On Saturday night we went to a live roller derby game. You heard me! Roller derby is back, and it’s more popular than we knew.
Our pal Alan is a member of the Pack Men, a new London men’s roller derby team. It’s a full-contact sport and the women’s teams have been at it for several years. On Saturday, the Pack Men had their first game against a team from Ottawa. Whoever designed the program was smart to include a detailed explanation of how the game is played. My only experiences with roller derby are from Saturday afternoon TV shows in the 70s and the movie Whip It. It just looks like a bunch of random people on roller skates trying to push each other around.
Actually, that’s not far from how it’s played.
Each team has a Jammer. He or she is wearing a helmet with a star on it. Both team’s Jammers try to be the first to break through the pack and get out front. Then that lead Jammer gets a point for every member of the opposing team that he passes. He can do this as long as he feels like it or is ordered to do it by the Pivot, who is wearing a helmet with a stripe on it. The Pivot is the team leader. When the Jammer thinks he’s about to get taken down and wants to call off the jam, he puts his hands on his hips, a ref blows a whistle and a new shift of players comes on and they start all over again.
By the end of the first half, one of the Pack Men’s Jammers was utterly exhausted but he still kept skating and getting knocked around. It’s exciting and amusing and bewildering! But it also has a very hard-core following.
Team members all go by nicknames such as Al Koholic and I’m a Door and such things. Attending the game was part of our mission to experience everything that’s going on in this city at least once, especially when someone we know is involved. Live roller derby is the most cartoonishly dangerous thing I’ve seen since Wile E. Coyote received a shipment of explosives from the Acme company.