by Joe Buffaloe
Daily Lobo
The Internet never ceases to amaze.
Nan Morningstar decided to start Duke City Derby, Albuquerque's first and only Roller Derby league, after seeing Web sites for teams in Austin, Texas, and Tucson, Ariz.
"I saw the Web sites and said, 'Hey, we should start a league here,'" she said.
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Roller Derby is an all-female sport that gained fame in the late '50s, and was popular until the '70s before disappearing from the public eye. The revival of the sport has its origin in Austin, where a group of women decided to start a team in 2001. Today, more than 40 cities in the United States have roller derby teams.
Games are played in three 20-minute periods, each consisting of a series of "jams," which usually last two minutes. Each team has one pivot who leads the pack, three blockers and a jammer who tries to pass as many skaters on the opposing team as possible, receiving a point for every player passed. Blockers and pivots try to stop the other team's jammer and clear a path for their own.
Albuquerque has two teams: Dead Man's Curves, who wear blue mechanic uniforms with miniskirts, and the Big House Brawlers, who play in old-fashioned prison stripes. The tongue-in-cheek, burlesque quality of the league extends to the players' names as well. Morningstar, a jammer for the Big House Brawlers, plays under the alias Molotov Cocktease.
Another asset of Duke City Derby is its venue - they play in Club Fantasia, formerly Midnight Rodeo, which features a bar for fans 21 and over, live bands and a large dance floor converted into a race track.
"It has a lot of entertainment value," said Kim Ju, who plays for Big House Brawlers under the name Kamikaze Kim. "It gets a different kind of crowd."
But the players want to make it clear that roller derby is a sport, not a show. It's about 90 percent sport, 10 percent pure entertainment, Saito said. And though there have been leagues in the past with staged action similar to professional wrestling, league spokeswoman Rosa Zamora stresses nothing is scripted.
"Fights, scores, injuries - it's all real," she said.
Her favorite thing about the derby?
"It's very empowering to hit someone, get knocked down, then get back up and hit someone again."
Ju, who played soccer and ran cross country in high school, said the roller derby is unlike any other sport.
"This is very aggressive and full contact - I guess there's contact in soccer, but not like this," she said.
About half of the players in Duke City Derby have experience in other sports, Morningstar said.
The Big House Brawlers won the league's first match on Oct. 22, after the controversial ejection of jammer Margaret Heath, aka Bruise Control, from Dead Man's Curves. Until that time, Dead Man's Curves had led the match. Though Bruise Control later admitted she was "being malicious," many see the next match as a chance for revenge.
The team that wins the most games will represent Albuquerque in the national championships in Tucson on Feb. 24-26.
Anyone who isn't afraid of rough play, frequent falls and hard skating - and has two X chromosomes - is free to join the league, though individuals must attend several practices and pass a skills test before playing in a match. New player practices are held at Roller King on Sundays from 6-8:30 p.m.
For more information on joining or the upcoming match, visit dukecityderby.com.
