A few days ago I was given a challenge; do an assignment about a sport that I am not familiar with. I chose Roller Derby.
I found a contact on Facebook for the Northumberland Roller Girls/Ganaraska GraveDiggers. After my initial message I got a prompt response from a young woman and team player named Cortnee Rawn, and she invited me out to their practice to check see what it was all about. Off I went.
Does anyone remember the 60s, and perhaps names like "Skinny Minnie" legends in this sport?
The ladies I got to see practicing this sport refreshed my childhood interest with a new outlook. One quickly realizes it takes skill to roller skate backwards around a circuit, while staving off an opponent who is in your face and in your space, trying to bulldoze your butt to the ground in the process. Watching things go down as the momentum progresses you can't help but get excited.
Now, you might think that this is something of a mundane sport...skating around in circles, trying to block and trip up your opponents. The players seem to have a simple task. Roller derby is, without a doubt, a contact sport where two teams each consisting of five members roller skate in the same direction around a track. The game play is a series of short match ups (jams) in which the two teams designate a single player as a jammer. The points are scored by lapping team members of the opposing team. Seems simple enough, but when things get rocking, the bones get knocking, and the fun begins, of course there are do's and don'ts and penalties for unacceptable play.
This was my very first time being close up and personal with this sport, and I have to say I was quite impressed with both the discipline and sense of fair play they all share, and the team work, but most most of all you got the sense that anyone could play and have loads of fun. From the get go in this sport you realize that fun is high on the priority list (just look at the names on the shirts they wear!). If you have never checked this sport out before, maybe its time you did. The whole family will have a blast.