Living in Portland

I just found out that Portland has a ferocious female Roller Derby league – how fun does that sound? They are made up by a group of eight teams called the Rose City Rollers, practicing three times a week at the Oaks Amusement Park skating rink. This all-star team is ranked 10th in the country!

A team is made up of five skaters, one of whom is called a jammer. This brave soul’s task is to earn points by ripping around the track and lapping members of the opposing team—called blockers—who try their best to ensure the jammer doesn’t go anywhere, besides maybe the floor. (There’s a reason they wear helmets.) Some of these gals are former collegiate hockey and rugby players, sporting nick names like “Rocket Mean” and “Judge Mental”.

Roller Derby wasn’t always quite so ferocious. When Leo A. Setzler headed up the country’s first Roller Derby league in 1935, the sport mirrored the era’s popular dance-a-thons by featuring couples racing around a rink for hours on end. Eventually, to spice things up, female skaters were encouraged to begin jostling, pushing, and shoving one another. These rolling catfights (along with skimpy costumes) helped popularize the sport through the 1970s. For much of the 1980s and ’90s, the sport all but disappeared, until a derby revival began with the formation of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) in 2004.

Besides being excellent exercise, lots of fun and the risk of getting your body filled with blue and black marks, there’s also the sport’s other big draw: camaraderie. “We’re all about empowering women,” says one skater. “Sure, there are rivalries in bouts, but at the end of the day we’re trying to achieve common goals and perpetuate the Rose City Rollers.”

Lace up your skates and hit the rink with the Rose City Rollers. Ladies looking to hone their skating prowess can sign up for the club’s upcoming skills clinics (Oct 4 and 11 from 3 to 5 p.m.). If you’re ready for the big time, strap on your pads for an official tryout on Oct 14, 6:45 p.m. All events held at Oaks Skating Rink; www.rosecityrollers.com

Prefer to take on Roller Derby as a spectator sport? Buy a ticket to the Northwest Knockdown Nationals, held at the Portland Expo Center (Nov 14-16; www.northwestknockdown.com), and watch the country’s best derby girls battle it out for the U.S. title.