Amber Bain has a particularly diverse skill set.
As a third-year law school student at Northwestern, she can probably file a mean legal brief.
And as a blocker for the roller derby team The Fury, she can put you down if you get in her way.
Every three weeks, Cicero Stadium transforms from a relatively benign multi-use gym into the home of the Windy City Rollers, Chicago’s all-female flat-track roller derby league.
The four teams that make up the Rollers – the Double Crossers, The Fury, Hell’s Belles and the Manic Attackers – are out to prove that the campy, superficial past of their sport has no relation to its present incarnation.
These women can move. They can maneuver on their feet.
And they can hit.
“Knocking into other women is a great way to release stress for sure,” said Bain, who is also known by her stage name Ivy Sedation. “It’s just a blast, whether you’re playing it or watching it.”
Five minutes into the first bout last Sunday, Helle’s Belles blocker Belle Diablo put the Double Crossers’ Hoosier Mama into the padded boards surrounding the stadium, eliciting cries for blood from the fans in the bleachers.
“Be careful of flying ladies,” a helpful staff member in a “Mean People Suck” shirt advised. “It hurts. Trust me. I know.”
Dr. Jim Ramsay can attest to the physical nature of the sport.
Ramsay, a 1964 graduate from NU’s medical school, and his wife are the medical team for the league. Shortly after the league’s inception in 2005, Ramsay’s daughter (Varla Vendetta of Hell’s Belles) asked him to come out to practice and deal with the team’s bumps and bruises.
Since then, he’s helped treat the contusions, concussions, fractured legs, broken arms, broken collarbones and shoulder separations that accompany game play.
Ramsay, also known as Papa Doc Vendetta, said his time with the league has provided him with an extended family. And his first tattoo – a version of the league’s emblem he got etched on his left arm last year, at the age of 68.
“It’s a whole range of really interesting people,” Ramsay said, “People that I would have never met otherwise.”
Past renditions of roller derby have relied on spectacle to sell.
“It was all scripted,” said Jason Grocholski, the Rollers’ first-ever intern who is also pursuing his Masters of Sports Administration at NU’s School of Continuing Studies. “It was like wrestling: It was entertainment.”
There are still some trappings of the showmanship of “old school” roller derby. All of the skaters come complete with stage names, most of them relying on puns (Beth Amphetamine, Goldie Shocks!, Tall Drinka Slaughter) and dramatic back stories.
Vendetta, for instance, was “raised in Death Valley on a diet of speed, switchblades and sweet revenge,” according to the league’s Web site.
Bain said coming up with a name was one of the most difficult things she had to do to enter the league, coming in behind the grueling tryout the league veterans put her and other hopeful skaters through.
She said there was a list of 10,000 names that were already taken. And duplication was not allowed.
“It’s considered really bad form to use someone else’s name,” Bain said, “Or even a close approximtion.”
The brand of roller derby the Windy City Rollers play is an organized form of chaos. While game play might be confusing for beginners, the referees were in control and the announcers made a game attempt at explaining the rules to the fans throughout Sunday’s bouts.
While the league’s devoted group of followers didn’t seem to have much of an idea of what was going on, it also didn’t seem to care that much. Every big hit, every time a team’s jammer cleared the pack and scored a point brought the crowd of 800 fans to its feet.
For those counting, that’s probably a bigger crowd than you’ll find inhabiting Welsh-Ryan Arena for a midweek basketball game.
The Rollers are part of a renaissance in the sport. From its humble beginnings, when a group of bartenders and hair stylists got together, put on pads and whaled on each other for fun, roller derby is evolving into a legitimate athletic endeavor, complete with a governing body – the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association.
All of the leagues around the country, currently numbering around 100, are still at the “do-it-yourself” stage, meaning the participants don’t get paid and actually have to provide membership dues and funds for their own gear.
But the goal is to gain advertising dollars and national recognition, the stepping stones to creating a professional sports league.
Without, of course, sacrificing some of the hallmarks of its foundation.
“We’re not going to sit there and go after McDonald’s (for sponsorships),” Grocholski said. “They’re too straight-laced.”
Assistant sports editor David Morrison is a Medill senior. He can be reached at
