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Photos by Sydney Cromwell.
Tragic City Rollers roller derby team members Elizabeth Maples and Hannah Faulkner.
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Photos by Sydney Cromwell.
Members of the Tragic City Rollers begin skating drills at a January practice.
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Photos by Sydney Cromwell.
Practice gets physical during a scrimmage.
Painbow Dash and Lattitude Problem: They sound like they could be professional wrestlers or hard-rock bands, but they’re not. Those two names belong to Tragic City Rollers and Vestavia residents Elizabeth Maples and Hannah Faulkner.
The Tragic City Rollers are a team of tough roller derby women who are quick on their feet and quicker on their skates. Established in 2005, the team of more than 20 competes in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, or WFTDA, against other teams across the Southeast.
Faulkner is one of the newer members of the team after entering the world of roller derby last year.
“The sport was interesting to me for, I don’t know, for the last five years or so … and there was a team in my college town,” she said. “It was just something I said I was going to do for a long time.”
Shortly after moving to Vestavia two and a half years ago, Faulkner’s fiancé noticed a flier advertising the team and told her, “Here it is, do it now.”
Although she hadn’t skated since she was in her early teens, she went to the biweekly practices and scheduled an extra day for herself to work on the technical skills.
“The initial skating is kind of like riding a bike. But the new skills, the technical skills and things like that, that was a bit tougher,” she said, mentioning that she played mostly on the B-team last year.
Maples, on the other hand, said skating had been a constant in her life since she was a child.
“I was always at the skating rink as a kid, so I just figured this was the perfect thing to get into as far as staying active as an adult and you know, finding some kind of community to be involved in,” she said. “Before I joined, I’d never hear much about it, but now I’m a part of it and seeing the fans that we have are really passionate about it.”
It’s understandable why the fans are so passionate about their local roller derby teams. While there isn’t as much physicality that typically comes to mind when someone thinks about derby, it still provides a nerve-wracking and exhilarating experience on and off the track.
In a typical bout between two derby teams, there are five skaters from each team on the floor at a time. A team is composed of blockers, a pivot and a jammer, all of whom work together to help the jammer score points by passing through the wall of blockers and passing sequential opposing team members legally.
Blockers are responsible for both offensive and defensive maneuvers, such as helping their own jammer and blocking the opposing jammer by knocking them off course or to the ground, and pivots are special blockers who are able to transition into the jammer position under certain circumstances. All of this is done within two 30-minute periods, which are divided up into jams that last a maximum of 2 minutes.
Maples and Faulkner are both blockers for the Tragic City Rollers.
“It’s scary,” Maples said. “You’re rolling; you’re not sure what’s going to happen. You gotta buck it up and try it out.”
Faulkner agreed, saying there’s a certain mentality going in to a hard practice or bout.
“If you’re running into people, you want to be in the right mindset,” she said.
Thankfully, team members are outfitted with helmets, elbow pads, knee pads and wrist guards for their protection, and Faulkner said veteran skaters teach the newcomers how to fall correctly, so they won’t hurt themselves too much. But that doesn’t stop people from assuming roller derby is only throwing elbows and hitting your opponents.
“[My parents’ generation], they’re like, ‘I used to watch that on Saturday mornings, do they still elbow people?’ They always want to know, is it the same physicality?” Faulkner said. “I tell them no; it’s changed a lot. There’s a lot more legitimacy to the sport.”
The legitimacy has added to the skaters’ experiences, making it a safe sport while still being full-contact and enjoyable.
“I feel really strong. It makes me feel really strong and sturdy and powerful,” Maples said.
“I’m athletic in a lot of ways that I used to not be,” Faulkner said.
The two have experienced the sport’s effects off the court, too, mentioning there’s a tight community they are a part of and that it’s helped their overall mentality.
“[It’s added] confidence, definitely the main thing, you know?” Maples said. “It’s given me the goals that I want to accomplish and that I have accomplished, and that’s been extremely important.”
While derby is mostly a year-round sport for the Tragic City Rollers — they only took off recently for the holidays — Maples, Faulkner and their teammates compete from February to August in different bouts.
The team is hosting their first bout Feb. 18 as a double header at their home court, the Zamora Shrine Temple at 3521 Ratliff Road. Starting at 6 p.m., the Tragic City Rollers will compete against the Chattanooga Rollergirls and the Hot Quads will compete against the Rollsheviks.
For more information, go to tragiccityrollers.com.
