By Shelley Houk (aka Starry Starry Fight)
Photos by Bob Dunnell and Eggysan.

I never realized how big Americans lived until I moved to the Midwest eight years ago from the West Coast and encountered the most fanatical sports fans I had ever seen;  people of the Lou celebrated baseball and hockey aggressively while still managing to consuming enormous hotdogs and oversized beers. Given the dedication to sports in this city, I am always surprised that I still encounter people who are unaware that another important sport takes place right under their noses each month: all-female roller derby. Sure, roller derby might be small in terms of production, but the Arch Rival Roller Girls are vital to the Saint Louis sport scene.

The Arch Rivals were founded by local Mary Manglin in 2005; her interest in the sport was peaked after a trip to Chicago where she saw (now rivals) Windy City Rollers. The Windy City Rollers were a hardcore group of women who play roller derby to win at the national level and although Manglin was unclear about exactly how she would start and sustain the same kind of league in Saint Louis (a city which was already obsessed with two very masculine sports) she knew she had to try to draw women together and give them a space to compete.

Some of the women she called on to skate were friends, but most were simply women who replied to an advertisment published in the RiverFront Times which promised them an opportunity to play a sport unlike any other sport they had ever heard of. The women came together with very little knowledge of the game and relied on each other to learn how to skate fast and hit hard. Local favorites such as Grave Danger, Joanie Rollmoan, Mayor Francis Slayer and The Educator emerged that night and five years later, still represent the talent that this city breeds from its seams.

Each one of these of these figures now openly admit that they knew nothing about the sport from the beginning. I joined the league long after the rough beginnings and I have to admit, I find myself totally incredulous when these talented female athletes recount stories of how they could barely stand on skates at one point and how (blushing) they didn’t even know the rules of the game.

Anyone who has seen the recent roller derby movie Whip It knows the premise of the game is simple: send a skater, known as a jammer, through a pack of women, known as blockers. Blockers try to keep their own jammer from getting hit and stop the opposing jammer by knocking her off her feet. Jammers receive one point for each opposing blocker they skate past.

But any local who has attended more than one game knows that the strategy taking place in the packs of women on the track is complex, complicated, and fascinating.  Skaters know that angles on the track matter in how much speed she can gain; they also know that the positioning of their teammates at certain moments will dictate how many hits they receive and how many bruises they will take home with them. Novices might only see a woman a woman sent flying across the track by another woman, but true roller derby fans know that big hits are only possible because the roller girls have practiced for hours and hours to make theirs hits fierce and effective, safe and legal.

What takes place off the track is also anything but simple. The skaters and volunteers of the Arch Rival Roller Girls literally produce the games themselves from the bottom up; show up early and you will probably see groups of women and men unfolding chairs, laying down their track, selling tickets, and mingling with fans—all before they hit the track and bout for one intense hour for their spectators.

Even those who are not obsessed with typical Saint Louis sports will most likely find themselves enjoying roller derby. The games are inexpensive, the beer flows freely, and you can sit along the track and hope for women to fly into your laps at any given moment.  And let’s be honest here: who wouldn’t want to see hot chicks on roller skates pummeling each other at any given moment?

But roller derby in Saint Louis is much more than beautiful, tattooed women wearing fishnets and beating each other up. As women, we have had to work extra hard to make a name for ourselves we will continue to work to make this burgeoning sport a staple for the Lou.  Deep down, we know that the Arch Rival Roller Girls offer Saint Louis sports an unconventional and fresh way to catch some serious game play with serious strategy.