The first ever Roller Derby World Cup, which concluded yesterday in Toronto, can be best summarized by the following chronological countdown of vicious verbs compiled from headlines at DerbyNewsNetwork.com:
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The first-ever Roller Derby World Cup gets underway today in Toronto at 5 p.m. EST (that's 3 p.m. here in Denver), kicking off with a Canada vs. France bout. The entire tournament is being webcast live at www.DerbyNewsNetwork.com, and DNN is calling Team USA the "prohibitive favorite," thanks in no small part to the seven Colorado skaters on the team. If watching the webcast from home or your office just won't cut it, join the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls and Denver Roller Dolls at Mugsy's Bar, 7950 East Mississippi Avenue, where they'll be showing the Team USA bouts on the big screen for local derby fans.
New York's Gotham Girls Roller Derby All-Stars were the big winners at the 2011 Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) Championships at the 1st Bank Center this weekend, beating out West Region champs the Oly Rollers Cosa Nostra Donnas, 140-97. Gotham Girls also trounced the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls 5280 Fight Club -- local favorites and defending champs -- and Austin's Texecutioners on the way to winning the Hydra Trophy.
Sarah Austin Gotham Girls Roller Derby All-Stars celebrate with the WFTDA Hydra Trophy on Sunday at 1st Bank Center in Broomfield
Roller derby girls are tough as shit. After all, the game they play involves dashing around an oval on roller skates, intentionally colliding into opponents and oftentimes sending them careening off course -- sometimes face-first. Injuries are common; the starting line of this weekend's WFTDA Championships in Broomfield was sponsored by "Dr. Hauschka's Ouch! Aid."
Don't mess.
But do derby girls have a softer side?
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Every sports team needs super-fans -- and that includes roller derby teams. Twelve of the best from around the country are at the 1stBANK Center this weekend, competing in the WFTDA Championships, and several brought their most rabid supporters -- you know, the guys (and gals) who are willing to go shirtless, paint their hairy bodies, wear their sister's sparkly hotpants, bang cowbells with sticks and wield fake chainsaws. Yeah, those guys.
He's into it.
Here, we present five roller derby teams's super-fans.
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Maybe it's because the skaters have names like Psycho Babble and Britches n' Hose, but the running commentary provided by roller derby announcers can at times sound like narration for an X-rated movie or a horror flick. Yesterday's bout between Denver's Rocky Mountain Rollergirls and the Nashville Rollergirls at the WFTDA Championships, which Denver won easily (198 points to 58 points), was no exception.
Chuck Morris has been a roller derby fan since he was ten years old, and in 2010, he made news by bringing the Denver Roller Dolls to the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield and then attracting the 2011 Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) Championships to that venue for this weekend's three-day Continental Divide & Conquer tournament, November 11-13. We caught up with Morris, the president and CEO of AEG Live Nation-Rocky Mountain Region, for a preview of this weekend's action and his perspective on what he says is the world's fastest-growing sport.
Break out your best black and red gear: The Rocky Mountain Rollergirls' 5280 Fight Club finished in second place at this weekend's Bridgetown Brawl West Region Playoffs, advancing to the 2011 Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) Championships in November, where they'll defend their 2010 title. RMRG destroyed the #7-seed Sacred City Derby Girls (Sacramento, CA) 278-45 in quarterfinals on Friday and beat the #6-seed Rat City Rollergirls (Seattle, WA) 117-107 in semifinals on Saturday before losing 106-143 to longtime rivals -- and current #1-ranked -- Oly Rollers (Olympia, WA) in finals last night.
All-star teams from both of Colorado's premier roller derby leagues -- Rocky Mountain Rollergirls and the Denver Roller Dolls -- are in Portland, Oregon, this weekend for the Bridgetown Brawl Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) West Region Playoffs at Memorial Coliseum, and all of the tournament's bouts will be webcast live at DerbyAccess.com, starting today at 10:30 a.m. PST (11:30 a.m. MST). 
Last month, upon reporting the news that seven of the 28 skaters on the Team USA roster for the first-ever Roller Derby World Cup in Toronto are from Colorado, we wondered aloud if the World Cup was shaping up to be an international incident concluding with a red, white, and blue beatdown at the hands of the American squad. Yesterday's announcement that Frida Beater (a star jammer from the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls' 5280 Fight Club, aka Arvada police officer Portia Hensley) will be one of the Team USA co-captains confirmed our predictions that the Colorado contingent will be leading the fight.
