Roller skating isn’t just for kids’ birthday parties anymore.
A poster for one of the Emerald City Roller Girls’ upcoming competitions depicts two women clad in roller skates, fishnets, miniskirts and tank tops preparing to attack one another in front of a wall of flames.
One woman holds a spiked ball on a chain while the other woman holds a shotgun and hand grenade. There are knives and guns tucked into their garters and war paint on their heated faces.
And though an actual bout doesn’t include weapons, that image is not far-fetched. With ten girls zipping around a track and basically trying to hip- booty- and shoulder-check each other out of the way, roller derby is hardcore. But that’s part of the attraction to the sport, said Amy Jo Larsen, president of the Emerald City Roller Girls.
“Sure, I know there is extreme risk of injury involved, but I also know I’ve never been more confident or athletic in my life. I have really never felt as passionate about any single activity I’ve ever done, and I have the tattoos to show for it,” said Larsen, who goes by her derby name “Lady Lumps” when on the track.
This Saturday at 6 p.m., the Emerald City Roller Girls will host the “Un-Civil War.” It will be an evening of roller derby madness as four teams compete in a bout at the Regional Sports Center in Springfield.
Larsen has been a part of the Emerald City league since it started in February of 2007 as part of a larger roller derby revival in the U.S. The past decade has seen the extreme rise of the beloved and predominantly women-only contact sport, with more than 500 teams in 16 countries. What started as an entertainment sport intended to distract people from the doldrums of the Great Depression has become a full-fledged movement, empowering regular women across the globe to get active and start something new.
“We’re just women you see in your everyday life. Most of us are women that have never been athletes before, never liked hanging out with women before, never done any business organization, marketing, producing, etc. We are literally learning how to run our non-profit as we go along and giving women an opportunity to feel strong on many different levels. We never knew our sport would catch on fire as much as it has,” Larsen said.
Played on a flat oval track, five girls from each team skate at a time. Four girls, called “blockers,” from each team form a “pack”; one girl, called the “jammer,” from each team must try to get through the pack and lap the pack again to score points. In the meantime, blockers from the other team get in the jammer’s way, and blockers from the jammer’s team try to open up holes to get through. The jammers earn points for every player they pass from the opposing team. They have two minutes to rack up as many points as possible before the teams and positions reset, and the team with the most points after 30 minutes wins.
“The only way I can describe it is that it really makes you feel like you’re a super-hero and your most bare, athletic self when you’re skating. It’s very raw,” Larsen said.
This Saturday, one of the Emerald City home teams, Church of Sk8in, will go against The Sick Town Derby Dames from Corvallis, founded by Brick Wallace, one of the original Emerald City Roller Girls. The second match will feature Emerald City home teams The Flat Track Furies against the Andromedolls, and Larsen said the match promises to be intense and entertaining.
“The Furies-Dolls matchup is definitely a rivalry. The Dolls took the championship last season over the Furies by one point, and it still stings for them. Plus, the Furies have suffered numerous jammer losses in the last couple of months and are feelin’ scrappy. There are bound to be some wicked hits,” she said.
Roller derby has reemerged as an energizing and empowering atmosphere for women of all ages and backgrounds. From the often risqué costumes inspired by burlesque and punk fashion to the ferocious attitude, roller derby is all about the confidence and strength of women, and it’s clear that the Emerald City league is helping to create a healthier and more empowered female community in Eugene.
Larsen said the thing she loves most about roller derby is “how powerful it makes women feel. I was on my way to practice one night and saw a woman skating the bike path with her dog and kid in a stroller in tow. I didn’t recognize her, and it dawned on me that she was skating her ass off to get ready for our tryouts that were happening a couple of weeks later. It brought me to tears knowing that she wanted so badly to be a part of our organization and sisterhood that she’d bust her ass like that.”

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