CREDIT: MARK GIRDAUSKAS
The Luscious Lunch Ladies and the Thames Fatales squared off in a Forest City Derby Girls bout at The Western Fair District’s Agriplex earlier this year.

What do the Thames Fatales and Luscious Lunch Ladies have in common? Well, if you guessed they are both part of the Forest City Derby Girls, London's only full-contact league, then you would be right. The league has been a part of the London sports scene since 2006.

So when I contacted the league to talk about their upcoming bout at the Western Fair District's Agriplex on March 30, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, especially after taking a look at the league's website (forestcityderbygirls.com). A quick look at the Lucious Lunch Ladies' roster revealed such colourful names like Grisly Blaire, Leslie Crusher, Ima Deckher, Trixie Von Smash and Torque E. Mada to name just a few. When contacted by Sew-ci-opath, a member of the league's public relations committee and player on the Thames Fatales, that Torque would be available for interview, I couldn't resist the opportunity.

I quickly found out that Torque, who plays the Jammer position on the Lunch Ladies, is actually Heather Hill, one of three professors at Western University who are Derby Girls. Hill, who has been playing with the Lunch Ladies for the past two years after moving to Ontario four years ago from Kansas City, Missouri, has a real passion for the sport as she explained some of the finer points of the game.

“Each game is called a bout, and it's broken into two 30-minute halves,” said Hill. “There are four blockers on the track for each team. The Jammer, who wears a star on their helmet, is the scoring position, and they try to bust through the blockers, while the blockers try to stop them. We cannot use our hands or arms, but we can hip check, shoulder check, full body check. We can't use our elbows or clothesline opponents either, as that would result in a penalty.”

Each jam goes for two minutes and the scoring starts once a jammer breaks through all the other team's blockers once, circling back around the track to try to break through the blockers again. Each time an opponent blocker is passed, a point is scored.

For those who associate roller derby leagues with oval banked tracks of the '70s and '80s, the Derby Girls are actually a Women's Flat Track Derby Association Apprentice League. WFTDA is the governing body for women's flat track roller derby, and a membership organization for the leagues to collaborate and network. The WFTDA boasts that there are 176 full member leagues in the United States, Canada, Sweden, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany and Finland, with 103 apprentice leagues, with leagues in the countries mentioned previously, but also in Brazil, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Colombia. The WFTDA also has a ranking system that ranks the leagues based on tournament play. The Derby Girls' entry into the competitive tournament world is a team called the Timber Rollers that has a few players from the Lunch Ladies and the Fatales who play as alternates.

“The sport started to come back in 2003 in Texas,” explained Hill. “They wanted to bring it back as a real sport, and as a flat track it makes it more accessible to start up as all you need is a flat surface, open space and some tape to lay out the boundaries. The flat track has allowed the sport to grow.”

As with any full-contact body sport, injuries do happen, despite the protective equipment worn by participants, including helmets, mouth guards and knee and elbow pads.

“There are always lots of bruises. Sometimes a mistimed hit results in an injury,” said Hill. “We get a lot of training injuries; I've seen people break an ankle, lots of rink rash. I once had a horrible contusion on my hip that stopped me from training or running for four months. The bruising was so bad it looked like I had a cantaloupe sticking out of my hip. It made my students at Western ask questions about why I was limping around.”

Despite the risk of injury, Hill isn't shy about her love of roller derby and why she is drawn to it.

“I get to hit girls while wearing roller skates. There is something attractive about it. It's one of the only games that you have full women's contact. My job isn't very physical, and it provides a nice balance for me.”

The women practice two to three times a week and play once a month. The Lunch Ladies and Fatales train together and it helps to build camaraderie in the local roller derby community.

“We train together. We play hard and we go at each other full speed, but after, it's all good,” said Hill, who also pointed out that the women in the game come from all walks of life. “Along with the three professors, there is a wide variety of players; some are doctoral students, undergrads, electricians, stay-at-home moms, physiotherapists. It's just a crazy group of people who would have never have met otherwise.”

The league has players as young as 20 years old and as old as 43, but even if you are 18, you can join.

“We are constantly training new skaters in our ‘Fresh Meat' training program — practice is Tuesday from 7 to 10 and Thursday from 7 to 8. We have some loaner gear available; at the very least you need a mouth guard to start. You can contact sufferjet@gmail.com if you are interested in checking it out,” said Sew-ci-o-path, who I found out is actually Amanda Marcoux.

The popularity of the Derby Girls isn't lost on the players, who often volunteer their time to make sure their bouts are a success.

“We often have crowds of 800- plus people, which makes for an exciting game,” said Marcoux. “To put on a bout, we rely heavily on our volunteers to make it all happen, without them things would not go as smoothly as they do. There are many aspects to a league and skaters are just one. To successfully put on a bout, we have a director, non-skating officials (NSO's), head NSOs, head referees, referees. Everyone who is there does it for the love of the sport; we work hard to see the action on the track and to hear the fans cheering us all on!”

“This is the first league that I've played in,” said Hill, “and when we travel, I think how much larger our crowds in London are. We normally get 800 to 1,000 people out to our bouts.”

On March 30, two bouts will take place, and the Thames Fatales and the Luscious Lunch Ladies will compete for home team dominance. The Lunch Ladies took the win the first time around, so the Fatales will be looking to even up the score. Also the Timber Rollers will be hosting ToRD's Death Track Dolls. The Timber Rollers debuted on January 26 with a win over the Tri-City Roller Girls' Plan B and won March 1 against Guelph's Royal City Roller Girls Bruteleggers.

WHO: Luscious Lunch Ladies vs. Thames Fatales and Forest City Timber Rollers vs. ToRD Death Track Dolls

WHEN: Saturday, March 30 Doors open at 5 p.m. (First game at 6 p.m., second game at 8:30 p.m.)

WHERE: Agriplex, Western Fair District

TICKETS: $12 in advance or $15 at the door. Children under 10 are free
Buy online at: www.westernfairdistrict.com/sports/forest_city_derby_girls

FOR MORE INFORMATION: anyaface@gmail.com or sufferjet@gmail.com