2011 Roller Derby Season Starts Next Weekend!

For most of us, the "off-season" has been anything but. Between intense league training four times a week, and preparing our new rookies, we're poised for the 2011 season to be the best yet! Did you know that every single one of the Atlanta Rollergirls can skate nearly a mile (1600 yards) in 5 minutes, all the while falling and recovering every 45 seconds? Some of our fastest women can actually skate more than a mile, including the falls, in 5 minutes. If that isn’t compelling enough to prove we have some fantastic feats of female athleticism to showcase, we challenge any skeptics to come see for themselves at the Atlanta Rollergirls season opener on February 26.

It’s time to dust off your tailgating gear because the first derby bout of the season is quickly approaching. We hate to turn away your sad faces at the door, so purchase your tickets quickly—we are almost sold out! AND....a little birdy told us that LITTLE IODINE, one of the original rollergirls from the 50s and 60s, might be attending our first bout of the season. Come experience a blast from the past and a launch into the future at the Yaarab Shrine Center on February 26!

ARG home team, the Toxic Shocks, are packing up their skates and sparkling hot pants to hit the road. This Saturday they are schooling the Richland County Regulators on how it’s done in the ATL. Good luck ladies, and bring home the win!

The anxiety and anticipation of February 6th will forever be burned into the memories of 2011 ARG's newest skaters. While their stomachs were sick with nerves, from the stands it was impossible to tell. The 2010 and 2011 rookies flew onto the track with some hard hits, wild whips, and jumbo jumps. While the initiation left most girls unscathed (minus a few bruises), Layla Beatdown was not as lucky. While jamming, she fell and hit her chin, resulting in two jaw fractures and four chin stitches. For Layla, February 6th, 2011, marked the first day of her six-week liquid diet. Was that enough to scare off the new fresh meat? Come see for yourself…

On February 5th, 24 women tried their luck at becoming the next round of Atlanta Roller Girl fresh meat. While the average ARG fresh meat class usually consists of about 15 girls, only 11 were chosen due to their remarkable skill and high probability of passing the next round of assessments. Among them was one speed skater (thanks, Coach Jim) and one referee crossing over into skater territory. They are a fierce bunch to keep your eye on!

Each year, all the ARG teams take the opportunity to parade their newest round of rookies at the semi-annual Debutante Brawl. With all teams now solidified, the rollergirls bonded with their newest teammates through karaoke, dancing, and drinking. Of course, no derby party is complete without a few embarrassing tales to tell afterward. Welcome home, new rookies!

In early February, Atlanta Rollergirls held its 2011 off season draft to pick new home-team rookies. Now, just weeks after the draft reveal, our newest skaters are gearing up for their first game. This month, we highlight two rising stars of the Atlanta Rollergirls.

Lez Dispenser discovered derby in September 2009, and she couldn’t wait to start training for try-outs. While she’s dabbled in other team sports over the years, she never felt the same passion for them as she does for roller derby. Her hard work and rigorous training paid off this year when she was drafted to the 2011 Denim Demons. Lez will be making her derby debut on Saturday, February 26th as the Denim Demons take on the Sake Tuyas in the home team opener: “I feel very nervous but also extremely excited. I am so happy and fortunate to skate with the Denim Demons and I know we'll kick some ninja butt!”

Lez Dispenser got the idea for her name—a play on the famous Pez candy—from fellow skater Agent Maulder. As you might guess from her name, Lez has a reputation for her humor and sauciness. She claims that if she came with a warning label, it would read: “Fathers, lock up your daughters. Seriously.”

While noting that derby is an extremely difficult sport, both mentally and physically, Lez can't deny that it's one of the greatest things she has ever done. She loves derby for many reasons, but most of all because she feels like it brings out the best in women. Lez Dispenser claims to have more derby ‘sheroes’ than she can count, but within ARG, Lez looks to Dirty South Derby Girls Alassin Sane and Switchblade Siouxie for inspiration, adding for emphasis that she would “trade [her] first born child to skate like either of them.”

Apocalypstix rookie Emma Wantsome discovered roller derby after watching “Blood on the Flat Track,” a documentary on the Rat City Rollergirls and their role in the genesis of modern flat track roller derby. Emma and the 2011 Apocalystix will make their home debut on March 19, 2011, playing against the Toxic Shocks. While her first chance to play may be more than a month away, Emma is already excited, but also nervous, for the first bout. One of her primary goals for her first game is to work seamlessly with her new team, but she also adds that she’s hoping to have fun and learn a lot from her first bout.

Emma Wantsome’s Harry Potter-inspired name was adopted from Emma Watson, the actress who plays Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies. This avid Harry Potter fan chose 934 for her number as a homage to Platform 9 ¾, the train platform from which students embark on their trip to the Wizarding school in the books and films.

Despite the excitement leading up to the home season, Emma acknowledges that the months of training prior to the draft were physically and emotionally demanding. The harder she practiced, the more she grew to love the league and the sport as a whole, which made the possibility of not successfully completing her training period acutely stressful. Throughout her training, she has relied upon support from her husband (now her biggest fan), noting that he, “has always been supportive of me doing derby. He always wants to know how practice is and how I'm doing. He would probably play derby if he could.”

Help the Atlanta Rollergirls help some great kids! For the first bout of the 2011 season, we will be raising funds for Shriners to benefit their hospitals, which provide free orthopedic and burn care to children all over the country.

Each of our home teams and DSDG will be competing to see which team can raise the most funds for this terrific cause! Vote for your favorite team by donating at the merch booth or with your team's jeerleaders or mascots. We'll be announcing totals throughout the night to see who'll be walking away with bragging rights!

ARG sponsor and derby girl–owned Chocolate F/X won the 2011 Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Best of the Big A coveted title of best chocolate. Bacon chili praline chocolate covered toffee, anyone? It’s worth breaking your New Year’s resolution for. http://chocolatefx.net/

There's a concept you're probably all familiar with called the "circle of life". This is where you liked The Lion King as a kid, so when you're an adult you buy the movie for your kids, and when they grow up they buy it for their kids, and so on. Plus, the movie is on a dvd, which is also a circle. Every point along the edge of the dvd is equidistant from the hole in the middle, which... represents... the food chain? Look, I got this job by knowing about roller derby, not for having a degree in biological geometry or whatever. My point is this: Sometimes things change into other things. Days turn into nights, acorns turn into oak trees, dinosaurs turn into oil, bugs turn into gross splotches on the soles of my shoes, and in the right conditions, pivots can turn into jammers.

Here's how it works: The jammer, having decided that her time as point-scorer for the jam is coming to an end, removes her helmet cover. When this happens, she stops being able to score points and if she was lead jammer, she loses that status. A jammer might choose to “pass the star” because she's fatigued or having difficulty getting through the pack, and hopes that the pivot may have better luck. The jammer then hands her helmet cover to the pivot, and the pivot puts it on her head. At this moment, the pivot becomes the team's jammer and sprints out of the pack to begin her new life as a beautiful, point-scoring butterfly. Meanwhile, the old jammer lives out the rest of the jam as a humble blocker, telling stories about the good ol' days while dealing out massive, bone-splintering hits to the opposition.