Brian took us to a roller derby today. He has a friend that plays on a team from Louisiana and they were in Auburn competing this weekend. He came down to cheer her on, we went to see the spectacle.
They ride in a family skate rink with a taped oval track. The announcers have realized that bad sports movie dream of serving as both play-by-play commentary and public address. You can bring your own chairs or sit in the “suicide section,” think of it as behind the end zone where competitors occasionally spill into the spectators. That did not happen in this bout.
They call it a bout. There is an official bout photographer. You know him because that’s what his shirt says. There are six skaters per side on the floor at one time and five referees trying to keep track of things. During the lulls in the action they tell a guy in the infield the recent scores. He writes it on a whiteboard, flashes it to the announcers booth (regular skate rink attendees remember it as the place from which music was played and troublemakers were called out) and they try their best to keep the score and clock current.
They skate two 30 minute halves — it is flat-track and not quite as physical if you recall late night television roller derbies of a different era — and they are all fairly well tired at the end of the thing. It is charming county fair fun. It is lighthearted, not to serious, without airs or presuppositions beyond the notion of home team and visiting team.
We cheered the visitors, since our friend’s friend was on that team. And they won.
These are people who do this for the camaraderie and love of skating. The out-of-towners left their homes at 6 a.m. to skate here at 4 p.m. Some of them were making the return trip tonight. You have to love this sort of thing to do that to yourself.
On the back of the program, which I’m keeping because it will be worth something on e-bay one day, they advertised the after party at a local establishment. Just imagine the Bears and the Vikings gathering together and telling the fans where to join them.
We opted for Mellow Mushroom, where we found the chill fish in the picture above.
