Blackwater Rollers win first home bout against Chemical Valley

“Ok ladies, derby stance.” Those are the words of the Blackwater Rollers coach J.D. Miller, also known as “Danger-Azz,” as he watches 14 skaters for the Rollers work their way around a short oval track laid out in the middle of AJ Skateworld’s skating rink in Appomattox.

The team has more members than that, and real names are unimportant inside the confines of the track. Family and friends might know them as Becca or Jill or Mimi, but when they lace up those skates, they transform into “Klash Klown,” “Mighty Mouse,” “Pizazz” and “Kitten Vicious,” to name a few. Becca Ledingham, as she’s known to her Nelson County co-workers, is known as the “Beccanator.” The Amherst native was a driving force in bringing roller derby to the area despite a complete lack of skating skill.

“I was awful, it was terrible. I couldn’t skate on one foot, I couldn’t cross (my feet) over, couldn’t skate backwards, I’ve never been an athlete of any type,” Ledingham said.

The “Beccanator” managed to overcome her initial skating shortcomings and is an integral part of a team that started practicing in February and will played their first home bout Nov. 21 against Chemical Valley from Charleston, W.Va.

The Rollers won, 124-50.

Long before the Rollers were ready for a home bout –– they practice at AJ Skateworld –– they had to learn just what roller derby was, since most of the girls had little experience with the sport.

For the uninitiated, a derby team consists of five players on the track at a time from each team –– four blockers and one jammer. When the first whistle blows, the blockers start, and then the two jammers from the teams start at the second whistle, well behind the rest of the pack.

Their goal is to break through the pack and thereafter they score a point on their second time through the pack, each time they pass someone on the opposing team. Each “jam” session is only two minutes long and is part of two 30-minute halves. It is not uncommon for scores to hit triple digits.

Ledingham, a community services case manager, said the response from her co-workers regarding her new obsession has been nothing but

positive.

“My co-workers are really happy for me because I’ve gotten so into it, they think it’s really good for me because I’ve been excited about it and it’s a lot of fun and I’ve gotten in better shape and I’ve made a lot of good friends … I haven’t gotten any negative reactions –– not yet –– but we haven’t had our first public bout so maybe,” a smiling Ledingham said before the Rollers’ recent bout.

The perception most have of roller derby is a violent, sensationalized version that brings to mind twirling disco lights and is characterized by flying elbows and bloody, bruising collisions between women that are a little on the beefy side, to put it bluntly. The Rollers, though, are far from that picture.

Actually, there are only a few legal hits. For instance, elbowing is illegal, as is hitting from behind and blows to the head.

The team usually has anywhere from 15-20 members and most on the current version are much closer to petite than human wrecking balls on skates.

“Any violence is really accidental other than outright fighting, which happens, but I’ve never seen a fight … we don’t get out there to kill each other, the objective is to play fair, clean derby by the rules,” Ledingham said.

While violence is kept to a minimum, there still is a certain flair to the bouts. It is not uncommon for girls to wear wild makeup or carry a bat onto the track when they are announced. Even the Rollers are a somewhat odd sight in practice. Many girls are wearing violent shades of pink and fishnet pantyhose are in abundance, although those are more for protection from floor burns than fashion.

That flair for the dramatic and the humorous shows through especially in the derby names. Take “Slam ChowdHer,” a speech therapist and one of the founders of the Rollers, whose last name in the real world is Campbell. Or “Klash Klown,” whose real name is Marcy Droog, who has a penchant for hard hitting during bouts and is a professional clown. Or David Doughty, who serves as one of the Roller’s referees, whose derby name is “Riff R. Reaver,” (Say it quickly, and you’ll get it.) Still, the “Beccanator” and the rest of the Rollers are focused first on what happens on the track. Ledingham said she is glad that most treat it as sport rather than spectacle.

“It was entertainment before it was sport, but now it’s sport,” Ledingham said.

The Rollers furiously promoted their first bout.

“It gets so chaotic, sometimes we don’t know what’s going on,” Ledingham said.

The Rollers are hoping for many bouts with a number of possible opponents not far away including teams in Roanoke, Charlottesville, Harrisonburg and Hagerstown, Md.

The next home bout is Feb. 20 against the Richmond Derby Demons at AJ Skateworld.