July 2006 Fly Magazine | Dutchland Rollers

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Roll Models
Dutchland Rollers give a crash course in Roller Derby
by Kelly Watson

Forget sugar and spice and everything
nice – these girls are all gristle
and bared teeth. With names like Betty
Clocker, Torque Wench and Bitch Hazel,
they’ve suffered scrapes, sprains and
broken bones to participate in the
latest sports craze sweeping the
nation: Roller Derby.

“We’re all pretty realistic – you can
get hurt,” says skater Jen Cole. “But
my philosophy is that I could skate my
ass off, go outside and get hit by a
car and break both legs and both arms.
You know, at least if I do it
[skating], I can do it saying I had a
good time.”

Cole is a social worker by day. But
several nights a week, she and around
50 others, ranging from age 19 to 53,
come together to form Lancaster’s
Dutchland Rollers. They meet at The
Castle, their torn fishnets, short
skirts and tattoos often catching the
stares of the children filtering
outside, reluctantly leaving the
birthday parties and group skates that
have ended just minutes ago.

This saucy style is one of the things
making Roller Derby so famous lately,
with the vampy, ill-tempered vixens of
A&E’s reality show “Rollergirls”
draped across magazine ads and
primetime TV. But while scantily clad
catfights might be a recipe for
primetime success, they raise
questions about the sport’s integrity.

“I can’t really get away with wearing
this stuff at work,” Cole explains of
her own fishnets. “And when I’m on my
downtime, I just want to wear jeans
and flip-flops … so it’s given me an
opportunity to be able to dress up and
have fun. It’s cool to have a
different personality.”

This personality is Josie Cuervo,
#21+. Each Derby girl must choose a
special name to serve as her Derby
alter ego. Often, it takes the form of
a clever pun or a twist on something
with personal significance.

“You try to bring the skate and the
aggression into it, as well as keeping
it campy and fun,” says Dutchland
Roller Valerie Stephan, AKA Laverne
and Surly. “We try to keep things
relatively family-friendly. There are
some really choice names out there in
Philadelphia and in less conservative
areas – they’re not for print.”

Once inside the Castle, the Derby
girls form a circle at the center of
the rink for warm ups. Below peeling
murals of fire-breathing dragons and
jousting knights, they do exercises
similar to the ones you did in high
school – leg lifts, sit ups and
suicides.

“I want 20 pushups!” shouts coach
Jaclyn Downs, AKA Swoop Deville. “Lead
with your pelvis and keep your abdomen
tight!”

The girls grunt as they struggle to
balance on the tips of their skates.
After 20 minutes of exercise, they
take a quick break to prepare for
drills.

“We play this game called blood and
thunder, where we all skate around and
we’re all checking each other, and the
last girl standing is the victor,”
says Stephan. There’s also the rock
star drill, where girls practice
falling to both knees, and “a baseball
slide, which we call the panty shot,
’cause you swing your legs up and
people see your bloomers.”

Falling is one of the first things the
girls learn, Stephan says, because if
you do it the wrong way, you could
wind up with a cracked coccyx, like
one Dutchland Roller did during her
first night on the rink. The threat of
injury is so severe that the Women’s
Flat Track Derby Association requires
home teams to provide at least two
licensed medics during games.

But if you don’t want to seem like an
outsider, don’t call them games.
They’re commonly known as bouts,
during which two Roller Derby teams
take positions alongside each other
and circle a track, while players
called “jammers” attempt to skate
through the opposing team’s pack.
Naturally, there are other elements
involved in Roller Derby as well –
WFTDA has an eight-page guide of rules
and regulations devoted solely to the
sport.

Page six makes it clear that fighting
is a big no-no. That may seem strange
– after all, Roller Derby teams thrive
on their status as rough-and-tumble
rebels. And people expect not
catfights but full-out brawls.

“Even potential fans that we meet will
say, ‘So when are you going to beat
each other up?’” Cole says. “It’s not
like that.”

She stresses that Roller Derby is not
WWE on skates, but admits it does
bring out people’s aggressive sides.
“There is a more vicious, competitive
edge that comes out in people that
they didn’t think they had,” Cole
says. “We do have some girls who are
like, ‘Grrr!’ And that’s fine. I just
hope they’re on my team.”

Dutchland Roller Misty Benzak (AKA
Rott Wailer) is one of these girls. A
pretty girl with olive skin and
multicolored streaks in her thick
hair, she looks like a punk version of
the girl next door. But once she read
about Roller Derby in the local
newspaper, everything clicked.

“When I said that I was going to go
try Roller Derby, almost everybody
told me, ‘I can totally see you doing
that!’” Benzak says. “This is really
me, but they see that outside of my
work and they’re like, ‘You’re kind of
a bitch,’ or a hard ass. Now I’m
allowed to be.”

Cole laughs. “I think it’s actually
preferred.”

“Yeah, I don’t get in trouble for it,”
Benzak says, “and I don’t have to
watch my mouth or what I do.”

Cole jokes that despite the aggression
on the rink, Derby has still helped
her to make 35 new best friends.
Sometimes such comradery can make it
hard to play well. To stay focused on
the game, the girls have a mantra they
use whenever they overhear an apology:
“There’s no sorry in Derby!”

“People are going to fall,” Cole says,
“and you just need to let it go. If
you skate by someone and they’re
knocked down, and you skate by them
again and they’re still knocked down,
then you want to stop and see if
they’re OK.”

Cole laughs. She realizes it sounds
harsh, but let’s face it – these girls
are no sissies, and they have been
trained to fall. “We definitely spit
in the face of the stereotype about
catty girls,” she says. “No one’s
stealing anyone’s boyfriend. We’ve all
gotten along really well.

The packet handed out to all new
Dutchland Rollers stresses this
further. “Bad blood is NOT cool,” it
reads. “During a bout there’s going to
be a skater who really booty blocked
you right on your ass. Ninety-nine
percent of that time afterwards you
two are going to be sharing pints and
shots.”

After all, the girls are united not
only for their love of Roller Derby or
their athletic prowess, but in a
common goal.

“We were talking about developing our
motto, our vision for the league,”
Cole says, giggling in anticipation of
the punch line. “And [one Dutchland
Roller] said, ‘Our mission statement
should be, ‘Dutchland Rollers: Making
Lancaster fun.’”

“That’s a big mission!” Benzak
shrieks, and the girls double over in
laughter.

Finally, Cole sighs and regains her
composure. “Just the things that we’ve
done so far,” she says, “I think we’ve
taken a step in that direction.”

The Dutchland Rollers anticipate their
first bout will take place sometime in
October. They will also be at Marion
Court Room on July 22 for a special
promotional event. For more
information, visit
www.dutchlandrollers.com.

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