Log In


Reset Password
Sports Youth Sports Professional Sports More Sports College Sports High School Sports

Roller derby taking on all comers

Roller Girls hosting multi-team collective on Saturday
The Durango Roller Girls will take on the floor at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Chapman Hill Ice Arena. (Herald file photo)

The two-by-two roller skate, most commonly called a “quad” nowadays, was birthed – or at least patented – 160 years ago, and to help (knowingly or not) celebrate that fact, the Durango Roller Girls extended invitations far and wide.

The RSVP response was most impressive – leading to their home bout this Saturday being dubbed simply “DRG & Friends vs. The World.” But not having a singular opposing squad, however, wasn’t exactly an accident.

“We would have loved to have one solid team, but with COVID … all the teams are struggling to find players and have a full team of their own,” explained DRG veteran Kendel ‘Cox’ Teran, who’d joined the Roller Girls the year before the pandemic went global. “So yeah, we did want to invite everyone; we’re a community.”

“A lot of other teams were saying, ‘We’d love to come play but we only have six, 10 skaters.’ And we could, technically, play like that but it was going to be exhausting for everyone,” she continued. “So having everyone come and join up … really opens it up for everybody, you know?”

Full roster details for the sides were still being finalized at press time Thursday, but available information shows that skaters will travel to Chapman Hill from Pikes Peak Roller Derby (Colorado Springs), Boulder County (Longmont) Roller Derby, Elevated Roller Derby (Albuquerque), Los Alamos (New Mexico) Derby Dames, plus High Altitude Roller Derby (Flagstaff, Arizona). The Derby Liberation Front crew from Rat City (Seattle, Washington) Roller Derby may also be represented, and ditto for the Sonora, California-based High Country Mountain Derby’s Hellcats – making for a quite a blend with which the DRG will contend.

“We have a lot of ‘fresh meat’ – skaters in their first year, or maybe their second with us – so we wanted to do a mix-up so that we could, you know, ‘premiere’ them,” explained Teran, who said that the DRG have been practicing twice weekly for quite a while now in preparation for their first 2023 home bout. “We have a lot of skaters … at every level – all the way from really experienced, been skating for 10 years, down to those in their first bout – and it’s just a really good learning curve.”

“Some of the other skaters coming in … on our side are people we’ve (skated) with before,” she added. “I don’t know all the names on the roster right now, but most of the people joining us are ‘sister’ teammates, if you will. And the people on the other team are a hodgepodge … who have and haven’t played together – it’s going to be really interesting watching everything unfold!”

As an extra twist, the event may have a coed element included.

“A lot of male skaters in the area don’t get a chance to play in a bout. They get a chance to ref and coach and do all the other stuff, and be at practice, but this time we opened it up to everybody,” Teran said. “So we’re hoping to have some male skaters as well – which is going to be a challenge for some of the girls, but I think they’ll be able to hold their own pretty well.”

Advance tickets, available for purchase online or directly from a Roller Girl, are $10, or $15 for walk-ups on bout night. Doors will open for admission at 6 p.m., with the action commencing at 7 p.m.

“All the other teams … like, we know we have each other’s back; we’re there for each other,” Teran said. “As soon as the bout’s over we’re back to being friends. It’s just such a unique sport … and it’s amazing to have this community.”