There are now well over 30 leagues and more than 300 teams around the country.
It's entirely amateur. So large has it grown that there is now a Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) to regulate and govern the sport. It's taken poker far longer to develop professional organizations and a standard set of rules.
Roller derby is a game that requires speed, strategy, tactics, and team work. It also requires strength and stamina. There are three positions on each team. The "pivot" skates at the front of the pack and sets the pace for her teammates. A "jammer" starts at the back of the pack and scores a point for her team each time she laps a member of the opposing team. "Blockers," three to a team, make up the pack and attempt to prevent the opposing team's jammer from passing while also trying to clear a path for their own jammer.
These ladies may be made of sugar 'n' spice and everything nice, but they leave it all behind when they put on skates. Decked-out in tights, fish-net stockings, mini-skirts, hot pants, helmets, and pads, it's a rock'em, sock'em melee. Every player sports black 'n blue badges of courage.
