Roller Derby has been continually gaining momentum, especially after Drew Barrymore’s Whip It. “There’s a really long-standing tradition of women, roller skates, and freedom. Research has been done on women and skating with early documented accounts of women on skates and how they would evade their chaperons,” says Shannon Smith aka Sheer Tara, one of the players in the Western New York region (WNY). The WNY has been gaining popularity not just in attendance, but in participation too. There has been so much interest and involvement that there are now five home teams: the Alley Kats, Devil Dollies, Suicidal Saucies, Nickel City Knockouts, along with an all star travel team called the Lake Effect Furies. They have hosted and been hosted by leagues from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Hamilton, northeast Ohio, Rochester and Ithaca, along with several other locations.
The popularity of the sport isn’t just helping ticket sales, it is helping charities. Several of the organizations and leagues are putting together fundraising games that have really helped charities this holiday season. The women aren’t just athletic and charitable, they are professionals in the job market too ranging from nurses, receptionists, librarians, doctors, and several other areas. I think we can look forward to seeing much more of this sport in future on and off the rink.