Derby girls battle rivals for Las Vegas

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It's hard to imagine a sport that lets spectators get any closer to the action or the competitors than flat track roller derby.

In this violent rolling ballet, where many of the spectators bring chairs and sit right on the fringe of the track, a skater could come tumbling into your lap at any moment and make you feel like part of the action.

Two hours later, you could be buying her a shot and a beer at one of the local bars where the team religiously gets together after every bout.

Las Vegas' representatives in the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, the Neander Dolls, are a hand-picked assembly of the best players from the Sin City Rollergirls league founded less than a year ago by team coaches Denise Grimes, aka Ivanna S. Pankin, and Trish "The Dish" Ethier.

Grimes, the founder of the Arizona Roller Derby in Phoenix, was talking with other skaters last summer from countrywide leagues -- which have blossomed over the last four years in what many fans have called the Roller Derby Renaissance -- about holding a roller derby convention where all the women could get together and reminisce about their successful seasons. Grimes, who had lived in Las Vegas twice before, asked what better place than Las Vegas.

The idea for RollerCon 2005 had been hatched.

Grimes said she visualized how much easier it would be to plan the convention from the inside by moving to Las Vegas. So she got together with her best friend, biggest rival and managing partner from the AZRD, Ethier, and talked about the idea of setting up shop here.

Although the two had pretty much settled on moving to Bisbee, Ariz., where they planned on starting a team named the Cactus Pricks, a weekend trip to a family wedding in Las Vegas clinched it for Grimes.

The duo decided to make the big move. And as the Sin City Rollergirls Web site reveals, "By July 13 they had a van packed with skates and pets and they were headed for Las Vegas."

Once here, Grimes and Ethier immediately started skating and went to the skate parks and rinks to check out the local scene and began "plotting their imminent takeover of the town."

In August, the pair formed the SCRG, an all-female, all-volunteer, do-it-yourself roller derby league complete with its own traveling team to compete in the WFTDA.

Nine months later, with a roster of more than 35 skaters and a staff and team that's getting better with each bout, Grimes said she is happy with the team's progress.

"I'm absolutely thrilled with where we're at right now," the 36-year-old said. "I couldn't be more proud of what we've accomplished so far."

On weekdays, members of the SCRG are accountants, police officers, teachers, students, exchange students, small business owners and nurses.

But after 5 p.m. and on weekends, they transform into their colorfully named alter egos: Shawna Th'Dead, Slurpee 7*11, Mae U. Restinpeace, Devils Advo-Kate, G.I. Jade, The Force, Alma Bichess, Pirate, Evilyn Side, Bootsy Call, Pearly Gates, Scratch, MC Guillotine and many others.

On game nights, the Neander Dolls take it up another notch. Adorned in tiger-print mini-skirts, fishnet stockings and black-and-orange-striped socks and skating to a punk back beat that could raise Sid Vicious from the grave, the team almost seems like a Tim Burton film on wheels.

Ethier said she and Grimes don't unveil the names of the 15 players who make the roster before each bout until a day before the game.

"It's more of an ongoing project," said the 26-year-old Ethier, one of the top players in the WFTDA. "Their attendance to practice, their dedication to the team, their desire to want to be there are all important. Skating is really the second part of it."

The members of the SCRG find out whether they've made the roster for their upcoming games at their weekly Saturday Slaughters, held at 3 p.m. at West Flamingo Park, 6255 W. Flamingo Road, where the members are divided into two teams of black-and-white-shirted skaters who compete against each other to try to earn a spot on the Neander Dolls roster.

One player on the roster for an April 29 bout against the NFTDA champion Texas Rollergirls held at the Las Vegas Roller Hockey Center, 953 Commercial Center Drive, was Christine Skorupski, aka Slurpee 7*11, who works for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Las Vegas.

Slurpee 7*11, who could be seen sipping her namesake beverage as she skated around the track before the Neander Dolls' bout with Texas -- Texas won, 113-94 -- says she got her nickname for her affinity for the frosty drinks.

The 5-foot-6, 170-pound Slurpee 7*11, who usually skates as a blocker for the team, says she stumbled upon the SCRG while looking on the Internet to find a pair of skates for her birthday.

"I remember getting a pair of roller skates for my eighth birthday, and with my 28th birthday coming up, I wanted to get a pair of skates and I found the sincityskates.com Web site," she said. "It was owned by Ivanna and I looked into the team and it looked like fun."

Two weeks after purchasing her pair of skates and one bout later, Slurpee 7*11 said she was hooked.

"It was so much more fun than I thought," she said. "And I'm very competitive by nature. In my life, this is a great escape for me. I don't have to go home and think about work or anything."

Being a member of the SCRG is not comparable to most recreational sports. Besides the subculture tied to the sport, team members practice from 5 to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday at West Flamingo Park's skating track and from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday at the Las Vegas Roller Hockey Center, meaning these roller derby queens put in a good eight to 10 hours of practice a week.

Still in the inaugural season in Las Vegas, the SCRG and the Neander Dolls -- who get the majority of their money from ticket and concession sales at their bouts, which have drawn around 500 attendees per bout in this first year -- have left an impression on fans.

Proof the league is as viable as any can be seen in their bouts, which include the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" an announcer, programs, concessions, groupies, injuries, a mascot -- the Neander Dude, who encourages fans to scream "Ugh, ugh, ugh"-- and even a fan with a rainbow-colored wig bearing a cardboard John 3:16 sign.

Whereas the girls in the recent A&E reality show "Rollergirls" skate on a banked track, the Neander Dolls and all the teams in the WFTDA compete on a flat track which forces the skaters to work with and against their own momentum. The physics of this type of track makes it hard for the skaters to hold corners, especially on the outside curves, creating spills galore.

What started in Texas just four years ago has slowly but surely evolved into a force to be reckoned with in amateur sports, with at least 60 leagues around the country and hundreds of teams now participating.

Created in 1932 by Leo Seltzer and first played in 1935, roller derby has come a long way and has gone in and out of several waves of popularity.

The biggest difference between what the public thinks about the sport and this new wave of the game taking over the nation is that it's real.

"This is not choreographed," Grimes said.

The game itself involves five skaters on track for each jam -- a pivot, three blockers and a jammer -- and involves having the jammers on each team, designated by stars on their helmets, trying to lap the pack and then to score points for their team by passing members of the opposing team, which are worth one point each. Jams last for two minutes or until the lead jammer calls off the jam.

The bouts are made up of three 20-minute periods with intermissions that offer fan activities such as raffles and shopping cart races.

As far as trying to grow the league in Las Vegas, Grimes and Ethier -- who are looking for a permanent home in which to play -- are taking the slow but sure approach.

"We want to just concentrate on building this team right now," Grimes said. "It helps to keep simple goals that are achievable. That's the model we base this team on."

For now, that means traveling or hosting teams from the NFTDA, something the first-year Neander Dolls are pretty good at, with convincing wins over teams from the Arizona Roller Derby (96-74), the Boston Roller Derby (119-89), the Duke City Derby (108-51), and the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls (147-121).

In some ways, the entire women's roller derby movement may seem to be a statement about female empowerment and a woman's ability to do anything men can do, but in reality it boils down to a core group of girls simply doing something they love -- playing an exciting and challenging sport with friends and having fun doing it.

And these women have fun before, during and after their bouts, just like their motto states: "Drink, fight, skate."

The SCRG's next action is set for Saturday, when the team laces up for its interleague picnic scrimmage at 7 p.m. at West Flamingo Park. The Neander Dolls' next scheduled bout here is July 29 against the Atlanta Rollergirls at the 2006 RollerCon convention, set for July 28-Aug. 6.

Tickets for Neander Dolls games cost $10 in advance and $12 at the door, and as their poster states, "EMTs and brats under 10 free."

For more information, visit www.sincityrollergirls.com or www.wftda.com.