Roller Derby: A Crash Course

Hey-o! ...as you (hopefully) know, this coming Saturday Dire takes on the Battle Creek Cereal Killers on our home turf at The Skate! Hopefully you have your tickets and are as excited as we are!

I remember the first roller derby bout I attended. I had no idea what to expect. By the end of the first jam I still wasn't sure what the heck all those women were doing out there but I knew whatever it was, I was hooked.
First things first, the roller derby of today is a different beast than the roller derby of yesteryear. Our own coach, The GolfFather, once described old school roller derby to me as basically being "fist fighting with occasional skating." Today's roller derby is a full contact sport and the hits are real. However, it is about so much more than those hard hits. Today's derby surpasses mere brawling and is a game of not only strength, but endurance and strategy. The athletes you see on the track play hard! We also practice and train hard, spend personal time working out, reviewing roller derby footage to try and improve our games, do endurance training, the list goes on...

Roller derby is fast paced & action packed. Even as a spectator, it can be easy to be simultaneously swept away and confused by the excitement. I thought it might be fun to do a little Roller Derby 101 here on the blog, so let's get started!

image credit: Texas Roller Girls www.texasrollergirls.org

Roller derby games, also known as bouts, consist of two teams of the awesome athletes I was just talking about. Each team fields up to five players at a time; four blockers and one jammer a piece.
The blockers from each team line up in "walls" and are both offensive and defensive players. The blockers also make up what you will hear being called "the pack." The pack is the largest group of in bounds, upright blockers containing members from both teams.

 RollHer Zombie, Dragon Ballzy, yours truly, and SeanA the Dead with DJ SMear-o jamming 

against Warsaw, Indiana's Bone City Rollers, March 2016
Photo Credit: Jim Johnson
 

The jammers start behind both walls of blockers and are the only players who score points for their team.  Jammers are not part of the pack and you can tell them apart by the star covers they wear over their helmets. 

Jammer DJ Smear-o battling A-Town Roller Derby's jammer

March 2016, Photo credit: Jim Johnson

Games are played in two 30 minute halves which are then broken up into increments lasting up to two minutes each and are referred to as jams. On the whistle, the jammers have to try to make it through the pack. Each jammer must get through the pack once before they are able to start scoring points for their team. The first jammer through the pack will be announced as "lead jammer." In addition to being called by the announcer, a referee will be holding his or her arms up in a large  L shape and pointing at the lead jammer.

After making it through the pack on their initial pass, jammers score one point for each member of the opposing team that they lap. 

Grizzly Barrett and jammer Jenocide

March 2016, Photo credit: Jim Johnson

The blockers, as I said before, are playing both offense and defense for their team. That is, they are trying to help their own jammer through the pack while hindering the opposing jammer. The blocker with the striped helmet cover is the pivot. The pivot has a lot of responsibility on the track; she is sort of the head blocker for each wall and can also become the jammer if her team needs her to. 

 SeanA the Dead, Grizzly Barrett, and pivot, DJ Smear-o with Jenocide jamming in the back

February 2016, Photo credit: Jim Johnson

 IVy Bruzinya, Grizzly Barrett, and pivot RollHer Zombie
March, 2016. Photo credit: Jim Johnson

Jams can last up to two minutes, but won't necessarily. The lead jammer can call off the jam at any time. ...when you see the lead jammer repeatedly flashing her hands at her hips that is her signaling to the referee that she is calling off the jam. Then it is time for new walls and fresh legs so the next jam can begin!

 WHEW! Should we recap?

• Each team typically has 5 players on the track at a time: 4 blockers and 1 jammer
• Jammers score a point for every member of the opposing team that they pass in the pack
• One jam can last up to two minutes
• A player who gets called for a penalty must immediately exit the track and report to the penalty box 

So that's a crash course in flat track roller derby! Of course, a roller derby game takes more than just players and coaches. A bout can't happen without a host of other very important people! There are no less than three referees at a bout, as well as many non-skating officials (NSOs) whose jobs consist of things like score keeping, penalty tracking, penalty timing, and jam timing to name a few!
There are also EMTs, announcers, door personnel, and vendors! All these awesome people are there on a voluntary basis, ensuring that the fans and players all get to have a great & safe time.

Of course, there's no better way to learn about roller derby than by watching it live! So grab your ticket, grab some friends, and then grab a seat this Saturday at The Skate! Doors open at 5:30 and we cannot wait to see you there!!

XO,
Frida Kill-o