Darwin Roller Derby

On Saturday I went to the first ever roller derby bout in the NT - a grudge match between the Darwin Roller and Malice Springs.

The stadium was packed out for the bout, 1400 people inside and 200 turned away at the door. I was lucky to find a scalper a couple of days before. (Not really a scalper, just someone who had bought too many tickets)

The bout was opened by Aunt Millie singing Arafura Pearl, which was a nice touch I thought.

The ony thing I knew about roller derby was from the movie Stick It, which I'd originally assumed from the cover was about polo. I'd only half-watched the movie and been distracted by the romantic subplot and missed out on the actual rules.

Fortunately these guys were there to explain it to us.

Two teams of five roll around the rink. The first four of each team are the blockers. Behind are the jammers. The jammers try to push to the front of the pack and the blockers try to stop them. If a jammer succeeds the bout then becomes a jam. The jammer can now score a point for every blocker they overtake. The jam ends after two minutes or when the jammer indicates by putting her hands on her hips (usually they indicates by chopping their hands to their hips as if indicating they want their legs cut off here, but you get the idea).

Blockers aren't allowed to use their arms or hands, nor are they allowed to trip anyone over. There's a sin bin for such things. Blockers mostly use their hips and can push jammers out of the ring. Jammers can come back in but only behind the blocker who pushed them off.

Otherwise they go to the sin bin:

Bruising and rink rash often occur as does some serious knee-wrenching. The crowd loves it.

The game isn't just about violence though. A lot of the appeal of the game is in its pagentry. Roller girls have a punk aesthetic. They choose a nickname they dress like punk or goths as part of their uniform.

Here's the Malice Springs team:

Fifth from the right is "Ruff Trot". Here's the DRG:

The costumes are amazing. Look, even the refs get into it:

This is another one of the officials:

Fans too:

I'll show some actual game shots now:

The bout was exciting. DRG dominated early, particularly because of their blockers. In the second half, Brutally Blond from Malice Springs led a pretty valiant effort to narrow the gap, but in the end:

Darwin won convincingly.

It was a fantastic night and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes fun.

BONUS STUFF

The half-time show was unicycyle polo:

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