Do you have roller derby in your town? If so, have you ever been out to see it/support it? Just curious. I think it's pretty cool that St. Louis has the Arch Rival Roller Girls, but I admit that I've never once been out to see a match. I know they're pretty popular around here (at least they seem to be). I even heard something recently that someone's starting a MEN'S roller derby league here... WTF? Anyway, just thought I'd start a discussion about it here to see what everyone thinks.

Wow, i just stumbled across this post years after the fact. Hopefully Kopper has checked out an ARRG bout by now! I have actually been a roller derby announcer for our local league, the Fox Cityz Foxz, since their inception in 2008. I've also announced at a lot of tournaments, including North Central and South Central regionals. I've announced plenty of Arch Rival bouts! It's fun, but it has been steadily moving away from the punk rock/weirdo roots towards a more legit sport type thing for the last five years or so. However, being a roller derby announcer did nicely fill the void left by my not being in a band; if the gig paid at all i'd call it the "punk rock retirement plan" ((which is what Geoff of HILLBILLY CASINO calls rockabilly)).

I really like the Roller Derby. There's league's all over the country. They have jams in their cities that you can go to and every now and then you can catch an inter-city jam. When you first look at it it just looks like a bunch of women skating around smacking into each other but then as you start to work out the strategies that are used you appreciate how much of a sport it really is. The really cool thing is the seats they offer right on the floor by where they skate called suicide seats. I've never bought a ticket for those seats cause I don't feel like wearing one of the skaters at full speed and I heard that health and safety stopped them doing it cause someone might get hurt... umm yeah... that's why they call 'em suicide seats. I always get the feeling like I'm at a gig when I go, it's just so Rock n Roll, up in the Taranaki they have bands playing between the periods. It really gets the crowd going. All the Roller Derby over here is flat track Roller Derby as opposed to banked track Roller Derby. http://www.richtercity.co.nz/

There was actually an article in the local Cape Girardeau paper (Southeast Missourian) about women's roller derby here in the area. Several teams from semo and southern Illinois come out here to practice in the Arena building. The article was like last sunday or so, and then earlier this week I was driving home from Marion, Illinois via Carbondale, and lo and behold there in front of me was one of the ladies from the Southern Illinois Roller Angels (I could tell from all the stickers on the back of her station wagon). Tried to get beside her and give her a thumbs-up, but she was headed in a different direction. That is officially the closest I have knowingly been to a roller girl, since I also have never been to a match.