Roller Derby
Acknowledgements
Coquitlam Heritage would like to thank Terminal City Roller Derby (Instagram @terminalcityrollerderby) for their kind assistance and Carolyn Charbonneau (Instagram: @the_travelling_gal) for the use of her photographs.
Terminal City Roller Derby is Vancouver’s first women’s flat track roller derby league, established as Terminal City Rollergirls in 2006. TCRD is a member of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA).
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Roller Derby Rules
Roller Derby is a full contact sport and is one of the few team sports that does not use a ball or a puck. Instead, points are scored by a player (called a Jammer) skating anti-clockwise laps of the oval track and passing members of the opposing team. There are two periods of 30 minutes in a game with each period being divided into ‘Jams,’ lasting for a maximum of two minutes with 30 seconds between them. A full team is made up of 15 skaters who take turns to play. Generally, at the start of each Jam, there are five players from each team on the track, three Blockers, a Pivot (wearing a stripe on their helmet) and a Jammer (wearing a helmet cover with a star).
The Jammer from each team starts from behind a line on the track called a Jam Line while the rest of the players start between the Jam Line and the Pivot Line (30 ft away). When the whistle blows, the Blockers group together to form a pack while the Jammers attempt to get through the pack. Blockers are playing defense (trying to stop the opposing team’s Jammer getting by) and offense (aiding their own Jammer through the pack) simultaneously. They can do this by using their bodies to push and ‘hit’ the opposing team’s players out of the way and even off the track. There are strict rules about what sort of contact is allowed and which parts of the body can be used – for example you are not allowed to initiate a hit with your head or slam into another player’s spine. When a penalty is called, the offending player is sent to the penalty box to serve a 30 second penalty. If the Jam ends while they are still in the box they remain there into the next Jam, or potentially into the next period until their time has been served. There can be up to three players from each team in the penalty box at any one time.
The first Jammer to escape the pack becomes lead Jammer and gains the ability to call off the Jam by tapping their hips. Once a Jammer has completed an initial pass through the pack, they are eligible to score points on their next lap of the track. Points are scored by the Jammer passing blockers from the opposing team. A maximum of four points can be scored on each trip through the pack, one for each player. The lead Jammer can call off the Jam at any time, this can be used strategically to prevent the opposing team from gaining points.
The Pivot comes in when the Jammer gets stuck in the pack. The Jammer can remove the star cover from their helmet and pass it to the Pivot who then takes on the role of the Jammer and can now score points. The original Jammer becomes a blocker for the remainder of the Jam. If the lead Jammer does not call off the Jam it will run for the full two minutes.
Roller Derby Gameplay
Roller Derby is a very strategic and tactical game by nature. In order to be effective, teams cannot rely on willpower alone to enable their Jammer to break through the pack and score points. Different tactics must be employed by members of a team working with lots of coordination to be effective.
A common play to allow a Jammer to break through the pack is to utilize blockers offensively. This involves a Blocker disrupting the opposing team’s Blockers in order to clear a path for their own Jammer. A common defensive formation for teams is to utilize three of their Blockers in a defensive “tripod,” formation. The leader of a tripod must be highly skilled in skating and communication, as they skate backwards and direct the other Blockers in the tripod. This position is known as the Brace and is typically taken up by the Pivot. The Brace must also help in providing stopping power for the tripod when an opposing Jammer pushes against it. The fourth Blocker is typically the offensive player, tasked with disrupting the opposing Blocker formation to let the Jammer through.
A more defensive oriented strategy may see the Pivot and all three Blockers working defensively. This may see the use of a diamond formation, where the opposing jammer is blocked on all four sides. The downside is obvious though, in that there is no blocker to assist their Jammer in breaking through the pack.
Lead Jammer status is crucial to the way a Jam plays out. If an opponent is going to gain more points than the lead jammer’s team, or if the lead Jammer’s team is ahead in points, they can call the Jam to prevent the other team from scoring. This ability to deny the opposing team points at will is a very powerful tool.
Pack management, or the ability to effectively coordinate and direct ones own Blockers is vital for the overal success. Teams today work as a single unit to accomplish their goals, rather than individual players each independently attempting to disrupt the opposing Jammer.
Community
Roller Derby is very community orientated. It is not a professional sport, so leagues are funded by member dues, coaches volunteer their time, and individuals are responsible for their own equipment, jerseys, and insurance. Both the day to day running of the league and the hosting of games rely entirely on volunteers. To run a game with a full crew of officials seven onskates referees and up to 12 non-skating officials are needed to fill all the required roles. While historically played almost exclusively by women, roller derby is diverse and inclusive, showcasing non-conventional forms of womanhood. Different body shapes and sizes are welcome, it is LGBTQ2S+ friendly and Trans and Non-binary inclusive. The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WTFDA) welcomes Trans women, Intersex women and gender expansive individuals to participate.
The Terminal City Roller Girls (now Terminal City Roller Derby Association), a WFTDA league, founded in 2006, were the first Canadian roller derby league with over 50 members. It began with a meeting over nachos and has grown and evolved over the years. In its heyday it consisted of 150 skaters, four separate house teams that regularly played each other and a charter travel team, the Terminal City Allstars, that ranked in the top 20 internationally. The Covid-19 pandemic had a huge impact on roller derby, and it has taken a while for the sport to recover. A full return to competitive ranked gameplay only occurred in 2024 and the first World Cup since 2018 will be held in Innsbruck, Austria in 2025. Terminal City was also hit hard with many players retiring or moving away and is currently in an exciting rebuilding phase, working on recruiting and training new players and playing games against local teams. Other roller derby leagues in the Lower Mainland are Greater Vancouver Roller Derby Association (GVRDA), a WFTDA and open gender league, and Vancouver Junior Roller Derby for ages 6-18.
Within the wider roller derby community there are several borderless teams formed by skaters from cultures that have been marginalized and discriminated against. Team Indigenous Rising, Black Diaspora Roller Derby, Jewish Roller Derby and Fuego Latino Roller Derby are all teams that create space and points of connection for skaters from different leagues and geographical locations to compete together.
For many people, roller derby has been a place where they found they fit in and were able to express themselves. The Borderless teams seek to create these spaces for their respective groups. Tiggz, one of the founding members of Jewish Roller Derby explained that she didn’t feel at home on other teams. She created Jewish Roller Derby in order to play the sport in a way where she could be visibly Jewish. Similarly, Team Indigenous was created in order to have a team full of players with shared understandings of their Indigenous identities and culture.
History
The sport was revived into its current form by women in Austin, Texas. This revival began as an amateur sport, featuring all-women leagues. However, men’s leagues, as well as all gender leagues, have appeared. This revival of the sport has strong feminist themes, as well as attributes drawn from punk subcultures. Roller Derby has allowed athletes to challenge typical gender norms. The modern “derby names” are said to have their roots in Austin’s prominent Drag community, with performing names being carried over. These names satirize existing terms or characters, alluding to popculture, or historical events and characters.
Flat Track Roller Derby is unique in many ways. One of the first things newcomers will notice is the usage of “league” to refer to what is usually known as a team or a club in other sports or events. The sport, despite having organizational bodies, has a largely amateur spirit, with some leagues avoiding affiliation with national organizations to maintain the grassroots elements of the sport. Other elements include the DIY nature of clothing worn, with bright colours and additions to uniforms being common across the sport. Another common fixture is the use of elaborate makeup and other decorations. Team symbols and helmets may imitate features such as heraldry.
Two women’s league roller derby skaters leap over two who have fallen in a March 1950 bout in New York City, Wiki Commons
By 2004, the first and largest governing body, the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), was formed. This group helped to formalize rules, tracking of individual leagues, as well as promoting the sport through advertising, and organizing large scale events. The largest of these events is the International Roller Derby World Cup, the first of which took place in Toronto in December 2011.
The roots of Roller Derby dates back to 1935, and are found in spectacle events such as walkathons, and danceathons, walking and dancing marathons respectively. Promoter Leo Seltzer, began holding events in which teams of a man and woman skated 57,000 laps, intended to replicate a coast to coast journey across the United States. A large map board appeared at these events which “tracked” the progress skaters made across the nation. These shows took a long time to complete, sometimes up to weeks. In 1937, crowds were getting bored by the super long shows, with Seltzer instead pivoting to rules more similar to what Roller Derby has become today. The sport exploded in popularity in the 1950s. Films were made such as Roller Derby Girl, nominated for an Academy Award. ABC began to broadcast games on a national level.
Despite its brief and extreme popularity, Roller Derby’s national success appeared to be a passing fad. In 1959, Leo’s son Jerry Seltzer, took up the mantle of “Commissioner.” By increasing the drama, staging rivalries between teams and pitting good versus evil on the roller rink, he was able to revitalize Roller Derby’s popularity. The scripted elements have been compared to professional wrestling events, with different stories of heroic characters, pitted against villains. Although men and women played with the same rules and the same coverage during this era, there was still a gap in pay between the genders. Jerry Seltzer eventually sold the organization.
