THE FABULOUS SIN CITY ROLLERGIRLS: Facing the future

Program goes through rebirth as team takes over organization

Nicole Mason, who plays for The Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls under the name Nikki Nuke-Em, stretches before a recent team practice at West Flamingo Park, 6255 W. Flamingo Road, March 8. The team, formerly known as the Sin City Neanderdolls, is in the process of restructuring after losing two key players, one of whom was the team?s owner.Jim Miller/view jim miller/viewLeah Dumont, aka Bruce Killis, left, leads her teammates through practice drills at West Flamingo Park, March 8. Jim Miller/viewGwen Wojciak, aka Pearly Gates, gets ready for a practice session, March 8. jim miller/viewMembers of The Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls go through a practice drill, March 8. Advertisement

Athena Funk, aka Athena Barbital of the Sin City Rollergirls, recently was practicing hard for an upcoming match when things suddenly went wrong.

"I did a full body check on someone on the inside of the track," she said. "As I hit them, I kind of ping-ponged off of them, and I was heading toward another girl on the outside of the track, and I was going to take her out. I was doing this big crossover and my back foot got hooked on somebody's roller skate. There was a lot of momentum and I did a face plant, but my skate was still tangled with the other player. I ended up laying on my stomach and I went straight into shock."

Funk broke her tibia, fibula, the right and left side of her ankle and tore all the ligaments on top of her foot. "It was just a fluke accident," said teammate Andrea Schoen, aka Wingnut.

Unfortunately, it was a week for accidents. Another of the team's star players, Katie Spengler, aka Devil's Advo-Kate, broke her collarbone, just before what turned out to be the last game of national competition for the Neanderdolls, the team's former name. Although they didn't play in that final game, it also was the last game attended by the team's two co-captains, Denise Grimes, aka Ivana S. Pankin, and Trish Ethier, aka Trish the Dish, who also were the team's two core players. Grimes also was the team's owner.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since that night. Grimes left the team, and the remaining rollergirls took it over, making it a team-owned organization.

"It wasn't pleasant; it wasn't a very good parting," said Christine Skorupski, who plays under the name Slurpee and is one of the captains of the new organization. "We've had to do a lot of rebuilding and restructuring, which takes time. At the same time, we don't want to lose our fan base, which has gotten bigger and bigger with each game."

The team canceled its remaining season and temporarily dropped out of national competition. It started a new limited liability company, now going by the name The Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls, and split the players into two teams. Rather than a series of national games involving expensive transportation, the team will rebuild locally, beginning a new season in May with a series of games in which the organization's two teams will play against each other.

If all goes according to plan, the team will hone its skills, and sometime next year, it will triumphantly reemerge on the national scene.

"We're just trying to regroup, rebuild," Skorupski said. "We lost a lot of veterans. We lost a few key skaters. One of our players decided to start a family. Being a women in sports, you have to make choices; everyone's got to choose their own path."

Part of the new plan is to connect with the local community and truly be the Las Vegas team. "We didn't understand why the Vegas team was the Neanderdolls; it's a good name, but we're going with names with more of a Vegas connection now," Funk said.

When the organization gets back to national competition, the travel team will be made up of the best members of both teams and will be called The Fabulous Sin City Rollergirls. "It'll take a little getting used to for our fans," Funk said. "I think the guy who used to show up as a caveman with a club is going to start showing up dressed as Elvis."

Players' names are an important aspect of the game, and a great amount of thought goes into choosing one that sounds tough, dangerous, funny, or as it goes in most cases, all of the above. An online name submission prevents rollergirls across the country from duplicating names. So, Shawna Th' Dead, Ruth Less, Shebacca, Anna Sasin and Go Go Destrukto are the only players who go by those names nationwide. For the most part, those names also are the only names the players know each other by. "The first year, I didn't know anyone's real name," said Skid, whose real name is Michelle Ramsgate.

Roller derby is a fast-paced and exciting game, and Funk said it's the adrenaline rush that draws a lot of the girls to the game. "Part of it is also this mother hen sort of thing," she said. "You don't want to see anybody on the other team attacking or taking out one of your girls because then you get this urge to go after them yourself or knock them down, get them to stop or put them in their place. It's kind of like this crazy kind of war zone that you go and you do for an hour once a month. Every time you walk out of it without any serious injury, it makes you feel really alive. It's a total rush."

Despite the apparent violence of the sport, there is a real affection among the players, even the competitors. "We try to look out for one another in a big way," Schoen said.

"There's an unspoken rule of what happens on the track, stays on the track," Funk said. "These are your sisters, they're people doing exactly what you're doing, and you're not getting paid; they're only doing it because they love it, and how can you not respect them?"

The fact that these players aren't highly paid professional athletes actually adds to their enjoyment of the sport. They aren't being paid to train day and night to do one thing only. They're regular folks with whom the fans can identify. They have lives outside of the sport.

"There are women in the leagues who are anywhere from strippers to lawyers," Funk said. "We have a lawyer on our team who retired to become a chef. I was on a team once with a woman who was a stem cell researcher."

Although there is some speculation among the women that the sport may eventually go pro, that doesn't seem to be what most of the women are interested in.

"I still feel like even if it gets to the point where there are professional teams and people are getting paid to work out all day, there'll still be room for girls like us to keep playing," Ramsgate said.

The team boasts a wide range of body types. "I like the fact that you get to really exert yourself. It's a game that you can be any size, as long as you get good at it no one's going to tell you you're too short or too this or too that," Schoen said.

The team's business policies are based in part on not doing what team owners have done on other teams the players have been on.

"We have open books, everyone on the team knows where the money is going," Funk said. "A team I was on before, in the Midwest, was run by this guy who always claimed the team was broke, even though he was constantly taking trips to Vegas. He wanted us to think that he was the only one who could do our accounting, the only one that could book events."

The entire team eventually left and started its own team, run by the team, Funk said. "You're not going to get by being a man in this industry trying to make a buck," she said. "Girls are smarter than that."

Funk's leg is healing nicely. "I just went to the doctor and they said it looks really fantastic, and they couldn't hope for it to heal better than it's been," she said. "I had to have some surgery, and the doctor said the surgeons did a really good job of putting me back together."

Now, Funk's out of the wheelchair and she's allowed to put 25 percent of her weight on the leg. Soon, it will be 50 percent. As soon as the doctors say she can, she'll be back on skates. The team seems to be healing nicely, as well.

At a recent practice session at the outdoor rink at West Flamingo Park, Ramsgate summed up her enthusiasm for the sport. "There's nothing like this going on," she said, pointing out several young girls watching the skaters. "It's great to be part of something so historical that's changing women's sports and changing what these little girls see women doing."