GREAT FALLS — The Covid 19 pandemic put a halt to many things people love, including roller derby bouts.
But the high energy, full-contact combination of speed, strategy and athleticism is back in Great Falls.
The Electric City Roller Derby Club is getting set to take the rink this weekend.
“We actually had to pretty much rebuild from scratch,” said team member Allissa “Krash” Karlson. “I mean, even our 501c3. So a lot of people have put in a lot of work administratively, a lot of people have put in some work skate wise.”
The club has been scrambling for practice space. Karlson has warehouse space that the team uses outside of Great Falls on Thursday nights to practice. She’s one of three holdovers from the former roller derby club, the Electric City Roller Grlzz.
The club is now a gender-neutral club.
“We don't have a lot of men's roller derby available in Montana, but we have some really great skaters,” said Karlson. “So we just kind of incorporating them and it's a lot of fun.”
Currently, there are four males on the team.
Karlson says a lot of the skaters on the team are former junior skaters who were used to co-ed skating.
“I've been reffing these kids since they were like 10 or 11 and they're all grown up now and they skate with us and it's awesome,” said Karlson. “So, we have we have a spread of about 18, 19 years old to all the way up to somewhere in the mid-forties.”
Karlson added that skating with men was a bit intimidating at first, but everyone keeps safety in mind.
“We play a full contact sport, but we all want to get out of bed and play it again tomorrow,” said Karlson. “They are amazing teammates and they are thoughtful and they are conscientious and they never, ever give you more than you can handle.
Karlson describes roller derby as a complicated game.
“You're playing offense and defense at the same time,” said Karlson.
Bouts are played in a series of jams, lasting two minutes with five players on each team.
“Four of those are blockers and one of those is the jammer,” said Karlson. “The jammer is the point scorer.”
Blockers try to help the jammer through while keeping the other jammer back.
“They score points by getting out of the initial group, making a lap, and then every person on the opposite team they pass, they get a point,” said team member Roxanne “Spindy Hopper” Gray.
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While they’ll return to action over the weekend, they always welcome newcomers, even those without skating experience, to the club.
I’ve never been an athlete,” said Karlson, “I mean, I barely made it to gym class, but I found derby in my early thirties and just fell in love.”
“The thing I hear all the time is that ‘I'm not coordinated. I'm not graceful’ Well, neither are we. That's why we don't ice skate,” said Gray. “We play derby, and it doesn't have to look pretty. It just has to go.”
“Everybody is so welcoming and inclusive and we're not going to break somebody when they're new, they're very encouraging,” said team member Bonnie “Kracken Up” James.
The team will hold their first bout of the season on Saturday, August 24th at 5:30 pm at the Four Seasons Arena against a mixed team from across Montana.
Cost is $15; children 10 and under are free. Click here for tickets. For more information, click here to visit the website.
A portion of the proceeds will go to a non-profit raising awareness about the missing and murdered Indigenous people's crisis.
