Game on Gotham Girls Roller Derby Girls!

As a rule, I do not enjoy watching women’s sports. I do not enjoy watching any sports, even those involving tight pants on hotties. Retract that. If there was a sport involving tight pants and hotties, I would probably watch it, but only if the competition somehow involved swordplay, vampires, a fire pit, and dramatic lighting. There would probably also need to be a backstory around avenging unbridled malice.

But yesterday, I went all mercurial, if you will. My heretofore repugnance for sitting in a gym shattered in a gritty sweat-drenched pile up of pleated mini-skirts. Plus one of the jeerleaders threw a mini-Snickers right at my head which has possibly impaired my judgement.

The evening began thriftily enough. Tom and I squeezed every red cent out of our Metro cards on a train ride to Harlem. I felt like we got a lot of distance for our $2.25. We were en route to spectate the Gotham Girls Roller Derby: Bronx Gridlock vs Brooklyn Bombshells.

I decided to cheer for the Bronx, given it’s my pop’s hometown and all. At first, I wondered if I would regret my decision to honor my family heritage. The Brooklyn girls had much cuter outfits and a buxom, tattooed jeerleader skating around with a large tugboat strapped about her midsection. I realized I could probably desert to Brooklyn without too big a ding to my integrity because my grandfather worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and he drove a tug boat during WWII. Ultimately, I decided to stand tall and stick with my original Bronx allegiance. This was lucky as it turned out, because the Bronx won 127ish to a score less than that.

This roller derby business is all about unsportsmanlike conduct. Chicks with robust tattoos skate really really fast around this short track wonderworking some enviable hip checks. If I knew anything at all about rugby, I might say it reminded me of rugby. There is a lot of emphasis on fanged mouthguards.

The object of the game is to get your girl in the back of the pack up to the front faster than the opposing team. I think there is a lot of strategy involved, for example, it would appear to be good mojo to stack the middle of the pack with a wall of six-footer linebacker girls who can pull your arms off your body. Other competitor must-haves included a cocksure attitude, quadriceps strength, an ability to shake off wee kidney injuries, and an intimidating name like Bitch Cassidy, Anne Phetamean, Megahurtz or Tough Muffin.

Next bout is on June 4 and I do believe we’ll be there!

http://www.gothamgirlsrollerderby.com/press/