Nov 26, 2009 8:29 am US/Eastern
Women Give Their All In Roller Derby League
BALTIMORE (AP) ―
-
-
It's a full contact sport, a mix of sport and spectacle -- but there's a sisterhood among the athletes.
CBS
It's a full contact sport, a mix of sport and spectacle -- but there's a sisterhood among the athletes.
About 30 would-be Charm City Roller Girls tried out recently to join the city's all-women roller derby league.
The league, which has four teams and is four-years-old, holds plays "bouts" at DuBurns Arena in Canton and frequently gets a sellout crowd of 2,000 at $10 a ticket.
The sport is played on a flat track rather than a banked one.
"We run into each other at full speed," said Laura Jansen, aka Reckless Ndangerment, Charm City's head coach and emergency room nurse.
Kilani Robinson, 26, skates as Paige Fault. Recently, she stood with teammates (their nicknames include Tyrannosaurus Lex, Gina Tonic, Pinky Tuscadare-ya and Mya Bloody Valentine), and between drills helped showed what prospective skaters were being asked to do.
At Putty Hill Skateland in Baltimore County, skating side to side, they jumped and skated while linked to other players.
"You need to be fast, have endurance and (able) to take a hit," Robinson said. "You have to love it. How many sports are there that 40-year old women get to play, not only play but have 2,000 people come to watch? It's empowering, and girls like that it's a new sport."
Frequently, an entirely new thing for the women on or working toward joining the Roller Girls league, and some don't have much experience roller skating.
Jansen divided the skaters into two groups for drills; one involved skating 23 laps in five minutes. Some skated confidently; others were shaky and fell often.
Next came a slow-motion crossover drill. Jansen told the skaters to "get low, extend your leg and hold. We're looking for your ability to balance ... and for ankle strength."
"We used to teach girls to roller skate," she said. But now, "they have to look like they are ready to hit one another. You get hit really hard."
Rules include no punching, no tripping, no kicking, no elbow jabs.
Usually, the bouts are played in 30-minute halves, with five players from each team on the rink at one time. Four are blockers, who play both offense and defense. One is a jammer, who can score by passing opposing players.
Before beginning to skate earlier this year and trying out for Roller Girls in August, Leanne Bergeron, 26, had only roller skated at birthday parties growing up. She began to skate this year, and tried out for the Roller Girls in August.
Now, with the nickname PunknYoNuts, she's close to becoming a full-fledged player on the team, although she still has a rookie status referred to as "fresh meat."
Roller derby comes with "street cred" and "awesome outfits you get to wear," and never fails to get a reaction from people who learn she's on a team, Bergeron said.
They say, "'That's awesome,' and think I'm much cooler," she said.
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Winter Storm Hits Maryland, Part 3
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Comments