The article features Keith Primeau of the Philadelphia Flyers.

(CNN) — Amber Mori drives a forklift in a warehouse in Gaithersburg, Maryland. As a working mom, she’s on the go 24/7. But twice a week, Amber transforms into “Cykosis,” a fishnet-wearing, skatin’ diva, who bumps and jabs her way around a roller rink.

Amber has been skating for more than a year as a member of the “Mason Dixon Roller Vixens” roller derby team. What started out as a lark has now become a passion for her. “I love it; it’s a great way to get out, be invigorated — and the companionship is wonderful,” she says. “And I’ve got legs as strong as pythons.”

Women’s roller derby started as a professional sport in the 1920s, when teams criss-crossed the country, jabbing and jostling and duking it out for money and, eventually, the national championship.

By the 1970s, roller derby teams (and their fans) started to wane.

But with the resurgence of the extreme sports craze, women’s flat track roller derby has made a comeback. Tired of pilates and Jazzercise, a lot of women started looking for more exciting outlets to stay in shape; the campy novelty of the sport piqued interest. Now, nonprofessional groups such as the Vixens are popping up all over the country. Watch the Mason Dixon Roller Vixens do their thing »

The games became so popular that the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association was established in 2004 to promote the sport by “facilitating the development of athletic ability, sportswomanship and good will among member leagues.” Not all women’s roller derby teams belong to the league, but the league hopes to offer rookie groups like the Vixens an opportunity to join.

Playing out of Hagerstown, Maryland, the Vixens started small — only eight women. Now their roster has more than 20 names, from “Stun Hun” to “Squeaky Bomb” to “Fanny Harmher.” The monikers, the costumes and the attitude are all in fun.

But the workouts are intense. Twice a week, the gals practice in order to stay flexible and in shape. Their coach, Travis “Groper Cleavage” McGlaughlin, puts them through sit-ups, pushups and stretches to improve their endurance. “They need to stay in shape,” he says with a laugh. “Racing around the rink may look easy; it’s not. It takes a lot of strength and stamina to just keep going.”

Team Captain Jocelyn Bassler, better known to her fans as “Skid Ho,” says roller derby is the best workout she’s ever had. A former high school athlete, Bassler was looking for a sport to keep her in shape when she discovered the rink. “Why go to the gym if you have roller derby?” she asks.

Mori agrees. Since joining the group, she says she’s dropped some weight and she’s not surprised. According to sports medicine experts, an average-sized skater can use 400 to 1,000 calories an hour in competition, depending on how fast they skate. “At first I had a lot of toning in my legs,” Mori says. “But since then, I think I’ve lost 16 pounds.”

The women will also tell you that along with the thrill of victory comes the agony of bumps and bruises. They’ve suffered a couple of broken bones, swollen ankles and jammed fingers. So practice also includes drills to teach the women how to fall correctly. “Because if you’re not prepared to fall, you just aren’t playing the game,” says Bassler. “It’s tough, but I love it.”

Dr. Stuart Willick, associate professor at the University of Utah Orthopaedic Center, knows it’s tough. The university’s sports medicine team provides on-site medical coverage for the Salt City Derby Girls of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. “We have recognized that these skilled and dedicated athletes are at high risk for various musculoskeletal injuries,” he says. “Furthermore, this population of athletes is generally underserved by sports medicine experts.”

In an effort to better understand roller derby injuries, Willick and his colleagues are undertaking what they call “the most comprehensive study of roller derby injuries to date” by compiling questionnaires from roller derby leagues all over the country.

By studying how athletes get hurt, they hope to figure out how to prevent future injuries and keep derby girls safely rolling. “There is a lack of medical knowledge concerning roller derby injury epidemiology, treatment and prevention,” says Willick. “We feel it’s important to better understand injury risk among these athletes in order to improve treatment and prevention protocols.”

Willick says his group has had more than 1,000 respondents to its electronic injury survey so far; he hopes to have the final results by summer. “The high response rate indicates that the athletes themselves feel that this is an important issue,” he says.

The Vixens will agree: Roller derby can hurt and is not for sissies. But injuries or not, these divas will tell you there is no other game in town, and if they get knocked down, they’ll just get up again and keep on rollin’.

Roll Britannia will take place July 18-19.  Check for cheap air fares, and get yourself a European vacation.

‘Flash’ Bogash started out as a team with his mother, fellow Roller Derby Hall of Fame skater Josephine ‘Ma’ Bogash. He was also a coach and popular player representative for the sport.

March 27, 2009
Bill Bogash, a pioneer Roller Derby star who launched his legendary career on skates as a teenager during the Great Depression when he teamed up with his mother, has died. He was 92.

Bogash, a resident of Yucca Valley, died of respiratory failure March 20 at Hi-Desert Medical Center in nearby Joshua Tree, said his wife, Georgia.

“Billy Bogash was truly one of the greatest stars on the banked track,” wrote Gary Powers, executive director and curator of the National Roller Derby Hall of Fame in New York City, on the hall’s website. “He shaped and guided the sport like few other skaters and was instrumental in helping make Roller Derby the sensation it became during the late ’40s and ’50s, when the banked-track sport was the talk of the nation.”

Dubbed “Mr. Roller Derby” by his fellow skaters, Bogash launched his 23-year skating career in 1935 when he was 18.

The impetus came when Bogash and his mother, Josephine, attended the first Transcontinental Roller Derby race at the Chicago Coliseum in August of that year.

Roughly patterned after six-day bicycle races and Depression-era dance marathons and walkathons, the Transcontinental Roller Derby was the brainchild of Leo Seltzer. He was the former owner of a chain of Oregon movie theaters who staged commercial walkathons before tapping into the popularity of roller-skating.

The Transcontinental Roller Derby simulated a race from one end of the country to the other: Each two-person team — consisting of one male and one female — skated laps around the track and covered about 100 miles a day over a period of six weeks.

A large map of the United States on the wall kept track of the distance the skaters traveled each day.

Bogash’s mother, a diabetic who started roller-skating after her doctor told her she should exercise, tried out for the Roller Derby and was offered a job. But she told Derby officials that she wouldn’t go on the road unless they also took her son.

Josephine and Billy Bogash made their team debut that September, at the second Transcontinental Roller Derby race, held in Kansas City.

Bill Bogash, who was born in Chicago on Nov. 22, 1916, was an ice skater when he started “but not much of a roller skater,” former Roller Derby skater Mary Youpel told The Times this week.

“He became one of the very best skaters we ever had,” said Youpel, who joined the Roller Derby in Chicago in 1936 and skated until 1958.

Youpel, who spelled her name Youpelle during her skating days, said Bogash “used his ice-skating skills to become a great skater. He skated low, with long strides; he was a very graceful skater, really.”

Recalling those early years, Youpel said the Roller Derby skaters traveled by bus and lived in the buildings they skated in. And Ma Bogash, as she was billed, “was kind of the mature person for the whole Derby, so she looked after the girls.”

“You stayed in your quarters at night, and she told you what to do and what not to do,” Youpel said. “She was the mother hen, I guess you’d call her.”

Youpel said both Ma and Bill were “wonderful.”

“All of us girls would go to Ma if we had a problem, and Bill was a very quiet kind of guy, but a very jovial guy,” she said. “He always had a joke or something to say and got along with everybody. Even on the track, if things would go wrong, he was there to try to calm it down.”

Roller Derby soon evolved from a marathon-style event with two-person teams into a competition involving two teams of five men and five women each. The men and women alternated time on the track, and reworked rules brought more crowd-pleasing physical contact among the skaters.

When Roller Derby was televised in the late 1940s, Youpel said, “it became a big deal because now people that couldn’t go to the games could see it at home, and we drew a lot of fans that way.”

In 1952, Ma Bogash became the first female skater inducted into the Roller Derby Hall of Fame.

Bill Bogash was inducted a year later.

“He was called ‘Flash’ Bogash; he was very fast and very agile,” recalled Nellie Wilson, who skated in the Roller Derby from 1952 to 1964 under the name Nellie Montague.

As chronicled on the hall of fame website, Bill Bogash led numerous teams around the nation during the 1940s and coached the New York Chiefs to the first Roller Derby world championship at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1949.

Bogash later led the Los Angeles Braves when the Derby moved west from New York in 1954 and continued skating with the Braves over the next several years. He also was the player representative for all skaters in negotiations with Derby management.

“If there was a problem with management, you went to Bill,” Wilson said.

After hanging up his skates in 1958, Bogash spent 24 years running Sanborn House, a Los Angeles restaurant that he had bought a few years earlier.

In 1971, Bogash helped launch the Roller Derby Has Beens, a group of former skaters who met for annual reunions.

“To us, he’s Mr. Roller Derby; he’s been around so long and involved so long,” Wilson said. “Last year, when he came to the reunion, all the skaters stood up and applauded when he came through the door.”

Bogash, who was married three times, is survived by his wife of 50 years, Georgia; his sons, Billy Jr. and Scott; his daughter, Sharon Guccione; three grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

A celebration of Bogash’s life is pending.

Good to know it’s on the Big Boy’s radar.

Personally, I think there is a direct correlation between Houston Roller Derby, and Houston becoming the “Best City” to live in in the United States. Ever since 2006 when I saw my first derby bout in Houston by HRD I have thought, Houston would be a great place to live. So I am giving a lot of the credit to the skaters and volunteers for HRD who make Houston such a fun place to visit.

See you June 8th! And if I weren’t in Dallas for a bout tomorrow, you know I would be checking out the Bayou City Bosses’ fund raiser.

Phil

I’ll mostly be playing R&B tracks from the 70’s but also playing some hearty 80’s and 90’s Texas rock plus some Mexican rock crossover stuff from past and present. I will be the only live late night DJ on the air and my show will run weekly from 11PM-1AM CST on Marfa Public Radio.

Great news for all you computer nerds- the show and station are streamable at www.marfapublicradio.org Hopefully some of y’all will opt to listen as the studio is equipped with double turntables in addition to CD and cassette. I will be bringing bits and pieces of my extensive 45 and LP collection that I don’t get the pleasure of listening to nearly enough.

Feel free to call in to the station while I’m in the booth at 432-729-4578. I’m planning on a five to ten year lifespan for this show.

(Houston Art Car Parade 2008)

They’re tough, yet flirty. Aggressive, but sassy. And they’d knock you to the ground in a heartbeat without so much as a blink or an apology. Well, at least on the skating rink they would.

They’re the women of the Houston Roller Derby (HRD) league, and with the 2008 season underway, they’re putting Houston on the map as a new hot spot for this retro sport.

Established in 2005, HRD (Houstonrollerderby.com) is growing just as much in its participation as it is in its popularity and fan base. The league includes four teams, each with its own tough-girl title. There’s the Bayou City Bosses, Burlesque Brawlers, Machete Betties, Psych Ward Sirens and the all-star HaRD Knocks. The skaters also come with intimidating monikers like Goldie Bloxx, Rosie the Ribhitter and Wreck Hell Welch.

During the 2008 season, which runs from March to September, teams battle each other, as well as other Texas teams. Home matches, or bouts, are held at least once a month at downtown’s Verizon Wireless Theater.
You might be surprised by the athletes you’d see bashing each other on the rink. “We have skaters from every type of background, including housewives, lawyers, IT consultants, graduate students, massage therapists, photographers, teachers and scientists,” said “Carmen Geddit,” HRD interleague director and one of five Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) representatives for the league. “You’d be amazed at the variety of women who are interested in playing a full-contact sport.”

Geddit said HRD skaters train three to four times a week to stay in shape for the grueling bouts. Houston area women are invited to join a recreational league to learn about the sport, train with HRD skaters and get a solid workout. Just be sure to bring your helmet and knee pads.

—Clair Maciel, www.healthandfitnessmag.com

Roller derby tournament comes home to Austin

Texas Rollergirls helped repopularize the sport in the early 2000s.

By Patrick George
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, October 01, 2007
(more content at the web site, including photos and video)

Austinites helped bring it back, and now they’ve brought it home.

The city behind the revival of women’s roller derby played host to the 2007 Women’s Flat Track Derby Association Championship Tournament this weekend. Skaters and fans from as far away as London united for one purpose: to watch feisty, tightly clothed women tackle, slam and pummel each other to the ground as they skate around a track.

Three thousand people — eight teams from across the United States plus equally raucous spectators — crammed into the Austin Convention Center. The event was hosted by Austin’s own Texas Rollergirls, one of the driving forces behind the sport’s rescue from 1970s obscurity, and the 2006 national champions.

“Everybody’s always gunning for Texas,” said Jenny “Apocalippz” Olender, who skates for the Texas Rollergirls. “We are the godmothers of roller derby, and it’s our responsibility to advance the sport.”

When the Rollergirls started competing in Austin in 2001, the sport’s popularity quickly spread until it became a national phenomenon, Olender said. This year’s tournament was special for participants because it meant the sport was coming back to its hometown.

“When we started Rollergirls, there were a few people who knew in their hearts that we could bring it to this level,” said Melissa

“Melicious” Joulwan, author of “Rollergirl: Totally True Tales From the Track,” which was published in February. “It’s really fun to have it back here in Austin.”

The sport is not for the faint of heart. During four 10-minute periods, four women from each team battle it out to protect their jammer, a sprint skater who earns points by lapping members of the opposing team. The defensive players can block using body parts above the hips except for their hands and heads, which often results in skaters crashing to the ground or getting launched into the air.

It gets rough sometimes. Olender said she broke her ankle twice last year.

“Last night, a girl flew over a photographer’s head,” Joulwan said Sunday. “Every once in a while, you see people go into the audience.”

The scene also features rock ‘n’ roll music and brutal takedowns by skaters in fishnet stockings with derby names such as “Reyna Terror,” “Bettie Rage” and “Agatha Frisky.”

“I like alternative sports,” said Greg Scott, a fan from Minneapolis who came to Austin for the tournament. “It’s more exciting. All kinds of stuff can happen.”

Although the Kansas City Roller Warriors rolled away with the title, the Rollergirls’ Lara Bell said that might not be such a bad thing.

“It means it’s a real sport when we don’t win anymore,” said Bell, whose derby name is “Lucille Brawl.”

“We’re passing it on.”

pgeorge@statesman.com; 445-3851

She is being treated at Schwab Rehabilitation Center on the South Side of Chicago. She has partial use of just one arm and no use of her legs. But she has feeling in her limbs.

A trust has been set up in her name to pay for her medical bills.

North Community Bank
c/o The Tahirah Johnson Trust
Attn: Amber Barnhill
1555 N. Damen
Chicago, IL 60622

There was no coverage of the final scores, since it went so late. Just coverage of the event.

Here’s the article:

Roller derby all-stars hit to win

Sept. 17, 2007, 3:10PM
By CAROLYN FEIBEL
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
carolyn.feibel@chron.com

Recipe for a roller derby, Texas-style: take a rockabilly fashion sense, skate punk athleticism, and a feminist, grass-roots work ethic. Put the whole thing on old-school quad roller skates, add a dollop of nostalgia, and you have the latest incarnation of a uniquely American sport.

On Sunday, five all-women teams from Texas met up for the Governor’s Cup championship bout at Verizon Wireless Theater. Spectators cheered the local all-star team, the “HaRD KNOCKS,” as they faced off against last year’s champion, the Dallas Derby Devils.

In flat track derby, five skaters¹ from each team circle in a “pack,” trying to block and slam opponents to prevent the opposing “jammer” from scoring by passing the pack. It’s rough, fast and can send skaters skidding into the fans.

“It’s fun to watch somebody come around the corner and give someone a clean shot up into the crowd,” said Charlie Marken, 51, of Pearland.

Marken and his wife are season ticket holders for the Houston league, which is in its second season.

“We came just as a joke, kind of to see, but we got to know some of the girls,” he said.

Marken said he likes the amateur authenticity of roller derby. Pro football and baseball, with its swollen salaries and steroid scandals, have turned him off.

“These girls are just out there for the love of sport,” Marken said.

In Sunday’s first bout, the “Assassination City Special Ops” team from Dallas beat “Las Tejanas” from San Antonio, 144-57. Houston’s own HaRD KNOCKS were slated to compete later Sunday evening. An Austin team and another Dallas team also competed.

Technically a team sport, roller derby offers each skater lots of chances to flaunt her individual style through the adoption of a derby nickname and persona.

Player names such as Mary Choppins, Choko Ono, Grudge Judy, and Strawberry Deathcake indicate the strange mix of flirty aggression and cultural playfulness that defines the sport.

“You definitely want a pun, something that plays off something else, but something that also defines you as a skater,” said Stacy Williams, 35, a black player who chose the name “Death by Chocolate.”

“It’s such an aggression release,” Williams said. “You get on your skates and you hit people and people hit you and you learn you can take that.”

The “hits” are really regulated body checks, with strict rules defining which body parts can be used in a block. Tripping, pushing and fighting are strictly prohibited by a graded penalty system.

The women seem to enjoy the opportunity to be tough, while remaining unabashedly sexy.

“It’s a fresh sport and you see hot, powerful women on wheels,” said Misty “Mistilla the Killa” Moody. The 31-year-old is a lighting designer by day and the league’s trainer by night.

Some skaters came to the sport from the rockabilly or punk music scene, while others simply are athletes looking for a new extreme sport. What they all have in common, however, is a “slight insanity,” said Joy Wallis, who plays as “Tinkerhell” for the Austin league. The national derby revival began in Austin in 2001, and has grown to more than 40 all-female leagues across the country.

“You have to be willing to sacrifice your body, your life,” Wallis said. “It’s about finding that little thing you didn’t know you had inside and getting it out there.”

¹ – I always expect some odd factual errors in media coverage. This is a minor one. I’d count it as: there are 4 skaters from each team in the pack, while the 5th (the jammer) tries to lap them.

Cached here for posterity:

Violent femmes

Women’s football and roller derby leagues give sports fans something else to cheer about

By MARK LOWRY
Star-Telegram staff writer

For a region that prides itself on athletics, there aren’t a whole lot of chances to see women’s professional team sports in North Texas. Strangely, we don’t have a Women’s United Soccer Association team or a Women’s National Basketball Association team.

What we do have, though, are a three-time championship Women’s Professional Football League team, the Dallas Diamonds, whose home season kicks off this week; and two roller derby leagues, both of which are winding down their seasons.

So now is a good time to look at the two rough-and-tumble contact sports, which star heavily padded women who aren’t afraid to break a nail — not to mention an opponent’s bones and/or spirit.

Derby does Dallas

The leagues: North Texas has two roller derby leagues. The Dallas Derby Devils, founded in 2004, play at Forum Roller World in Grand Prairie; the Assassination City Roller Derby is in its second season at a Garland rink. Both leagues are made up of several teams, with players from all over the Metroplex, and are members of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (visit www.wftda.com).

The teams: For this story, we focused on the Derby Devils, which claim to be the largest flat-track derby league in the South, with about 100 active skaters. This Saturday’s playoffs pit the Slaughterers against the Suicide Shifters; and the Wrecking Crew against the High Seas Hotties. At the championship game Sept. 8, the winners of those two games will face off for first and second place in the league; the two losing teams play for third and fourth place.

The game: Flat-track derby means that the action happens on a skating-rink floor, with the boundaries marked off with rope lights. Between the outer boundary of the oval track and the spectators is a 10-foot space. This is to protect the fans, as players who are knocked out of bounds sometimes crash into the audience.

Teams have five players on the track during each “jam”: one pivot (or pace-setter), three blockers and one jammer. The jammers score a point for each member of the opponent’s team she passes, without going out of bounds. The blockers, of course, try to keep the jammers from doing this.

Injuries do happen. At one July game, medics came to the track four times. In each case, the player eventually got up and walked off. Sometimes, though, players are carried off with concussions or neck or knee injuries. Donations are accepted for the “injured skater fund.”

The players: What’s great about roller derby is that teams and players go all-out creating their look. The Slaughterers, for instance, wear blood-splattered aprons, while some players add horns, devil tails or fishnet stockings to their outfits. Player nicknames get very creative, like “June Carter Crash,” “Ann R. Key” and “Pummela Slamderson.” Even better are the jersey numbers, which range from the traditional to off-kilter picks such as .44 and 2 r . Slaughterer LaShawn Sykes, for instance, goes by the name “Hard Drive” and sports the number 00100100.

Although the women knock into each other during the game, there is a lot of camaraderie between the teams. “At the end of the day, we’re drinking a beer together,” said 26-year-old Hottie “Barooski.” “That’s not to say there aren’t catfights sometimes.”

Adding to the excitement are entertaining announcers with names such as “Dawn Diamond” and “Bankshot,” and a mistress of the rink, if you will, known as “Vanna Fright.”

The crowd: Typically, more than 1,000 people attend, and it’s an odd mix of demographics. Heavy on the tattooed set, though.

Halftime: Denton-based wrestling league XCW hosts three bouts, with a ring set up in the far corner of the rink. Gotta say, after watching it close up, it looks more cheesily choreographed than the big-league wrestling stuff you see on TV.

Good to know: At the Devils events, it’s BYOB. Bring your coolers with any kind of alcohol, but not in glass containers. Concessions with food, soda and water are also available.

There are some bleachers set up on either end of the track, but it’s best if you bring your own collapsible chair. Get there early to stake out a good spot. Derby regulars know that the most crashes happen on the second and fourth turns. Some even make pyramids of their empty beer cans, hoping a derby girl will knock them down.

Dallas Derby Devils

7:30 p.m. Saturday
Forum Roller World
1900 S. Great Southwest Parkway
Grand Prairie
$12-$15
972-641-0661; www.derbydevils.com
Championship game: Sept. 8

Assassination City Roller Derby
7:20 p.m. Sunday
Texas Skatium
2020 Rowlett Road
Garland
$10-$15
972-240-6455; www.acderby.com
Championship game: Sept. 9

Diamonds in the rough

The league: The Women’s Professional Football League, founded in 1999 with two teams, now has 16 teams representing 12 states. In the league’s eight seasons, Texas teams have won the championship six times: The Houston Energy took consecutive titles in 2000-02, while our Dallas Diamonds have reigned the past three years.

Diamonds are a Houston girl’s best fiend: Not only have the Diamonds won three years running, they’ve only lost one game in three seasons. That was a September 2006 loss to Houston.

As you can imagine, Dallas and Houston are the biggest rivalry in the league, which is why the home opener against the Energy shouldn’t be missed.

The team: The Diamonds have 43 rostered players, led by head coaches Mikal Black and Todd Hughes. This year, the team moves to a new venue, Pennington Field at Texas 183 and Central Drive in Bedford.

The players: Like the women of the roller derby, the football women are mostly professionals by day who tear up the field at night. Our Diamonds cover girls include Ingrid Mitchell, 42, the 5-foot-10-inch, 265-pound defensive player nicknamed “Tiny.” During the day, Mitchell works with mentally challenged people, and says she enjoys the competition and workout the game offers. The blonde is rookie receiver Danilynn Welniak, 18, who postponed taking a scholarship to study marine biology at the University of Hawaii to play a year with the Diamonds.

The women play for many reasons. According to Diamonds general manager Shelley Burnson, one signed up a few years ago because she had several young kids and “wanted to let out some aggression.”

The game: It follows the same rules as the NFL, played on a 100-yard field, full tackle.

The crowd: Crowd sizes average about 2,500, says Burnson. Again, you can spot a cross section of types in the bleachers, although it’s largely a family event. This year, the Diamonds plan to have a bounce house and other activities for kids at certain games, and are planning a faith-based night.

And yes, we know that a lot of you guys out there are saying “women, football – yeah, right.”

When the teams are somewhat evenly matched, these games can be as exciting as those in the pro boys’ club.

“Once we get you there, you’re hooked,” Burnson says.

Good to know: You cannot bring food, beverages, coolers, glass containers or backpacks into the stadium, but concessions are available. There have been reports of tailgating before Diamonds games. Also, for the first time, the national championships will be played here this year. Can we expect another Dallas-Houston smackdown? Count on it.

Dallas Diamonds vs. Houston Energy
7 p.m. Saturday
Pennington Field
1501 Central Drive
Bedford
$7-$10
817-690-3126; www.dallasdiamondsfootball.com

Future home games
Sept 8: vs. SoCal Scorpions
Sept. 22: vs. New Mexico Burn
Oct. 6: vs. Las Vegas Showgirlz

mlowry@star-telegram.com
Mark Lowry, 817-390-7747

National Championships are occurring this week.

You can follow the results, including Saturday’s Quad Events, at their web site.