By day, Centretown resident Heather Hanna, 31, is a loving mother caring for her 16 month-old daughter. By night, however, Hanna will strap on her pads, lace up her blades, and transform into her alter-ego Betty Stalker, one of the Ottawa Roller Girls’ fiercest blockers in roller derby competition.
“Everyone needs an outlet,” says Hanna. “The derby offers something that’s outside the norm for people looking for something new.”
Roller derby is a full contact sport based on formation roller-skating around an oval track. It started as an endurance race in the 1880’s and eventually added a point-scoring system and physical contact to the game in the 1920’s.
The sport devolved into a form of sports entertainment in the 1960’s where theatrical elements turned the game into a circus-like wrestling match and overshadowed the athletic aspects.
Down in the dumps, the game was revitalized in the 21st century to mold speed, strategy, athleticism and theatrics too, such as edgy costumes and vicious nicknames.
“It’s a mosh pit on wheels,” says Kelly Robinson, 19, who joined the club last month and was given the alias “Judge Dread,” to represent her alter-ego on the track.
The Rideau Valley Roller Girls is another derby club that was established in 2008 and has about 40 members divided into three teams, the Slaughter Daughters, the Riot Squad and the Vixens.
Now it’s the off-season, and last month the club recruited 10 new players, or “fresh meat” as the team calls them.
“A lot of people dropped out after the first open house, and it’s only going to get harder,” Robinson says.
Even though the next competition is not for several months, the team still trains up to four times a week and scrimmages together to ensure their sprinting, blocking, hitting, endurance and teamwork will all be ready for game time.
“We all have other commitments, but every single player would skate everyday if they could,” says Hanna. “We’ve all gained so much playing roller derby.”
When the season begins in March, the women will compete in regular tournaments throughout the summer bringing their hard-core attitudes to nearby cities such as Montreal and elsewhere in Southern Ontario to compete against likewise recreational clubs.
For home games, the team plays in a variety of flat-surfaced arenas around the city. They trains primarily at the Norm Fenn Gymnasium at Carleton University.
Three blockers, a pivot and a jammer make up a team. For every opponent a jammer passes, she scores a point. Meanwhile, the blockers try to knock their opponents down to make it harder for the opposing jammer and easier for their own jammer to score. The pivot quarterbacks the team’s pace and strategy.
Leilla Younis, 41, nicknamed after the pesticide “D.D.T,” by her teammates, never played organized sports in her life before joining the club in 2007. She says the derby appealed to her because it was a bunch of women getting the chance to socialize and exercise together.
“I made a whole new family,” she says. “It’s such a team sport, you have to rely on each other and work together, and all the girls are so dedicated to what we do.”
Younis says interest in roller derby is growing amongst women in Ottawa, and for good reason.
“It’s fun, it’s entertaining and it makes you always trying to compete and become better,” she says.
The sport produces determined athletes striving for perfection. Hanna rented out space in the Bronson Centre for extra practice on her skating techniques. The first competition in the 2011 roller derby is only three months away.