Last weekend I went to my first roller derby game. To put it short, it was amazing. One of my workmates is on a team and so as well as supporting her, the fact that women wearing leotards on roller skates bump each other as a sport sounds amazing. Fairly simple rules, the skaters have one person who can score, called the jammer. The jammer scores points by skating past her teammates. The other 4 on the team try to allow her to get by, while the 4 on the other team try to stop her. Simple stuff.
The arena was packed, over a 1000 people there for the championship bout (not a match, or game, but a bout). Signs supporting their favorite players, such as Thigh Voltage, Huttbreaker or Punk Pantha for example. Lots of enthusiasm that just grew with the game as people actually started to understand what was going on. Towards the end, it got close, but my mate's team, Smash Malice won. Big celebration and the crowd loved it.
As Wellington is pretty small, there are only 2 teams so far and they practice with each other, so there's no real animosity. Good natured and yet physical, the girls battled to the finish, with some good time spent in the penalty box for being too rough. I thought it was a great sport, but my mates weren't so sure, with a couple saying one and done, but I'm keen for the bout against Auckland in a few weeks. Here are some pics and videos to check out.
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