It didn’t matter how hard some foothills area women fell on their keisters over the weekend, they just kept rolling along.
The DAMNsels In Distress, a women’s roller derby team from the foothills, played in their first ever meet when they participated in Flat Track Fever at the Olympic Oval in Calgary.
They lost all three of their games, losing to the much more experienced Spokannibals (from Spokane, Wash.) in their opening game. They also lost to Central Alberta and Lakeland.
“Spokane is very, very strong,” said DAMNsels in Distress coach Sara “Mayne Squeeze” Mayne. “They are an A team, so they took players from their league. We only have players from the foothills area… Spokane has been around for five years, and we’ve been around what? Five months?”
The DAMNsels got beat 188-8, but their coach was pleased with how the foothills squad played.
“Every team that we played, their players and coaches approached us and congratulated us on our sportsmanship like conduct and the kind of heart we had,” said Mayne, who lives in Aldersyde. “We never gave up. Our goal was to score a point and we were able to do that in every game.”
Roller derby rules have teams of five women each rolling in an oval. Each team has a jammer, the other four skaters are defenders (pivots and blockers). Points are scored for every member of the opposition defender that a jammer passes.
Jen “Meg Ablast” Worman is a jammer for the DAMNsels.
“It was awesome to go out there and actually play in a tournament,” said Worman. “We have only scrimmaged with the Kill Jills (from Calgary) before. I thought we did pretty well.
“It’s great — it helps get you in shape.”
Barb “Barb Wired” Pickett was taking a break from raising her children before the DAMNsels’ challenge game against the Lakeland Lady Killers Saturday.
“I have only been playing since the end of November and I am loving it,” said Pickett, a graduate of the welding program in 1995 at Foothills Composite High School. “I’m really excited. It’s a challenge. I played a lot of sports before but not with this much contact.”
All of the players have nicknames, which they go by to get into the spirit of the game.
The DAMNsels in Distress practice on Sunday evenings at Joe Clark School in High River at 7:30 p.m. For more information go to www.foothillsrollerderby.com
