Roller Derby
December 9, 2007
Last night I and a few friends went to see the Minnesota RollerGirls at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul. Some of you may have heard of roller derby as a sport before, maybe some of you have been to a match, maybe you will have no idea what I am talking about. http://www.mnrollergirls.com/
Girls
on roller skates
trying to score points by passing each other
while skating around a short oval flat track…
sometimes at great speeds…
often while elbowing or being elbowed..
while hundreds of hundreds of goof-nuts high on PBR are screaming incoherently and a DJ plays music you’d dance to if you could peel your eyes from the track for a second.
Last night the half-time show was a polka band….
and the floor was full of people doing the polka and screaming oi. Before things got rolling (oh, that was terribly punny… I’ll leave it in) they had the St. Paul Bouncing team on the floor.
15 men bouncing a small woman on a blanket and then launching her into the air. Brilliant. (not being sarcastic, it was really neat) http://www.stpaulbouncingteam.org/
I will say it, although I’m not sure I need to; I wholeheartedly approve. Worth every penny. Huge entertainment value and they are into charitable giving to boot.
As I review the photo gallery of bruises on the RollerGirl website, I can’t help but wonder how in the world those women can volunteer their time in order to be brutalized for public entertainment. Yet, at the same time I am thrilled at the wide variety of entertainment that our fine state has to offer and that I get a chance to experience it with friends whom I cherish and only look at me in fear the first time I scream my encouragement during a really serious roller derby jam.
Whatever your season/holiday traditions are, I hope that you are surrounded by friends and laughter.
Sarah
