New Haven Independent

The CT RollerGirls held its first championship bout Sunday night. The Iron Angels won 110 to 46 over the Widowmakers, whose roster was reduced by injuries and other mitigating factors, including pregnancy.

The league includes players from New Haven and surrounding towns.

Click on the play arrow below to get a look at the action, at Roller Magic in Waterbury, in a musical slide show.

Some 400 fans filled the roller rink under multicolored neon lights. The young Connecticut roller derby league is part of nationwide resurgence of the sport, which combines fast-paced full-contact action, pun-filled player pseudonyms, and an aesthetics that combines punk rock and burlesque sensibilities.

Fans with foam fingers and homemade signs cheered as the Widowmakers, led by team captain Miz Con SepJen, took the rink wearing low-cut purple and black blouses over high-cut miniskirts and fishnet stockings. The Widowmakers also brandished bloody mannequin heads. The Iron Angels, led by team captain Nelly Knuckles, entered the rink in tight-fitting grey Air-Force-style “minidresses,” with multiple tattoos visible through their fishnets and striped tube socks. All the players wore full protective gear, including helmets, knee and elbow pads, and teeth guards, to prevent injuries from the frequent collisions and falls.

Two announcers, Hitman Hank and Spring Break Rock and Roll Ringmaster Pony Jesus a.k.a. David Cop-a-Feel (pictured presenting the championship trophy), roamed the rink throughout the evening, calling out the action on cordless mics over the sounds of aggressive rock and roll. Hank, dressed in a plain black suit, and Cop-A-Feel, wearing a top hat, crown of thorns, red sash, Hawaiian shirt, and some sort of toga, deciphered events on the rink for audience members new to roller derby.

A bout is made of two-minute plays called jams. As players circle the rink, “jammers,” wearing starred helmets, attempt to pass through the main pack of skaters, made of “blockers” and “pivots,” who set the pace for the pack. After their initial pass through the pack, jammers score point by passing members of the opposing team. Meanwhile, the blockers try to obstruct the opposing jammer and clear a path for their own jammer.

Although pushing and elbowing is illegal, many players were sent sprawling last night by the frequent legal body checks. EMTs were on hand to care for those who fell and didn’t get up immediately, including Widowmaker Vixen Vega, who made a trip to the hospital after a shoulder injury in the first of the bout’s three periods.

The Iron Angels pulled ahead early and maintained their lead throughout the bout despite the Widowmakers’ best efforts to stop their relentless scoring. Pearl Jammer, who was selected as the match’s MVP, wove through the pack again and again, posting a large portion of her teams 110 points. Asked after the match about her teams dominating performance, Pearl Jammer said, “We work incredibly well together. We’ve skated together so much that each know what we are going to do out there.”

Widowmaker Black Cherry (pictured embracing Pearl Jammer after the bout) was a high scorer for her team, despite playing most of the game on a taped up sprained ankle that she received in the first period. A reporter caught up with her after the bout.

Reporter: You played the whole game on a sprained ankle!

Black Cherry: Yeah.

Reporter: Doesn’t that hurt?

Black Cherry: Yes.

Reporter: Do you think you’ve made your ankle worse?

Black Cherry: Oh yes.

Asked about her team’s inability to stop the Angel’s onslaught, Black Cherry explained that her team had had to sideline a number of key players who were injured in other bouts. “We’ve had so many injuries,” she said, “and then Pepper [Grind-Her] got pregnant…” In order to have enough players to compete, the Widowmakers had to borrow two players from the other team in the league, the Elm City Bonecrushers.

CT RollerGirls is a grassroots, bootstrap operation. Players are also businesswomen committed to making women’s roller derby into a viable spectator sport in Connecticut. Team members are responsible for organizing practices,securing venues to compete, making uniforms, recruiting new players, publicizing events, and raising money. The league’s next event is their travel team’s debut bout, when the CT RollerGirls’ Stepford Sabotage take on the Long Island Roller Rebels at 6:30 pm on Dec 9 at Roller Magic in Waterbury.

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