Photograph by Kevin A.Roberts
On Oct. 20–21, St. Louis hosts the Men’s Roller Derby Association Championships at the Midwest Sport Hockey Complex. Scott Meyer, a.k.a. Magnum, P.I.M.P., is the coaching captain and president of the hosting St. Louis Gatekeepers (stlgatekeepers.com). This ain’t your daddy’s roller derby, explains Meyer: The hits are real, and the action is contagious.
• Hosting the championships is super-exciting. We had to travel to New York last year, so this year we’re really looking forward to sleeping in our own beds, having the home crowd cheer for us, and being on our own track.
• Being used to your own familiar skating surface is actually a big deal. Ours is a Sport Court, which is like plastic, basically. The top eight teams in the league will be in St. Louis for the championships, and we’re one of them. We just completed our regular season, and the odds are we’re going to be ranked No. 1 or No. 2. Last year, we were ranked No. 1, and at the championships, we didn’t play how we played all season. This year we’re really hungry. • Something you should know if it’s your first time at the derby is that we encourage people to make a lot of noise and get into the action. We like people to root for a team. We like the party atmosphere; people are drinking and having a good time.
• A game is called a bout. It’s 60 minutes, divided into two halves. Each half is divided into “jams” of two minutes apiece. There’s one jammer per team – they’re the point scorers, and four blockers on the track for each team. The goal of the jammer is to score points, which they get by passing the other team’s blockers. You also can also sometimes call off the jam if the other jammer is about to score points. Each roster has 14 people—we use four jammers and 10 blockers. • The hitting is related to hockey hits. Hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder and body-to-body contact are legal. Hip checks are very powerful. There’s no tripping, no back-blocking, and no contact with hands, forearms, or elbows. There are major and minor penalties, and we have a penalty box. In general, our league is very good at controlling “the headhunters,” as they’re called. If you get seven trips to the box, you’ve fouled out, and that does happen.
• There are some big differences between roller derby in its ’70s heyday and now.
• Now we’re on a flat track, not a banked track, and a lot of that play was scripted, like pro wrestling. They set up hits, and leapfrog jumps over players. Ours is real. Now, when you see a big hit, the skater who got hit is trying to avoid it. It’s not like the Harlem Globetrotters now. • All the skaters have funny nicknames. We have “Specs Offender,” who wears glasses, “Debaucherous Prime,” “Neil Death Experience”…
• For new recruits, we have a new skater development program. Some people show up with a hockey background, but others need more time to learn everything. People are doing contact drills in about a month.
• The derby is a good way to get the lead out. Being able to hit someone at the end of a long workday is definitely cleansing, and the endurance practices, where we skate for a long time, are like sweating your stress away. They help keep you sane. • We get a lot of knee injuries, and a lot of bruised or broken ribs. Last week a player on the Newark team broke his collarbone. But mostly, you’ll just find bruises that you don’t really remember how you got them, but they’re not usually too bad. I do some refereeing for the girls, and one time one of the girls went in for a hit, fell, broke her forearm, and when she lifted it she looked like Gumby. It was pretty nasty. • Kids love the derby. Every bout we give out a program, and we have an autograph section, and the kids love to get autographs. It’s very kid-friendly.
• We scrimmage against the Arch Rivals women’s roller-derby team a lot. The girls are super-tough. They use their hips to block more, which are harder to dodge and more powerful. The girls are more technically sound blockers, whereas the guys rely on their athletic abilities more. Interleague mingling is pretty common. My wife skates for the girls, and we all hang out a lot. There’ve even been some marriages made through derby.
