Roller Derby Recap

As mentioned in the previous entry, I did make it to the roller derby match. Prior to that though, I had a lovely trip around Detroit which I actually don't get to much despite being only 40 minutes away. David basically grew up going to Detroit so he knew his way around really well (plus he drives a 10 year old Dodge Neon 'Sport' so I wasn't worried about any carjackings although if it happened, I would be going with the carjacker since the passenger side door only opens from the outside). We started at the main public library which is a beautiful old building followed by a quick snack across the street at the Detroit Institute of Art's cafe (which you can visit without having to pay for admission) and looking at the free art that is hanging on the walls on the way to the cafe.

From there, we headed into the predominantly Polish city of Hamtramck for a good ol' Polish meal. His idea of how to get there was a little foggy so he ended up getting off of the expressway about 4 exits too early and driving around looking for an abandoned factory that he remembered seeing. Who knew that Detroit had so many abandoned factories?!? I was nervous once when he turned on St. Aubin street and I remembered a massacre that happened there back in the 80's. My built in GPS could tell that we were headed north but what we needed was to go west which he eventually did and finally found the abandoned factory he was thinking of (as opposed to the handful that we encountered which were not the ones he remembered).

Once there, we had the choice of going to a Polish restaurant located in the basement of a building or something more wide open and less personal. Since I was a newbie, I let him decide. He went with the basement one - The Polish Cafe. When we walked in, one lone 2 person table had just opened up which we quickly grabbed. After finally getting a waitress to notice us, we ordered and just sat back watching all the other people come in and line up as they waited for tables to open. As I ate my pierogi and potato pancakes, I just watched more and more people arrive and the basement renovator in me thought, "The one main exit is blocked and I see no egress windows. I hope there's not a fire." Once we ate and paid the bill, we literally had to push people out of the way and up the steps to get out. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. Our 2 person table would do none of these people any good because they all seemed to be in parties of 4 or more. I wonder how long they waited outside, standing on steps for their table.

From there, we headed down to Cobo Arena for the roller derby doubleheader. This was the first time I've seen such an event in person (I have seen the movie Whip It which was filmed in my neighborhood). They demonstrated the rules once for the 2,500 people in attendance and then the first game began between the Devils Night Dames (which would have been a cooler looking team if they had their face painted like skeletons as they did in the program) and the Grand Prix Madonnas. One of the members of the Grand Prix Madonnas is a friend of a neighbor and they both are nurses. It was fun watching her (roller derby name: Cindarailya) skate - this little slender girl really was able to rack up a lot of points so the game was a little lopsided but fun to watch. I was surprised to see that it didn't seem as 'angry' as the roller derby in the movie or from what I've heard. In between rounds, the two 'jammers' could be seen talking at the line. Where was the anger and the trash talking?!? Another thing I didn't like was that this was a flat track. I like the banked track version better...at least from what I saw in the movie.

Below are some pictures of the event:


The chaos ensues. I enjoyed watching the judges located in the middle of the track. In the program, they all had pictures from when they were kids and at the match, they all wore items reminiscent of the photo like one had a pillow tied around his waist like in his kid picture, one had on a plaid skirt like in her childhood picture, etc.


A little bumping and banging.


Cindarailya's turn as the jammer (she's the one in the purple helmet with a star). She was amazing for such a little thing.


Do you see the judge with the pillow tied around his waist?

Coming around the corner

Cindarailya gets pushed off the track while the girl in the middle demonstrates that big girls can skate backwards too (skating backwards is mandatory to make it on the team)!

The final, lop-sided score. The second match was closer but for some reason, seemed more boring so there are no photos of that.