Derby gets dangerous

Miss Fortune Cookie dislocated a thumb and a finger. Hurt in a Skirt took a spill that earned her eight stitches on the chin. What kind of pastime is this?

“It’s like a really violent Rotary Club,” says OC Roller Girl KelKat.

The OC Roller Girls are a roller derby league — a resuscitation of the dramatized sport that was popular in the ’70s. Take away the staged story lines, and you’ve got a group of ladies who literally kick butt.

A flat-track roller derby starts with a pack of four roller skaters from each team as well as a speed skater or “jammer” who starts behind the pack. After the whistle blows, the pack starts skating in the flat-track oval. The jammers — usually some of the fastest and toughest skaters — then have to try to pass through the pack. The pack attempts to block the other team’s jammers from getting through.

After one time through the pack, the jammers have to skate around and try to go through the pack again. Jammers earn points for every opposing player they pass on their second time through.

Sound easy? Not so much.

These ladies are tough. They bump and hit each other and generally do everything they can to block the other team’s efforts. Some of the checks they level on one another would be the envy of any hockey player. In fact, they take harder hits than the men who share the space for roller hockey.

“I’ve taken a couple wicked bruises on the tush,” says Newport Beach resident B-Train (the girls in this business use an assortment of tough-sounding pseudonyms). B-Train plays ice hockey as well.

The sport is on the rise again, with amateur leagues popping up all around the country. “Wherever you travel to in the United States you can find a practice to skate at,” B-Train said.

The OC Roller Girls are a league made up of the Back Bay Bombshells, the Huntington Heartbreakers, the Anaheim Aces and the Psycho Ex-Girlfriends. Their all-star team goes on the road as the Orange Crushers.

It’s a grassroots phenomenon that grows by word of mouth. Of course after witnessing the spectacle of a roller derby bout, it’s inevitable others want to get involved. The good news for them is it’s an easy sport to learn.

“Anyone can learn to skate,” says Huntington Beach derby girl Mia Roller of the Huntington Heartbreakers.

Today, each bout is a legitimate sporting event. But that doesn’t mean the pageantry or the fun is gone.

Derby girls’ uniforms are personalized within a few guidelines. The ladies will sport skirts or shorts, stockings, bright colors, fishnets and crazy makeup. They go as scantily clad as they dare while taking huge bruisings on skates. Each Roller Girl chooses her personal derby name that will appear on uniforms and in programs. The clever monikers are part of what make up the Roller Girls’ alter-egos.

“There’s some girls that I don’t even know their real names,” Hurt in a Skirt says.

In their normal lives they’re everything from financial analysts to real estate agents to cocktail waitresses. But skating allows the opportunity to let loose and step outside of the constraints of their jobs.

“If you can get outside yourself, it lets you get more into it,” Roller says.

Roller Girls are a community. “There’s not much negativity in our group,” says B-Train, who skated in derbies in New York and Texas before landing with the Psycho Ex-Girlfriends.

They work hard together as a team and friendships are built along the way. Because the sport is so underground, every member takes part in planning events. It’s a personal way to promote the sport where everyone takes ownership of the league.

It shows in their events. The bouts are meticulously planned with everyone chipping in. “All those chairs don’t just appear,” says OC Roller Girls founder Disco Dervish.

There is always live music and a beer garden (wo)manned by the skaters. The time they take to put on good events makes teams want to travel to Orange County to compete. The way they play has earned them invitations to go on the road.

“We play clean, we play by the rules,” says Dervish.

THE OC ROLLER GIRLS

WHEN: Practices are Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays

WHERE: 949 Roller Hockey Center, Irvine

INFO: Visit www.myspace.com/ocrollergirls or www.ocrollergirls.com for information on the next local bout scheduled for Feb. 2 between the Back Bay Bombshells and the Huntington Heartbreakers.

JOSH ADEN may be reached at (714) 966-4609 or at [email protected]