This is an article in the New York Times about Roller Derby in New Jersey and includes South Jersey Derby and Penn Jersey She Devils.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/nyregion/new-jersey/09rollernj.html

With Names That Could Kill, Women Rev Up Roller Derby

By TAMMY LA GORCE
Published: November 7, 2008
WOMEN’S roller derby is undoubtedly having a moment in New Jersey; at least seven leagues, with more than a dozen teams, have sprouted statewide since 2005. (Some leagues have only a single team.) But Mickey Taylor, a construction worker from New Milford who answers to Bone Saw when she skates with the Northern Nightmares, isn’t complacent about the long-term prospects for her favorite pastime.

Right now, “it’s bubbling,” said Ms. Taylor, 29, who wore fishnets under sapphire-blue shorts and a leather dog collar around her neck at the Branch Brook Park Roller Skating Center here. On a recent Friday night, her 12-member Nightmares had a bout against the Hub City Hellrazors, both part of the Newark-based Garden State Rollergirls League, formed in 2006. “The problem is, people love the idea of it, but nobody’s coming out to see it,” Ms. Taylor said. “We need some big sponsors.”

According to many team captains, a national resurgence in the sport started after A&E broadcast the 2006 series “Rollergirls,” based on the Texas Lonestars. Ms. Taylor is not alone, however, in worrying that the sport that once spawned a national craze is headed for the same fate it met in the mid-1970s, when it skidded from the popular consciousness as unceremoniously as the Bee Gees.

“We have crowd participation and people love us,” said Chris Manzella, a k a Dee Licious, a 30-year-old advertising executive from Morristown. “We get 200-plus coming out to bouts.” She is also the owner of the Morristown Madams League, which formed in 2006 and skates at the Morristown Roller Hockey Rink. Still, “with a recession at our door, are people going to spend money to come out and see us?”

“I don’t know,” Ms. Manzella said.

For now, although “leagues form, dissolve and merge on the regular,” said Tracy Williams, managing editor of the Web site Derby News Network, based in Baltimore, thousands of 18- to 60-year-old New Jersey women are as serious about roller derby as skate names like Predator in Chief, Betty Brawl and Joy Collision may suggest.

They head out to practice several nights a week, especially from August to November when most bouts take place, leaving behind their families and jobs to don helmets and attitudes perhaps too serious for a sport that sometimes includes spanking in the penalty box. Bouts are infrequent, sometimes taking place only once every six weeks, and are either interleague or against teams within a radius of a five-hour drive. Because the new incarnation of roller derby is still strictly amateur, each team counts on its own coordinator to arrange bouts, which are open to the public and generally cost $10 to $15.

A typical bout starts with loud rock music, often provided rinkside by a house band. Once a referee blows the opening whistle, five heavily padded women from each team take to the rink to try to stop the opposing team’s jammer, or point scorer, from advancing through a crowd of blockers during two 30-minute periods. Heckling by the crowd is typical; rude hand gestures are commonplace.

“It’s like football on skates,” said Melissa Morera, 33, a k a Mos Deathly, president and founder of the Deptford-based South Jersey Derby Girls, which formed in 2007. “You have to have a lot of endurance.

“You also have to be pretty aggressive, although we have some women who aren’t aggressive normally outside of derby,” said Ms. Morera, of Mullica Hill, a co-owner of an insurance marketing company. “They’re just fast and they want to stay in shape.”

In New Jersey, two governing bodies guide the play. While most leagues follow the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association rules, at least two leagues subscribe to the practices put forth by the Old School Derby Association, based in Levittown, Pa., and known for allowing tougher, more punishing hits.

Among them are the Trenton-based Penn-Jersey She Devils, which counts a derby celebrity on the coaching staff. Judy Sowinski, 68, of Ocean City, a k a the Polish Ace, started skating professionally in 1958 and retired in the mid-1980s.

“I was very fortunate,” Ms. Sowinski said. “I got paid. But there’s no money in it now, even though some of the girls are very talented.” Her outlook on the future of roller derby is too pragmatic, probably, to placate devoted players.

“You don’t know at this point,” Ms. Sowinski said. “It could become a huge hit again or it could go right down the tubes like it did before.”