The room is cloaked in twilight darkness.
Despite the collection of small low-watt lamps that burn along the edge of the bar, that darkness remains. As each swing of the door ushers in a new arrival, their eyes widen and pupils dilate, struggling to adjust to the room’s dusky dim light.
As their eyes refocus, the new-comers are greeted by a raven-haired seductress sporting tattoos, a retro white nurse’s cap and a bad-ass button that declares, “I do all my own nude scenes”.
“Skater, fan or volunteer?” asks the fair skinned caretaker to the newest arrival. A nametag stuck on her chest screams loudly in red marker that she answers to “Skulluton”, with the name Megan written quietly underneath. Soon the newbie, like everyone else in the room, is displaying a similar calling card.
Skulluton continues to roll out the welcome mat, as an eclectic group of more than a dozen young women and a handful of men mingle, waiting for the evening’s event to begin.
“If you Y roller derby give us money”, says a handwritten sign affixed to a glass jar that sits on the edge of the bar. Short and to the point it highlights the why of the night.
Roller derby has come to Halifax.
“I used to live in Toronto, and my friends started a team up in Toronto, and when I was going to join, unfortunately, I had to leave to come here – we got a job offer”, says Tiffany Spencer, a.k.a. Inked Vixen.
Inked Vixen takes on the multiple roles of manager, coach and skater with the Halifax Hell Cats – the city’s new women’s roller derby league. Along with friends Megan Hawryschuk, and Anna Al-Banna (sKiTtleE), Vixen plays a lead role in the local resurgence of the once popular contact sport.
Roller derby originated in the great depression. Historically a form of sports entertainment, it came to life when Leo Seltzer, a film publicist in Chicago, merged the idea with the walkathon with the rise of the roller skating fad.
The first derby, held in 1935 and dubbed the Transcontinental Roller Derby, was a marathon event lasting more than a month. Over the next two years Seltzer took his derby on the road. When he noticed that the crowds were more excited by the crashes than the race, he tweaked the game to increase the physical contact between skaters.
Eventually the derby evolved into a game played by two teams, who win points by lapping members of the opposing team.
Each bout, or “jam”, consists of five skaters from each team who face off on the derby track. In the case of the Halifax Hellcats this will be a flat track, but some derby leagues skate on a banked track.
Each team is made up of a pivot, three blockers and a jammer. It’s the pivots job to set the pace and lead the skaters, while the blockers stay behind guarding their positions, and each other, in “the pack”.
The jammers are responsible for scoring the points and they do this by skating through the pack. Once the first jammer breaks through she is designated “lead jammer” and after lapping the pack once she receives one point for every member of the opposing team she then passes.
It is in this battle for points that safety becomes an issue as the blockers attempt to assist their jammer by flinging them through the pack, while the other team tries to prevent the opposing jammer from scoring. Each Jam lasts a maximum of two minutes, but they can be called off at any point by the lead jammer tapping her hands on her hips.
Originally roller derby was a mixed gender sport, but today it is dominated by women. Although there are some for-profit leagues that are still mixed, an overwhelming number of teams belong to all-female grassroots’ organizations.
For Inked Vixen that’s part of the draw.
“I grew up as a tomboy so I always hung around boys all the time, and I’d like to be able to have this sport with girls, and meet girls that have the same interests as I do”, she says.
While Vixen had hoped the first Hellcats League meeting would draw enough people to get a couple of teams off the ground, the roster is growing and her wish is coming true.
Raelene Brodie heard about the meeting through her boyfriend. She had been interested in roller derby since watching the A&E documentary series Rollergirls, but didn’t think a league existed in Halifax – which it didn’t, until now.
“I kind of like the aggressiveness of the sport, it’s not like a frilly, girls’ sport”, says Brodie, “but I think it’s empowering for girls, for women, cause it’s kind of taking stuff that would typically objectify women and turning it all around and putting it in this sporting atmosphere and I think that’s really cool. It’s a pretty tough sport and I like tough sports.”
Although she may not have direct experience with roller derby, Brodie is an avid mountain biker, and runner. Many of the other new recruits have little to no experience either, but with training and conditioning starting soon it doesn’t seem to be something they’re too worried about.
“I’m awesome at everything I try”, says Skulluton slyly.
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