Item #38 - Go to the Roller Derby

"And so we're running just as fast as we can
Holding on to one another's hand.
Trying to get away into the night
And then you put your arms around me
and we stumbled to the ground"
-Tiffany

Is there a better anthem for the days of the 80's school-sponsored skating party night? No. No, there is not. Every single time I hear it I think of the ole-timey skating parties, and it's still one of my favorite guilty pleasure songs (and yes, I know it's actually a cover song).

And do yourself a favor right now and go watch the video. It's mall-tastic.

Even the lyrics are a near-perfect anthem.

Running as fast as we can (or skating. use you imagination people).
Holding hands.
Getting away into the night (I think a dimly lit rink with disco ball-created stars is damn close).
Tumbling to the ground with that special girl because you have problems skating together, as you share a flirtatious laugh. Tee hee hee

Of course, the only difference for me was that I wasn't nearly the suave and witty ladies man you see before you today. I was . . . . slightly less-than-smooth, as the big-ass glasses, braces and slicked-back side part probably didn't help.

Yeah, that guy isn't asking any girls to skate with him. That guy had enough problems trying to not fall on his ass by himself, let alone while holding hands.  In fact, that guy spent most of the skating party in the arcade. You could laugh at that, though maybe you just don't understand how much cooler it was to play Paperboy in the arcade than on Nintendo. I mean, come on - it had actual handlebars for you to steer the bike! I could have talked to girls during class (theoretically . . . not that I actually did), but you only got to play Paperboy with bike handlebars once a month at the skating party. I think I made the right decision.

20 some years later, and approximately 20% cooler (I'm sure that number is up for debate), I was once again off to the skating rink. This time, it was a shriner's auditorium in Winchester, MA, with Alycia, Buddy, Megan and Daniel, a native German who was in town for a few weeks for work, and what better way to showcase Americana than drinking piss beer in a dimly lit hall while girls in short shorts body check each other? Actually, you can make that scenario better - have that same German catch a T-shirt from the T-shirt cannon.

The T-shirt was a Small. No offense to Daniel, but he's no Small

We showed up for 2 matches, 1 between a couple Boston teams and 1 between a Boston All-Stars team and a Chicago team, and we went into knowing, well, almost nothing besides the fact that we'd see skating chicks beating the crap out of each other. So after some pre-gaming Wikipedia lessons, and 3+ hours of live lessons, here's the gyst:

• There's 2 30-minute running halves. Each half is broken into a bunch of small periods, or jams. 
• Each team has 5 girls on the rink at once. 4 girls are blockers, with the 5th girl being the jammer. 
• The 8 blockers on the rink form a pack that has to stay together. When a jam begins, the jammers start behind the pack and try and break through it. The first jammer through the pack is the lead jammer.
• After that first pass of the pack, the jammers try and catch the pack again, and for each person they now pass, they get a point.
• The jam ends either after 2 minutes, or when the lead jammer decides to end it by putting their hands on their hips. So being the lead jammer is a damn good thing, because they can strategically stop the jam. Simple example - the Team A jammer gets through the pack first, becoming the lead jammer. Team A's jammer stays ahead of Team B's jammer as they re-catch-up to the pack, and gets through the 4 Team B blockers, scoring 4 points. Team B's jammer is just 15 feet behind, at the back of the pack about to score points, so Team A's jammer, the lead jammer, ends the jams. Make sense? (just nod your head).
• Most of the scoring ended up being 4 point per jam, as 1 jammer would get through the pack of 4 blockers before the other jammer got through any blockers, and then they'd call off the jam. But, you can continue to score as many points as possible in 2 minutes if you'd like. This usually happened when there were penalties, in which skaters would basically get sent to a penalty box, leaving their team short-handed

Once you got the lingo, it's really pretty simple. Enough so, that I think I can actually explain the video I took below.

The red team earned lead jammer status, and their jammer has just caught the back of the pack in the video. Meanwhile, the blue team's jammer is lagging behind, a half-lap behind the pack. The red jammer is able to fight her way through the pack, passing the 4 blue blockers and earning her team 4 points in the process. At this point, she sees the blue jammer is a half lap ahead, so she can either

• Bust her ass, hope the blue jammer slows down enough for her to pass her, and then get through the pack again before the blue jammer does.
• or realize that the more likely scenario is that the blue jammer will catch the pack and start scoring before she can re-catch the pack and start scoring again, and just call-off the jam . . . and she does by putting her hands on her hips at the end of the video.

See. You got it now.  And we really got it after 3+ hours of it too, as we picked up on not just the rules, but the strategy, figuring out when lead jammers would call off the jams, and when the packs would strategically try and pick up or slow down the pace, in order to put more or less distance between them and the chasing-jammers.

The inter-Boston was a nice way to pop our derby-cherry, but the Boston-Chicago match kicked it up a notch, as the Chicago ladies were . . . slightly more aggressive. Elbows were thrown. Bodies were checked. Winds were knocked out (as 2 Boston gals had to limp back to the bench after jams). It was an old-school 70's style derby smackdown, and sadly they put the hurtin' on the hometown Boston gals (the Windy City Rollers ARE the #1 ranked team in their division. Yes, there are rankings. Yes, you Detroiters have a team. And yes, you should go check them out).

But despite being 147-44 losers, unlike skating party Alan, the Boston Derby Dames still managed to be pretty damn cool.