Roller Derby Update

Actually made it to the Naptown Roller Girls (see other post) match last night at the fair grounds. It was everything I hoped for and more.

First off, there was an over capacity, standing room only crowd of 2200 people. At $15 a head that works out to be $33,000 dollars. Now these athlete/entertainers are not paid. The matches are not for charity, and the teams aren’t part of any educational entity. I’m not an event promoter, but I’d guess when you have that big of a rake under those circumstances, you’re doing pretty damn well.

The Naptown girls played with gusto, but in the end they were just out skated. Despite my best efforts not to, I accidentally learned the rules and some of the subtleties of the sport. Damn. I’m no longer free to just ogle the spectacle...now I’ve got to think. The main problem: our jammers just aren’t fast enough! A rather, um...how would you say, “provincial” gentleman behind me suggested that if they were cats, he’d “paint their bung-holes with turpentine...yeah, that’d gitter done!” Certainly such a drastic measure would be ill-advised, but something will need to improve before the next bout.

I made a feeble attempt to shoot some video using an older FujiFilm camera. Didn’t work out quite so well due to probably three things:

#1 It’s an older camera

#2 We were too far away

and

#3 I’ve got no farking idea what I’m doing

At any rate, here’s the effort.

Problem number two should be rectified next time (and there WILL be a next time). All seats are general admission, and if you get there early enough you can actually sit on the floor right outside of the track. You’ve got to be over 18 to do it and promise you won’t sue. It appears to make for very exciting action as we witnessed no less than twenty occurrences of competitors being knocked into the crowd. I was disappointed to learn that you can’t keep anything that lands in your lap...you’ve got to throw it back into play. There is ample opportunity for groping the disoriented projectiles, but I would advise against it...most of these ladies are really tough!

Couple of pics if anyone is curious. Again, sorry for the quality.