Flamboyant, full-contact -- and dead serious

08/09/2009- Hampshire Gazette

 Fluorescent lights beam down onto the shiny plastic flooring, where green tape marks the boundary of the makeshift track. The air is filled with the stale odor of an indoor arena and the anxious chatter of the gathering audience. Skaters, decked out in an array of colorful garb, are milling on the sidelines as they tighten skates and strap on helmets. Tonight the Western Mass Destruction of Pioneer Valley Roller Derby are taking on the Boston Cosmonaughties at Collins/Moylan Memorial Skating Rink in Greenfield and more than 350 people have turned out to cheer the team on.

Destruction Co-Captain Sarah Lang, 34, of Northampton hunches over, her hands on top of her thighs, as she and her teammates take a few warm-up laps around the track. She glances over her right shoulder and then her left. Even though this is just practice, she's not about to let another skater get by her. Once the game begins, her job will be to prevent a key member of the opposing team from scoring points by passing her or any of her teammates.

Lang's bright pink helmet is peppered with white and black scuff marks, evidence that she takes plenty of hits. But she gives out just as many as she gets. She is in many ways the quintessential Roller Derby girl -- feminine, but tough.

Pink is a big part of her derby image. Lang's helmet and roller skate wheels share the rosy hue. Her long hair is dyed to match. Even her mouth guard is pink. On game days, she becomes Pink Panzer - an identity that combines the names of the Pink Panther cartoon character and the German World War II tank.

"[Roller Derby] is a full-contact sport and it's an aggressive sport, but, you know, I wear skirts most of the time," she explained later at a team practice. "I'm kind of prissy when it comes down to it."

Lang says she developed a balance between femininity and athleticism while playing soccer growing up.

"When you played a sport, you gave it your all and you played as hard as you could. And then you took a shower and you were a girl," she said. "So it wasn't really a stretch for me to be feminine and play this sport."

Lang isn't the only skater at this bout in mid-July who expresses an aggressive and often sexy edge.

Danielle Paine, 26, of Chicopee, who skates for Western Mass Destruction under the name Diesel 'N Gin, has drawn eye black on her face and tied her hair back with a black bandanna. She wears black and white striped thigh-high socks and orange flame-patterned booty shorts, which peek out from beneath her green minidress uniform.

Terri Pajak - or Holy Hellga, as she is known in the skating arena - is wearing red fishnets under her uniform. Pajak, who lives in Easthampton, says the tights help skaters slide across the floor when they fall, rather than skid on their bare skin, which causes "rink rash."

"They are function, as well as fashion," says Pajak.

Helmets have the same dual purpose. Some are plain black, but others add a little more flair.

Maureen Reddington-Wilde, 50, of Malden, has attached two cat ears to her pink-and-leopard-print helmet. A tail hangs from the back of her dress. She skates as Cat O'Mighty.

Amy Moore, 41, of Pownal, Vt., wears the name Bitches Bruze on the back of her jersey, a play on the name of the Miles Davis album "Bitches Brew." As she skates around the track, a raccoon tail bobs from the back of her helmet. She also creates raccoon rings around her eyes with makeup.

The attitude and dress of these skaters is a departure from the sport's early days.

Roller Derby got its start in the 1930s, according to the television network A&E, which ran a reality series called "Rollergirls" in 2006. It rose in popularity during the 1960s with televised competitions of co-ed skaters battling it out on a banked track with elevated curves at either end. But by the late 1970s, the sport had petered out on the national stage. It wasn't until a women-only Roller Derby league was formed in Texas in 2001 that the sport began gaining a new momentum.

Now there are 439 leagues internationally, according to Roller Derby Worldwide, an online list of current leagues. The Pioneer Valley Roller Derby League in Northampton, which formed in 2006, has two teams, including the Western Mass Destruction.

"This Roller Derby, the second time around, is much more about showmanship," said Renee Forzano, a native of Ludlow and one of Pioneer Valley's original members, at a pre-bout practice.

Forzano, 31, skates as Big Vinny's Kid in memory of her father, who also played the sport. She notes that while this character-heavy style is a big part of contemporary Roller Derby, there are many players who focus more on athleticism.

"The athlete, that's what I am," she said. "[Athletes] are not going to do their makeup and their hair just to put on a helmet and sweat it off."

Lang agreed, noting that while many other teams put the emphasis on costumes and characters, Pioneer Valley's first priority is the game.

"We totally have people who wear fishnets and skirts to every practice and every game. If that's what you want to do and you want to be comfortable, that's fine," she said. "If you want to wear sweats all the time, that's fine too. It's about the sport and as long as you are enjoying yourself playing the sport, that's fine with me."

*****

Skaters almost always sport a few battle scars, too. Bumps and bruises are common, twisted ankles are frequent and broken bones do happen.

Players wear four-wheeled skates and pads on their knees, elbows and wrists as well as mouth guards and helmets as they speed around the 88-by-53 foot track. Two teams compete, each with five skaters in play at a time. The game consists of three 20 minute periods which are further broken down into two minute segments called jams.

One player on each team is designated as the jammer, differentiated by a helmet cover with a large star on each side. A team scores points when its jammer passes members of the opposing team.

At the start, jammers stand 30 feet behind the rest of the skaters, called the pack. When the whistle blows, the jammers sprint ahead to break through the pack.

Each team also has a player called the pivot, who serves as the team's leader on the track. The remaining players, called blockers, try to impede the opposing jammer by pushing her off the track, knocking her to the ground, or just skating in her way.

The Pioneer Valley teams play by an official rule set from the Women's Flat Track Derby Association. Checking another player with the back of your upper arm, for example, is fine. But if your jab hits the opponent's back - and a referee sees it - you will be sent to the penalty box for one minute. The rules go on to say that a skater may block with the torso, the hips and "booty," and the mid- and upper thigh. The elbows, forearms, lower legs and head are off limits. Punching or choking another player, intentionally jumping into a "dog pile" of other skaters or disrespecting a referee are just a few of the acts that will get you expelled from the game altogether.

The rules are written for all-female teams, which are by far the most common. But in the Pioneer Valley, Roller Derby is not just for women. A group of 11 men regularly skate as the Dirty Dozen and before the women take the track on this Saturday night, they kick off the competition with a scrimmage.

*****

"Jurasskick Park," the announcer calls, "number 1993." Andy Townsend of Easthampton rolls forward from the line of male skaters standing along the rink's edge. He pushes off and skates his introductory lap. As he passes the first curve, he bends down to slap the hands of the women of Western Mass Destruction, who are sitting along the sidelines.

The Pioneer Valley league's teams themselves are not co-ed. They do not compete against each other, but the two teams practice as a group and handle league business together.

This is a rare format in what has largely become a women-only movement, according to Dirty Dozen Captain Erich Bennar, 29, of Northampton.

When the league formed in January 2006, it created the first men's flat track Roller Derby team in the country. Up until then, and even today, most cities had leagues exclusively for women, Bennar says.

"This incarnation of Roller Derby focuses on the empowerment of women, which is great," he says. "A lot of women's leagues want to maintain the women's community. ... We don't want to encroach on that."

The Women's Flat Track Derby Association, based in Austin, Texas, which is the sport's main national organization, requires that member leagues be restricted to women. Of the over 300 women-only flat track leagues in the U.S., 78 are affiliated with the organization, according to Roller Derby Worldwide.

Though Western Mass Destruction cannot join the association, participate in championship bouts or appear in the national rankings, team manager Vanessa Mathieu says that Pioneer Valley's decision to include men in the league doesn't detract from her experience.

"There's no stupid machoness here," says Mathieu, 35, of Southampton. "Whatever brings a guy to Roller Derby, they are the greatest guys."

Renee Forzano seconds that. "I love the sport so much, I would never deprive anyone of it," she says. "We will never separate from our brothers."

Besides, she says, the women's team is not missing much by not joining the association. Both teams still play by its rules and are able to compete against other leagues around the country that belong to the association.

In hopes of solidifying the sport's male presence, Bennar and Jake Fahy of Northampton formed the Men's Derby Coalition in November 2007, along with male skaters from New York City and Baltimore. The coalition, which now has four leagues, hosts annual conferences and provides advice for men's teams that are just starting out.

"We're hoping to dispel some of the myths about men just being brutes on skates," says Bennar. "We play by the rules, too."

There are still only six or seven active men's teams in the country, says Fahy, 33, who took on the skating name Bazooka Joe when he founded the league with Sarah Lang in 2006. For the July bout, all the other men's teams were booked. So the Dirty Dozen split into two teams for a scrimmage along with a few players from New York and central Massachusetts.

*****

"There's not a lot of skaters," the announcer says as the scrimmage gets underway. "That's not a lot of rest time. They are out there for multiple jams in a row and they are going to be tired."

The whistle blows and James McNamara, or Davy Jones, and Bazooka Joe jump into action. Davy Jones, who is skating for the gray team, gets the early lead and cuts past Bazooka Joe, in green, on the inside of the track. Jones skates up behind Sideswipe and Rollin' Redshirt. He smashes into Sideswipe, who is on the opposing team, and sneaks ahead of him. With his hands on teammate Redshirt's back, Jones guides him into the middle of the track, revealing an opening in the pack.

But Maulin' Brando has noticed the gap, too. He moves into position and now the two skaters are shoulder-to-shoulder, seeing who can out-push for the advantage. Jones manages to gracefully tiptoe through the gap and skates out in front. But Bazooka Joe has gained momentum by hanging onto teammate Brando and is surging forward. Soon both jammers are tearing around the track in pursuit of the pack for Round 2.

Bonnie Caldwell of Easthampton and Lauren Voyer of Northampton sit on the bleachers at the perimeter of the rink watching the action from behind the protective glass.

After seeing a preview of the event in a newspaper, says Caldwell, she decided to make an evening of it.

"Mexican food and Roller Derby, how cool is that?" she says, laughing.

Caldwell had seen Roller Derby on television as a child, she says, but had never been to a live game. "It's been awhile since I was watching it on black-and-white TV."

A few rows above them sit Doug and Denise Fisher of East Longmeadow.

Jurasskick Park is a friend of their son, says Denise Fisher. After they heard he was playing Roller Derby, she says their response was "What? There is such a thing?"

"We've known him since he was little. It's really neat to see him now," she says.

Some fans, like Kathleen Ambrose of Nashua, N.H., have settled in on the floor, rink-side. Ambrose plays Roller Derby for New Hampshire's women-only league. She and her teammate Bethany Tozier, also of Nashua, drove two hours to be here.

"I'm a big fan of Pioneer Valley and I love watching the men's team," says Ambrose. "You want to see how aggressive it gets."

The physical nature of the sport is what drew Tozier to Roller Derby a year and a half ago.

"It was something different," she says. "There aren't a lot of aggressive women's sports out there."

For Ambrose, it's all about the alternative appeal.

"I like underground everything. I like things that aren't mainstream and seeing it grow," she says. "[Roller Derby] is like the punk rock of sports."

Ambrose and Tozier are seated right at the edge of the taped-off track. This is called the "crash zone," an area reserved for those 18 and up. A sign posted there warns that skaters may fly off the track and into the crowd.

*****

After the men's scrimmage is over, the Western Mass Destruction take the track. Fourteen players are on the roster for tonight, but the team consists of 21 players. Destruction skates jam after jam against the Boston Cosmonaughties. With 40 seconds left on the clock, the score is 128 to 111. Destruction is ahead. The announcer revs up the crowd: This will be "the laaaaast jaaaaam of the baaaaattle," he bellows.

Destruction jammer Marie Francis Griffith, or Bloodbath and Beyond, skates around the inner corner of the track, readying herself to dodge and squeeze her way through the pack. A Cosmonaughtie, Vicious Vivacious Vera, glides across the track and tries to check Bloodbath with her hip to knock her down. But Bloodbath sees the approaching skater and puts out her arm to brace for the block. It works. Bloodbath remains upright, but the Cosmonaughtie loses her balance and drops down to her knees, if only for a second.

The stumble gives Bloodbath enough time to speed ahead, preparing to pass the next line of blockers. She looks over her shoulder to see if anyone is on her tail. Luckily for her, Holy Hellga, a blocker, and pivot Nora Morse have managed to trap the opposing jammer. They match the jammer's movements and skate along in front and beside her so she has no place to go. This gives Bloodbath the chance to increase her lead, and within another lap she has caught up with the pack again.

As she squeezes past the opposing pivot, Bloodbath taps her hands a few times on her hips, signaling to the referee that she wishes to end the jam. Calling off the jam is one of the privileges of the first jammer to break through the pack. But before the whistle blows, a Cosmonaughtie smashes into Bloodbath's side. The force is enough to bring both skaters to the ground. They helplessly slide into the audience in the "crash zone," but no one is hurt. Fans laugh, help the fallen skaters up and begin to clap.

*****

David Ketchum, 54, who skates for the Dirty Dozen as Rollin' Redshirt, started out as a Roller Derby fan himself while growing up in Springfield, where he watched it on TV and attended live games. He lived and breathed the sport, he says.

"When I first got my license, I'm driving down 91 passing cars, pretending I'm passing them for points," he said at a recent team practice. "It gets under your skin."

And for Ketchum, Pioneer Valley has literally gotten under his skin - he sports a tattoo of the league's logo on his left arm.

"I think every Roller Derby fan of the past wished they could run away and join the Roller Derby," he said. "So, in my 50s, I got the chance. I didn't even have to run away."

While the youngest Pioneer Valley league player is 22, says team manager Vanessa Mathieu, most of the skaters are between 26 and 34. Ketchum is Pioneer Valley's eldest member.

"I never felt like the odd man out, though our league allows skaters as young as 18 to join," he said. "I don't think they see me as 54. They just see me as another skater on the team ... as long as I'm doing my job and keeping up."

Ketchum, like all Pioneer Valley players, had to pass a series of levels to be considered bout-ready.

After passing the third and final skill set, players can skate backward, take a hit while in motion, and complete 20 laps in 5 minutes, just to name a few of the requirements.

But getting there takes hard work.

Skaters meet three times a week in various locations throughout western Massachusetts for hours of drills and scrimmaging.

"It's a commitment, but it's also an addiction," says Susanna Apgar, 30, of South Hadley, whose skater name is Beast Infection.

For those on the outside, it can be hard to understand why someone puts themselves through the rigors of derby, says Amy Moore, the skater called Bitches Bruze.

"Some of my friends who aren't into derby don't really get it. They don't understand why we put up with the injuries. They don't understand why I put in the time," says Moore. "But, I think when someone comes to the bout they start to see that and there's a sense of belonging, even as a fan."

Moore's husband, Mark, also plays for Pioneer Valley as Will Jettison.

"I think there is a lot of family aspect to derby," she says. "And, of course, derby is part of my marriage now. But the family is not just here. The family is a really big family. It's kind of like going to a family reunion every time you go to a bout somewhere."

Sometimes, though, life outside of derby encroaches.

The July bout was the last one for Kat Reisbig, 26, of Holyoke, who was one of the team's original members. She's headed to law school in the fall.

"It's a very nostalgic feeling," says Reisbig, who skates as Juggernaut Bitch, as she stands on the rink after the bout, sweaty and out of breath.

"I'd like to think that four years down the road I can be a lawyer and a derby girl."

In fact, skaters have merged a wide range of day jobs with the derby obsession.

Danielle Paine is the manager of communications for the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts. Erich Bennar is a Web developer and Sarah Lang works in retail. Renee Forzano is a producer for ABC40 in Springfield and Amy Moore is a Web and multimedia developer and a college instructor. Maureen Reddington-Wilde is a pagan minister and a graduate student.

The end is also near for Terri Pajak. Tomorrow night's bout at Collins/Moylan rink will be her last.

She is the only Pioneer Valley player who has appeared in every game since the league started. She says that the years of rough practices and competition are catching up with her. Her knees are hurting and she says she thinks it might be time to settle down with the boyfriend she has been with as long as she's been playing Roller Derby -- three and a half years.

But Pajak says she doesn't rule out coming back someday.

"I could never say never to derby," she says with a grin.

Western Mass Destruction won the July bout, 132 to 111, bringing the team's record for this season, which runs from April to October, to 3-1.

Reprinted from:

http://www.gazettenet.com/story/242426